Page 19 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

NATTY

T he water was black and cold as Button John and I slipped into it.

I turned and looked back towards Dauntless—the shoreline at Mayfair Bay was so far away that the light on in Young Harry Barnes’s house was barely a faint smudge.

The coal on the end of his cigarette was a beacon though, wobbling in the darkness nearby as he muttered something about the tinnie’s anchor line.

“Does Will know you’re out?” Button John asked as we cut lazily through the water.

“If he checks my room, I’ll say I was at your house.”

“You’re wearing your cranky face,” Button John said, even though it was so dark there was no way he could tell. He just knew me better than anyone.

I was cranky. Partly because Nipper Will had yelled at me over Mum wandering off earlier, even though she’d only made it as far as Dominic’s yard and she’d been fine, but mostly because I’d had to cancel some pretty important plans to come out here tonight with Young Harry and Button John.

But it wasn’t like I could tell Button John that.

Actually, I’d rather be at home wanking for the copper over the back.

Yeah, nah.

If anything, tonight was exactly the reminder I needed that getting close to Dominic was a really dumb idea.

The yacht was anchored about thirty metres away from the tinnie, so it was an easy swim.

It was a dark night too, with no moon, so it was perfect.

Young Harry had a thing about getting too close to the yachts ever since one had crashed into the tinnie a few years back, so me and Button John made the swim for him instead.

It wasn’t a big deal; both of us had been swimming since the time we could walk.

The yacht was silhouetted faintly against the dark sky. There was a glow on deck; a torch, with the beam pointed away from us. Button John whistled as we got closer, and the torchlight bounced on the water for a while until it found us. The shape of a man loomed over the rail.

“Watch the light, mate,” Button John said, holding up a hand to protect his eyes. “You’re not spotting possums.”

The guy said something in French. Button John took it as an invitation, because he grabbed the ladder at the side of the yacht and began to climb it. I held onto the bottom rungs and waited for him.

The guy had two big packages, both plastic-wrapped and taped up securely. Button John shoved one down towards me, and jammed the other one under his arm. I pushed away from the yacht, giving Button John room to do the same once he got to the bottom of the ladder. The package didn’t weigh much.

“Nice doing business with ya!” Button John waved at the guy.

The guy said something in French again and laughed.

We made our way back to the tinnie, swimming on our backs like otters clutching pebbles.

There were a few stars visible behind the shroud of clouds that blanketed the sky.

It was peaceful, half swimming, half drifting like this.

Felt like we could float all the way around the world if we just let the current take us.

“Good work,” Young Harry said, taking the packages before helping us aboard the tinnie. “There’s towels under the seat. Come on. Sit your arses down so we can get home.”

The putter of the tinnie’s motor accompanied us back to the beach at Mayfair Bay.

Young Harry Barnes ran the tinnie up to the shore, and me and Button John grabbed the packages and headed for the entrance to the cave.

It was low tide, which was the easiest time to get into the caves—when it was a high tide, and on the turn, you really had to fight the waves.

Tonight it was easy and, even though it was as black as pitch inside, we knew our way.

The rocks were slippery underfoot, so we took it slowly in the darkness, dragging our fingertips along the wall beside us as we followed the track upwards.

“So, what’s with your cranky face?” Button John’s voice came back to me distorted by an echo.

“I’m not cranky.”

“You so are. Is it Will again? Ooooh! Wait!” He laughed. “Is it your secret boyfriend, the copper?”

I didn’t laugh, which was a tactical error.

“Oof.” I walked into Button John’s chest because I didn’t realise he’d stopped and turned.

“Holy shit,” he said. “It is !”

I was glad he couldn’t see my face burning in the dark. “Shut up.”

“ You shut up,” he said and jabbed me in the chest. “Actually, don’t shut up. Tell me everything. Have you seen his dick? What’s it like?”

“I haven’t seen it!” I didn’t mention that he’d seen mine. More than once. “I just kissed him, that’s all!”

That wasn’t all.

“This is not all!” Button John exclaimed, because even in the pitch dark he could see into my lying soul. He jabbed me again. “Tell me!”

“Okay! He kissed me, and I kind of rubbed against him and came in my pants.”

Dead silence.

I screwed up my face, while I waited for Button John to laugh.

“Holy shit,” he whispered instead. “That’s awesome ! Natty, you had sex with another person!”

“I didn’t!”

“Okay, but you came, and there was another person there, and you were doing stuff together, and that’s pretty much sex, right? I mean, it’s a whole other league than what me and my hand get up to! What was it like ?”

“It was really good,” I said. “But also? It was really fast.”

“Oh, yeah,” Button John said, and hummed. “I’d probably come in five seconds if someone else was there too. So, what are you gonna do next?”

“I—” I snorted. “I have no idea. Can we just get these packages hidden, please? It’s cold in here.”

“Right,” Button John said. He moved away from me, and I heard his feet crunching in the sand.

“But we’re talking about this on the way home.

It’s going to be all we talk about for a long time, Natty.

I’m so jealous. I’m older than you, and you’re having almost-sex with someone!

I want to have almost-sex with someone!”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have said he wasn’t hot,” I said as I followed him up the steep path to the chamber at the top of the cave. “Which he is, by the way. You’re just picky.”

“I’m not picky!” Button John exclaimed. “I just have defective gaydar. I would totally do the copper if he asked!”

I felt a hot surge of something that might have been jealousy. “Well, you can’t. He’s off limits.”

Now he laughed. “Calm down, Romeo. I’m just saying that, in general, I would like some dick. Obviously I’m not going to steal your secret boyfriend. I probably could though, if I wanted. I’m pretty hot.”

I pictured him striking a pose—I was almost certain he was—and laughed. “Okay. Sure. Now, hurry up, please!”

I followed the sound of his laughter the rest of the way up the steep path.

* * *

I t must have been midnight by the time we headed home from Mayfair Bay.

The clouds had vanished, and our way was lit by stars so close and bright it felt as though I could reach up and drag my fingers through the stream of the Milky Way and watch the ripples fan out across the universe.

We walked in silence for a while, soaking in the starlight, our bare feet crunching against the dirt track that would lead up eventually to the village.

The lighthouse came into view as we crested the slope near the farms; the beam cut a path of light out into the dark water.

“So, what did you and your copper actually do ?” Button John asked loudly.

“Shh!”

“What? It’s just us and the goats.” He grinned at me in the faint light. “And everyone knows goats are filthy little buggers. They love dick stories.”

I was not going to tell Button John about jerking off for Dominic in my window.

“We haven’t done much,” I said. “Like, I guess I want to?—”

“You guess .”

Heat rose in my cheeks. “Okay, yeah. I really want to. But I kind of don’t know what to do?”

“Oh.” Button John let out a loud breath. “Okay, yeah. I get that. And you don’t want to, like, talk about it, because then he’d know just exactly how much of a virgin you are.”

“You said I had sex before.”

“Almost-sex,” Button John corrected. “When we get 4G, maybe you need to watch some porn?”

“I think that learning about how to have sex from porn is like learning how to parallel park from watching The Fast and the Furious .”

“Mmm. Probably. Hey! You know who you should ask?”

“Who?”

“Eddie!” Button John exclaimed. “Like there are two gay people on this island, apart from us, and one of them is Red Joe, and he’s known us since we were babies, so that’s right out.”

“Do you really think there are only two other gay people on the island?”

“There are probably more,” Button John said. “But they might be old, or ladies, so I don’t want to hear them talk about dicks.” He clapped me on the back. “We should go and talk to Eddie in the morning.”

“This sounds like a terrible and humiliating idea.”

Button John’s teeth gleamed in the faint light when he grinned. “It’s either Eddie, or your copper. Or I guess you can just not ask anyone, and never have the guts to touch your copper’s dick. Your choice, Natty.”

Except, when he put it like that, it was really no choice at all.

* * *

“H i, Eddie,” Button John said the next morning when we knocked on his door. “The museum’s looking great.”

Eddie pushed his glasses up his nose. “Are you guys here for the historical society meeting, because that’s not until tomorrow.”

Button John shook his head. “No, but we are here to learn things.” He rattled around for a moment near the counter. “Are these postcards new? What happened to the ones with the cartoon parrot on it?”

“Nobody bought those,” Eddie said. He leaned his broom against the wall, and leaned down to scoop up Baby Joe. “They were awful.”

“Yeah, I think Short Clarry ordered them,” Button John said.