Page 38 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

“Morning, Eddie,” she said, and then nodded at me. “Morning.”

“Oooh,” Eddie said when I’d replied and we’d moved on. He elbowed me. “Look at you, melting the hearts of Dauntless Islanders all over, and all it took was one declaration of love—did that count as a declaration of love, or just a declaration of bonking?—from Natty last night!”

“ Bonking ?” I snorted. “Really?”

The bells above the door of Mavis’s shop jingled as we went inside.

Mavis stared at us from behind the counter. She was framed by display racks of Fruit Tingles, Freddo Frogs, and Cherry Ripes.

“Hi, Mavis!” Eddie said.

“Mr. Hawthorne,” she replied in a tone of voice that made me wonder if she was about to challenge him to a fist fight. She’d win, no doubt. She tilted her chin in my direction.

“Morning,” I said, and made my way to the back of the shop to the fridge to get some bacon. When I got back to the counter, Eddie was making a pile of junk food by the register.

“Anyway, now we have decent internet, you can put in an Eftpos machine,” he was saying. “I’m getting one for the museum. Exciting, right? It’ll make things much easier if we can take cards, right?”

“I only take cash,” Mavis said, folding her arms over her chest. “And I will only ever take cash. If you have a problem with that, Mr. Hawthorne, then you’re free to do your shopping elsewhere.”

“Mavis!” Eddie made a grab for a packet of chips. “I love this shop. You know I need Fruit Tingles to get through the day. I was in no way suggesting that you should change the way you do business. They say cash is king, right? Please don’t cut me off.”

Mavis’s mouth twitched as she held out her hand for his money.

I stepped up to the counter with my bacon and handed over a twenty dollar note.

“That all?” Mavis asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

She stared at me.

“Um... is there something I should be buying?” I asked, wondering which unspoken rule of Dauntless society that I’d violated now.

Mavis sighed and stomped out from behind the counter, vanishing behind the tightly-packed shelves. I heard a door open and close, and I exchanged a look with Eddie. He shrugged.

I looked down at my bacon, and then at Eddie again. “Is she going to let me buy this bacon?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered, clutching his haul to his chest protectively.

We both shut up as the door squeaked open and Mavis worked her way back through the shelves like a Minotaur through its maze. Hunting her terrified prey. She stomped back in behind the counter and glared at me. Then she set a bottle on the counter.

A glass screw top bottle full of milk.

My jaw dropped.

“First bottle is ten dollars,” Mavis said gruffly. “Wash it up and bring it back when you need it refilled. It’s three dollars for a refill. You break the bottle, you buy a new one.”

She’d heard about last night already. Or maybe she hadn’t, and this was because I’d pulled Susan out of the harbour. But there was no mistaking this milk for what it really was—acceptance. Grudging as hell, but acceptance all the same.

“I...” I was almost too afraid to take the bottle, but I reached out and took it because I didn’t want her to snatch it back. “Thank you.”

“Wait!” Eddie exclaimed. “Why does Dominic get milk?”

“Room opened up on the waiting list.” Mavis raised her eyebrows like she was daring him to disagree.

He dared. “But I was on the waiting list before him!”

“That’s not how the waiting list works,” she said.

“Oh, my god !”

“Stop cluttering up the place,” she said, sliding my change over to me. “This is a?—”

“A shop, not a discotheque,” I finished for her. “Have a great day, Mavis.”

I dragged Eddie back out into the street before he got us both banned from the shop for life.

Then, laughing, I headed for home.

* * *

T he scent of bacon frying brought Natty down the stairs—very slowly. He limped into the kitchen, looking adorably sleep-mussed, and I pulled out a chair for him at the little table.

“Are you making breakfast?” he asked, and immediately followed up with, “Is it toasted sandwiches?”

“Yes, and no, in that order.”

His sweet smile dimmed. “I’m sorry about last night.”

I took the frypan off the burner and set it aside before closing the space between us and squatting down so that I could look up at him.

“No more of that, okay? It was an accident. You don’t need to keep saying you’re sorry.

It wasn’t the night I was planning either, but the important thing is you’re safe. ”

He bit his lip and nodded.

“Also, Nipper Will didn’t murder me, so he’s like my bro now. We’re super close.”

He laughed softly. “Is that right?”

“We are bros for life, Natty, for life .” I squeezed his knee. “How’s your ankle?”

“It’s not too bad.” He wrinkled his nose. “I mean, I still have my foot, so...”

“Mmm.” My stomach twisted at the memory.

He let out a slow breath. “You were really going to cut it off, weren’t you?”

I shuddered. “God. Is it gross to say that I hope so? I mean I hope I wouldn’t have chickened out at the last minute when the alternative was... well, you know what the alternative was.”

He leaned down so that his forehead touched mine. “Yeah.”

As much as I wanted to stay like this forever, my thighs were starting to ache, and I didn’t want the bacon to go cold.

So I tilted my head and kissed him quickly, then rose with a groan that wouldn’t have sounded out of place coming from one of the residents of the old people’s home back in Sydney. “Breakfast?”

He smiled. “Okay.”

We had toast and scrambled eggs and bacon, and it wasn’t half bad, and a coffee for me and a tea for Natty. Frank turned up for bacon, and everything was comfortably domestic. After breakfast I did the dishes, insisting Natty stay off his ankle, and then helped him up the stairs so he could shower.

“Do you want me to grab some clothes from your place, or do you want to wear some more of mine?”

“Yours are good,” he said from behind the closed bathroom door.

I left him to it and went and sat in my living room.

I turned on the TV and tried to hook up my streaming services now the island had decent internet.

I almost cried when I saw the Netflix logo appear.

Life on Dauntless was looking up all the time.

I looked forward to binge-watching a whole lot of shows, my boyfriend tucked onto the couch beside me, while we both drank as much milk as we wanted.

Not bad, considering how bleak it had all looked when I’d arrived.

“Not bad at all,” I said to Frank, and she meowed in response from my lap.

I watched TV until I heard the shower turn off. I listened for a while, but I didn’t hear the door, so I moved Frank onto the couch and then walked down the hallway. I rapped gently on the door. “You okay in there?”

“Yeah.” His voice sounded strained.

“You sure?”

Silence for a moment and then, “Can you come in here?”

I opened the door.

Holy hell.

Natty was naked, holding a towel somewhat draped in front of his junk, but, like some sort of renaissance statue, it only served to draw my gaze. Which then immediately made me feel like a creeper. My face burned as I quickly studied the ceiling instead. “Do you need a hand getting dressed?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, because I’m trying to seduce you.”

I looked at him, and he dropped the towel.

And okay, I’d never had that reaction from a renaissance statue, because Natty was flesh and blood, and he wasn’t just beautiful in some sort of ideal, artistic way—he was also hot as fuck.

Also, renaissance statues didn’t have erections.

At least none of the pictures they’d shown us in high school art class had.

I might have got better than a C if they had.

“For the record, I am absolutely in favour of being seduced right now.”

Natty grinned, despite his blush.

“Is your seduction going to include a sexy walk, or...?”

He made a face. “Probably not, no.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let me help you hobble seductively into the bedroom, and we’ll see what happens then. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” he said, both his smile and his blush growing again.

And, Natty’s sprained ankle aside, I wouldn’t complain if every morning was exactly like this one.