The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4)

by Gregg Dunnett

  I sort of want to get up, because I feel like I’m filled with electricity, but also I daren’t move, because I don’t want to wake her up. I want to tell you what happened, but I don’t think I really should. It’s kind of private, you know? I’ll tell you a bit. Just so you know what’s going on.

  We came back from the meal at the yacht club, and we came upstairs, and I didn’t know what was going on, not really, and I think I was a bit drunk too, and Lily said she wanted to have a shower, and then she took off her clothes right in front of me – well not all of them, she left on her underwear, but even so, and she went next door into the shower – she has a bathroom that leads right off her bedroom, and not just a little room either, it’s massive, and after a while I heard the water running, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there, and then I heard her calling me, in this really soft voice, so in the end I went in there, and she was in the shower, and I couldn’t really see, because of all the steam, but she didn’t seem to mind, and she told me to come in and rub her shoulders, so eventually I did. But then she screamed and said I had to take my clothes off first, which I guess I must have forgotten to do, but then she helped me, and it was really funny, which I wasn’t expecting. Not at all. And then, well, I think I really should stop there, but maybe I could just say that we didn’t. Didn’t stop I mean.

  I’m not that experienced with girls. I mean, I’m not that experienced with girls in that way. Or at least I wasn’t. I suppose I am now. I kind of always knew I’d have to do something about it. But I never expected… I never expected it would be with Lily. Very gently I turn my head to look at her. Her golden hair is all ruffed up on the pillows, and her mouth is slightly open. I can’t believe I’ve kissed that mouth. She’s… She’s perfect, even when she’s asleep like this, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful girl. It makes my heart beat funny. I think it’s making me feel ill.

  “Billy…” She suddenly murmurs to me. She’s not asleep after all. But her voice is so soft and lovely.

  “Billy, will you please stop staring at me?”

  I turn away at once, and look at the ceiling instead. “Sorry.”

  I try to concentrate on it. It’s different to the room in my apartment. There the ceilings are low, and there’s a cheap light bracket. Here the ceiling is high up, and there’s a swirly round coving thing above a kind of mini chandelier fitting, I don’t know what you’d call it. Suddenly Lily moves, her hand slides across my stomach, and then she starts to pull herself on top of me. The next thing I know she’s lying right on top of me, her long hair making a kind of curtain shutting out the outside world, just her smile and her scent, and oh God. It’s happening again.

  We get up at eleven thirty, in the end, so I don’t know if I should call it breakfast or lunch, but we eat pancakes, and drink lots of coffee, and then Lily wants to go for a walk, because it’s a nice afternoon. My clothes are still a bit damp from last night, but Lily puts them in the drier, while I wait, just wearing her dressing gown. And then when they’re only a bit damp still, I put them on and we go out. We walk along the river, and we don’t talk that much, but Lily keeps resting her head onto my shoulder, and looking at me and smiling. And it’s almost too much for me to cope with.

  I’m almost pleased to get back to my own apartment, and my own space, where I can make sense of everything that’s happened. I’ve got a girlfriend. Lily is my girlfriend.

  Well, she’s sort of my girlfriend.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Over the next week I go around there twice, and both times I don’t come back until the next day. If you know what I mean. And I still can’t believe it’s happening, not to me. It’s odd though. On the one hand it’s kind of easy, everything feels natural and fun, but on the other hand, it’s a bit – I don’t know – difficult to relax. At least when we’re not – you know. Sometimes then it’s like we don’t quite know what to say to each other, which is odd when you think about it. But it’s not a big thing. Then the third time I go around though it’s different. I can tell right away.

  When I come in, I expect her to stand there looking at me in the way that she does, or maybe even to actually kiss me, and I definitely want to kiss her, but when I try to do so she backs away. And right away a fear hits me, like a physical blow to my guts, that somehow it’s over, already.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she shakes her head. Her hair shimmies in both directions at once. “Come in.” She stands back so I can put my bike inside, and I do so, but I feel awful now. Sick. I’ve spent the whole day thinking about her. About what we’re going to do, and now it’s not happening, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what to say.

  “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” she sounds normal – no, she sounds like she’s trying to sound normal, but actually she’s stressed. But then she mouths to me. “Eric’s here!” And I understand. But before I can respond his voice calls out from the kitchen.

  “Is that the young mariner Billy?”

  So then the evening goes very differently to how I expected it. And I think differently to how Lily expected it too. We stay downstairs for a start, Eric’s brought ingredients to cook, but he leaves Lily to cook them, and he and me sit at the table, drinking wine that he pulled out of the chiller. He didn’t bother asking.

  “So Billy,” he says, when he’s poured three large glasses. “Tell me all about your triumphant success last weekend. At the sailing thing.”

  “How did you hear about that?” Lily interrupts from across the room.

  “I have my sources. Outside of you, I mean.” He turns to me. “Yacht club website. There was a report of the race.”

  I look at Lily, and she frowns at this, but goes back to cutting slices of cucumber.

  “You know, I went out on the family yacht once.” Eric shudders at me. “I was violently seasick, the whole time we were out there. Literally I was either hanging off the side, or throwing up onto Lily’s mother. I don’t think she’s ever quite forgiven me.”

  “Mom’s OK,” Lily sweeps up to the table and deposits a bowl of potato chips between us. As she leaves she lets her hand just touch my shoulder as it pulls away. It’s so subtle I’m not even sure it happened. “It’s Dad who has the problem. He struggles a little bit with the idea of me having a gay friend anyway.”

  “Lillian!” Eric sounds shocked, though he’s just pretending. “I haven’t come out to Billy yet. He’s innocent of these things.”

  Eric pretends I didn’t hear this and goes on. “So? Billy? Tell me all about it.”

  So I explain, about how there were these three races, and we ended up winning on the last leg of the last one, and the whole time Eric sips white wine and selects potato chips, one after the other and carefully crunches them in his mouth.

  “Mmmm. Quite the hero. And was there a celebration?”

  “We had a meal,” I say. “In the yacht club.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Supper.” Lily interrupts again. She puts a serving platter of pasta on the table, then goes back and adds a salad, and no one says anything, except asking to pass the plates around, and top up the wine.

  “James is a very good sailor, did you know that Billy?” Eric asks me, a few minutes later, when we’re all eating. “He was a regular out on the family yacht. Both yachts I think, doesn’t he sail with your uncle sometimes, Lily?”

  She gives him a look, then goes back to her food.

  “Do you think Billy is likely to go out with you again? Another ride?”

  “Oh Eric, just come out and ask it will you?”

  Lily’s voice is suddenly angry, and it’s followed by silence.

  “Ask what?”

  “Whatever it is that’s on your mind.”

  Eric swallows what’s in his mouth, and looks a little bit hurt for real this time. “I’m merely curious of the status of two of my friends.”

&nb
sp; Lily looks at me, then back at Eric.

  “Are you?” Eric goes on, his eyes on her only but his eyebrows moving right up his forehead. “Did you?”

  She gives the slightest shrug, and Eric’s eyes go wide.

  “Oh my.” He takes a deep breath, and finally turns to me. He picks up his glass, and raises it in a toast.

  “I knew it. I knew it.”

  “But I don’t want anyone to know.” Lily goes on, hurriedly. “Not my family, not James. Especially not James.”

  I want to ask why not. But I don’t, and Eric just nods, like this makes perfect sense.

  “I don’t want to spoil – what we have. All of us.”

  Eric keeps his glass raised, and holds it out towards Lily. Eventually she picks hers up as well, and they clink them together.

  And for a second it’s like both of them have forgotten I’m here at all.

  After dinner we play cards. Still in the kitchen. It’s a game I don’t know, but apparently they all played it a lot when they were in Europe, on trains and waiting around in airports and hotels. You have three packs of cards, and you have to get rid of all your cards, but if you don’t remember the rules correctly you end up with whole handfuls of them. It takes me a while to learn the rules, but when I do I start to quite enjoy it. But then Lily says to Eric he should probably call a cab, because she’s tired. Then he gives her a look and asks if it’s for one, or for two, and he means whether I’m going with him. And I don’t know at all. But she tells him I’ve got my bike here, so I’d be able to make my own way home. After that we all go out into the hallway, because we can see on Eric’s cell phone that the Uber is here already, and I start to get my bike ready too, though there isn’t much to do – it kind of is ready, just by being there.

  Then Eric gives Lily a hug. A proper one, that goes on for ages, and says something to her that I can’t hear. Then he surprises me by giving me one too. And just as he lets me go, he whispers something into my ear too.

  “We should talk. I’ll call.”

  Then, without pausing at all, he goes on, much louder. “Well I shall be off. Alone. Be careful cycling home young Billy, the night may hide many dangers.” And he pulls open the door, and walks through, leaving it open for me. I hesitate a second, and then pick my bike up, to take it outside as well. But Lily puts her hand on it and presses it back against the wall. She doesn’t say anything, she just shakes her head, then goes to shut the front door again.

  So I stay again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I don’t exactly know why Lily doesn’t want anyone to know about us, but I’m not going to risk ruining it by telling anyone. And I do sort of understand. I mean, take Guy and Jimbo, in my apartment. They go on and on about sex all the time, but for them it’s almost – I don’t know – it’s almost like a competition, or like they’re stealing something. They want to have sex with girls and then pretend it didn’t mean anything to them. Then they can run away, laughing, and try and have sex with another girl, and the more hurt the first girl feels about what happened, the better. Not that I think they actually get much sex. Not as much as they brag about, anyway.

  But what me and Lily have is nothing like that. Nothing at all, so I don’t want to tell them either.

  And if I’m not telling the boys, then I can’t tell the girls either. I’m not quite sure what their attitude to sex is, because I don’t speak to them very much, but I do know that if I told any of them, then Laura would probably find out, and she’d tell Jimbo, and then they’d all know.

  And I suppose there’s one other reason that I don’t want the girls to know, and that’s Sarah, the quiet, dark haired girl in my house. And that’s because I quite like her. Not in the same way as Lily, or not as much as Lily anyway, but I just like that she’s different to the others, and I don’t want to disappoint her. Not that it would, of course.

  Then there’s Amber. I’d really like to tell her – because I do kind of want to tell someone – I guess that’s why I keep going on about it with you, because a bit of me really wants to tell the whole world, just because of how incredible it is, how incredible it feels. But I can’t tell Amber, because it really didn’t go well when she met Lily, and she really didn’t like her. So I don’t know what her reaction would be.

  So I just keep pretending that nothing’s happening at all. I go to my classes and tutorials – most of them – and I do my essays, either in the library or in my room with the door shut. And I’m kind of present in college life, but at the same time, I’m not really present, because in my head I can’t stop thinking about Lily, and wondering when she’s next going to call or text me saying I can come round.

  Eric calls, like he said he would. He wants to meet and discuss ‘the situation’ whatever that means. I suggest we go to the coffee place where we first met – the one with the banana daiquiris – but he says it’s the wrong time of year, and that he’ll come to me. In the end we meet up in the cafeteria on the top floor of the Marine Biology building. When he turns up I ask if he wants a drink but he insists on getting it, and has to wait in a line until he orders.

  “Ahhhhh – Mr Wheatley.” He sits in the booth opposite me and slides a cardboard cup of coffee over to my side. “Can’t you just smell that fresh sea air.” He makes a big thing of taking a deep breath. “Seaweed, and… fish.” He looks around, studying the other students before turning back to me.

  “You know I can actually see it?”

  “See what?”

  “That…” he lifts a hand and rubs his thumb and forefinger together, like he can’t quite pin down what he wants to say. “Certain Marine Biologist look.” He grins. “It’s… like practical geek isn’t it? Lots of highly durable fabrics.” He looks around again and then grins at me. I glance over at the table where my tutor usually sits, but he’s not there today.

  “I’m sorry Billy. I’m being a bit bitchy.” He smiles now. “So how are you?” he asks next, sipping on his coffee and staring at me. “How’s life treating you?”

  “I’m OK.”

  “How are things?”

  I’m about to answer this when I realize he’s not finished. “…With Lily?”

  So then I change my answer, looking left and right to make sure no one can overhear. “They’re OK.”

  Eric keeps his eyes on me the whole time. “Just OK?”

  I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know what he wants. The truth is things with Lily are amazing. But that’s private. I don’t want to tell him that.

  “That’s good. In a way,” he smiles now. “It’s probably better if things don’t go too far beyond ‘OK’, if you know what I mean.”

  He flashes the smile again.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He looks back at me, and his face drops when he sees mine. “Oh shit. She’s really got to you, hasn’t she?”

  “What?”

  “Lily. She’s…” He stops, thinks for a moment, then goes on. “Billy, on a scale of one to ten, how smitten would you say you are?”

  I don’t answer, but I can’t keep a look off my face.

  “Oh Christ. That looks like an eleven Billy, or even a twelve. This is bad. Very bad.” He takes in a deep breath, like he’s calming himself down, then continues. “Look Billy, I came here to warn you not to hurt her – I’m very protective of my Lily – but I see now I’ve got this the other way around. She’s more likely to hurt you.” He sighs. I don’t get it.

  “Why would she hurt me?”

  It’s like he doesn’t hear me at first, then I notice Lawrence, my tutor has come in, and Eric’s eyes are scanning him up and down.

  “Why would she hurt me?” I ask again.

  Eric turns back to me. “Huh?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Eric waves a hand, he looks distracted. “Oh, it’s all this family business stuff.” He gives me a half smile, like the sort when you’ve discussed something for too long and it’s gotten boring, but
I don’t have a clue what he means.

  “What family business stuff?”

  Now Eric frowns. “The takeover. Well the takeover attempt.”

  I’m still lost, and it must show on my face.

  “What takeover?”

  Now he looks shocked. “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Oh my.” Eric shakes his head. “What do you talk about in those quiet moments in between…” he stops. “Or maybe there are no quiet moments…”

  “Eric, can you just tell me what this about.” And finally that stops him messing about.

  “OK. Billy. I’m sure you’ve noticed that Lily’s been distracted in the last few days. The reason why is her uncle, who owns one of the biggest rivals to Fonchem – that’s her dad’s company – has issued a hostile takeover bid to Fonchem. It’s all over the financial press.”

  I look a bit vacant.

  “I guess you don’t read the financial press,” he goes on under his breath. “Not enough fish in it.” Then he sighs. “A hostile takeover is where one company makes an offer to the shareholders of another company to buy the shares, and replace the board of directors against their wishes. Lily’s uncle wants to take over Fonchem, and kick her dad out. That’s why she’s upset.”

  He tells me more about it too, but the thing that worries me the most, is I didn’t even know she was upset.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The two final spot balls on the table were right over the top pockets. They prevented any other balls being sunk there, and if the other player got a chance to come back to the table, he would pot them easily. Worse, that was almost bound to happen, because the black was up that end too, meaning the only way for the kid to pot it – ginger haired, twenties, kinda geeky-looking – would be to bounce the black off the top cushion so that it landed in either the middle pockets or down the near end. The kid weighed it up now, pretending to be more pissed than he really felt at the bad luck that had left him in this situation. There was nothing riding on it. It was just a few games of pool with his buddy, another geeky looking kid who swigged Budweiser and began to grin as he watched, knowing the game was going his way.