Never (Never, #1) (100)

He nods slowly. “All right.”

Jamison clears his throat, pushes his hands through his hair. I don’t like it when he does that. I like it when it falls over his face. He’s less buttoned up. I think I can see him clearer, and sometimes, I don’t know why, but often I find myself worrying with Jamison that I’m not seeing him clearly at all.

“So how was yer man after yer birthday?” he asks without looking at me.

“He didn’t mention it,” I say, definitely looking at him.

“Right.” He nods.

“Hickeys and jagua smudged all over him though.” I eye him carefully for his response, half expecting him to fly off the handle and thunder down the hill again, yelling that Peter’s gone too far and I’m an idiot, and I’ll run after him to calm him down and maybe I’ll get to hold his arm— But then Jamison just gives a quick, indifferent shrug.

“Well, when opportunity knocks,” he says mostly to himself, but he catches my eye quickly at the end before he glances back away. “Or, ye ken, knowing her, when opportunity throws itself at ye.”

I let out this sound that is all air escaping my lungs. Less of a breathing out as much as the sensation of someone invisible coming up behind me and squeezing all the air I have in me right out.

“Oh, come on.” Hook tosses me a look. “Ye know I think he’s a fucking twat o’ a boy, but you can scarcely blame him fer that.”

I stare over at him, and I feel like it shows on my face, my little sunken heart all on display for him to see. “Can I not?”

He shrugs big, and I can’t be sure but I feel its intention was to hurt me. “She is gorgeous.”

My mouth tugs downwards but I nod. “Okay.”

“Honestly.” Jamison eyes me. “I’d probably hae a crack if I could.”

I take a quick short breath, ignore the stinging in my chest that’s worse than when his mother closed the gash in my face, and give him a defiant look. “And why can’t you?”

“Besides the fact that she’s a fucking nut, I cannae imagine that would go down particularly well wi’ ye.” He eyes me.

“With me?” I say and stare at him as though I’ve no idea what he’s talking about.

“Aye,” he eyes me. “You.”

I scoff. “I can assure you, I wouldn’t care,” I lie, and it’s an obvious lie, I think. To me, it’s an obvious lie—my eyes are glassy, my cheeks are hot, we’re in each other’s faces, and I feel like he should know that actually, I’m full of shit, but whether he does or he doesn’t, it doesn’t seem to dull the sharpness of his pride.

“Is thon so?”

I put my nose in the air. “It is so.”

“Right then,” His jaw juts out as he nods. “Maybe I will.”

“Marvelous.” I shrug breezily. “I hope she likes tables.”

He gives me a ragged look. “I hope she likes baths.”

“Do you know what?” I glare at him. “You’re not very mature for a twenty-two-year-old.”

“Actually, a’m twenty-three.”

“Since when?” I frown.

“Since two days ago.”

“Oh.” I pout. I don’t know why. “Happy birthday.”

He rolls his eyes a bit. “Thanks.”

“What did you do for it?” I ask, trying to keep the conversation light and pleasant.

“Nothing,” He shrugs. “I had some drinks at the Dirty Bird.”

“With who?” I ask lightly, and I don’t let it show on my face that it hurts my feelings that he didn’t tell me. Why didn’t he tell me?

“Just some friends.” His eyes graze over the trees we’re passing, but mine fall to their stumps. Am I not his friend?

I suck in my left cheek, try to ask it like it’s any old question, completely unloaded, just asked for the sake of asking—“With Morrigan?”

He flicks his eyes over at me briefly, then away again, and I get the feeling that he’s reluctant to answer. “Among others.”

I let out a puff of air, walking ahead of him as I study the horizon intently for no reason at all.

“Are ye jealous?” he calls to me.

I spin around, eyebrows up. “No more than you are of me when I’m with Peter.”

I’m glaring at him, and I don’t say a word, but I’m begging for him to tell me that he’s a madman when it comes to me and Peter, that his jealousy is insatiable when it comes to me, that he hates it more than he can wrap words around, and he’s glaring back at me, and I wonder for a brief moment if it all could be true. And then his eyes pinch.

“I just d?nnae get jealous.”

I think my face falls. That or you can see physically on my face the whiplash I get from the merry-go-round he and I are on.

Hook eyes me. “Does thon bother ye?”

“No, it wouldn’t bother me at all if you weren’t a complete and rotten liar,” I tell him bravely.

“I’m no’ lying.” He shrugs, completely indifferent.

“You lied again!” I stomp my foot, trying to get off this stupid ride.

“No, Daph. I d?nnae get jealous.” He shakes his head, then eyes me, and there’s a mean look in there. “Especially no’ of boys who live in trees with girls who d?nnae ken what they want.”