Never (Never, #1) (103)

“Why?” I ask, and I hold my breath to puff myself up so he can’t see me deflating on the spot.

“I d?nnae ken.” He shrugs like it’s a puzzle he’s trying to figure out. “I think we just bring out the worst in each other… d?nnae ye think?”

“Oh.” I stare at him blankly for a few seconds, then I look down at my feet to make sure they’re not actually sinking into the ground, that I’m not really draining away between the cracks in the floorboards of his ship, that it’s just how I feel inside my body. I clear my throat. “I suppose. Maybe.”

“It’s fun getting a rise out o’ye.” He gives me a weak shrug. “It feels good t’ annoy ye, have ye chasing after me.”

I give him a despondent look. “Charming.”

He smirks a little. “Sorry. But forbye”—another lift of the shoulders—“yer a pretty girl, and it’s good to have yer attention—it feels good—but I ken yer not here for me.”

The breeze picks up, and it blows around us. This time yesterday, it would have blown me into him, had me huddling in to have him keep me warm, but today it just cuts me through like a knife.

“Right,” I say, and there’s no air in my words.

“Aye?” he asks, eyebrows up and maybe a little hopeful, and I wonder if he’s waiting for me to correct him, but how could I?

“Um.” I stare at him and swallow. “I—right.” I can’t correct him. I can’t even hold my hand steady right now.

Jamison nods and gives me an easy smile. “It’s just a game, you an’ me.”

I swallow. “Okay.”

His face falters, and I shake my head.

“I mean—” I clear my throat. “Yes.” I nod instead. I’m not making sense.

“Good then,” he says, but I can’t tell if he means it.

I stare over at him and wonder in this sinking way whether he ever actually knew me how I felt he may have or whether that was a stupid hope I fastened myself to because I’m just a girl. He can’t have known me how I thought, because if he did, he would have seen it—it’s right here on the surface. None of this is good.

He lifts his eyebrows again, a bit hopeful. “Because we can be friends now.”

“Right.” I nod, smiling tightly. “Friends.”

He nods back and gives me a pleasant look. “Is that what ye were coming here t’ say?”

There’s a fraction of a second reaction delay to my response, and I wonder if it’s obvious and he knows I’m lying.

“Yes.” I do one emphatic nod. “Exactly. Yes.”

“Good then.”

“And also, sorry.” I flash him a smile. “For being a brat yesterday.”

He gives me a quarter of a smile. “Yer a wee brat every day, so…”

I give him a weak, empty laugh. It sounds like a few pennies rattling around in a tin can. Something innately pitiful about it, although you can’t quite put your finger on exactly what.

“Jam?” says a girl’s voice from behind us.

I look past him to a girl standing outside his bedchamber.

“Oh, hey,” he says reflexively.

She’s quite beautiful. Dark, curly hair. Rather olive skin. Pink lips, and I realise his lips I’d been admiring just before—it wasn’t the sun that had kissed them, it was her. Her legs are bare, so are her feet. Her hair’s all disheveled, and they’ve obviously—obviously—just had sex.

But do you know what? That’s not even the worst part. The worst part? She’s wrapped up in his coat. The one I love. The one that I think means something to me and I thought to him, and as soon as he sees she’s in it, he looks over at me, but my eyes aren’t his anymore. They belong to the sea now.

For me, want feels like being kicked in the stomach, but anguish feels like pain shooting through my fingers down into my nerve endings. I feel it in my bones, where he feels want—which I think he must have never truly felt for me. I feel that now.

The girl eyes me carefully for a moment before she looks over at him. “Where are we?”

He gives her a smile. “I just needed t’ catch up with a friend about something.”

She stares over at me again, and I raise my hand awkwardly.

“A friend.”

“Go back t’ bed.” He nods his chin at her. “I’ll be ri’ there.”

My mouth falls open, and I shut it quickly, absentmindedly pinch my lip between my fingers until I taste something salty.

Jamison looks back at me, and his face falters. “Ye hurt yer lip.” He reaches for me, and I dodge his touch. Something like hurt or offence rolls over him, and I’m glad for it. He clears his throat, looking uncomfortable now. “Can I give ye a ride back?”

“Oh no.” I shake my head. “I’ve got the boat.”

“A tow then?” he offers, eyebrows up.

“Nope.” I shake my head as I walk back towards the rope. “The water will take me.” I flash him a quick smile. I need to get out of here before he sees me crying.

He offers me his hand. I pretend I don’t see it and dive off into the ocean, beg the water to wash how my heart’s stinging away, but it doesn’t. Not as I climb into my little dinghy and stare up at him. We say something to each other with our eyes, but I don’t know what it is because we don’t know how to talk to each other, and I don’t think we’ve ever been on the same page.