Never (Never, #1) (117)

He presses his mouth into the top of my head. “Or a shite one.”

I shift in his arms and look up at him.

Our eyes catch.

“Bath’s ready,” says the brownie.

Jamison breathes out, and it sounds dangerously close to a sigh.

His hold on me lags for a few seconds before he releases me, and I follow the brownie over to the bath behind the screen.

I slip into it, and the brownie carries away the coat, giving me an impatient look as he does.

“Better?” Jamison calls after a minute.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good,” he says, and I hear him pull out a seat at his table.

“I saw your mother at the ball,” I tell him, just to make conversation.

“Aye, she told me,” he says back.

“Oh.” I sink lower into the bath and swallow nervously. “Did she tell you anything else?”

“Aye.” He sniffs. “She said a great many things.”

“I see.” I frown at my fingernails.

It hangs there for a minute, a peculiar awkwardness.

“Did my ma say anything to ye?”

I clear my throat. “What about?”

“About…anything?” he says casually, drumming his hands on something. “About me?”

I purse my lips. “Not with her words.”

He sniffs a laugh, and I swallow heavy.

“Jem?”

“Aye?”

“Will you come and sit with me?” I ask.

He says nothing for about two seconds, which mightn’t sound like much, but in context of the question asked, it really does feel like a tiny little eternity.

“There are bubbles,” I add quickly to save what stupid face I have left. “You can’t see anything.”

Again, there’s a pause, and I wonder whether he’d notice if I just drowned myself in his bathtub.

“Would ye min’ clearing off the bubbles then?”

I freeze and my eyes go wide, and without meaning to, I say nothing.

“A’m joking.”

I breathe out, which somehow, miraculously, sounds like a small laugh, but really, I’m just breathing. Barely.

I hear him approaching. He stops on the other side of the divide.

“Decent?”

I look down at myself, fully naked in his bath.

Not remotely. Always not remotely with him apparently.

“Yes,” I say all the same.

He rounds the partition, and our eyes catch and a smile whispers over his face.

“Decent.” He scoffs as he rolls his eyes before sitting down right next to me on the floor. Back against the tub, facing away from me.

He says nothing for what feels like five minutes. He just stares straight ahead, gripping his own wrist.

I look over at him, feeling embarrassed again. “Are you okay?”

He nods. “Aye.”

I nod back even though he isn’t looking at me. “You seem strange.”

“I’m no’,” he says strangely.

I swallow, then sigh. “Should I not have come here?”

At that, he turns to face me with a little frown. “I told ye, you can always come t’ me.”

Our eyes hold for a second, and then he turns away again.

His grip on his own wrist tightens. “Sure anyway, I wanted t’ talk to ye.”

I go a bit stiff. “Oh?”

He nods to himself. “I lied t’ ye before.”

“Oh.” I frown. I shift in the bath a little and sigh.

“What I said to ye the other day, it was shite. You d?nnae bring out the worst in me. I might bring it out in ye but—”

“You don’t,” I interrupt him.

Jamison looks over his shoulder at me again, and his eyes flicker down to my mouth, then he swallows heavy and looks away again. He breathes out.

“I heard you,” I tell him quietly.

He looks back again, frowning.

“What you told that girl—that I rub you the worst?”

His mouth pulls tight.

I stare straight ahead.

“‘Not like that,’” I quote him. “‘Never like that.’”

“We haenae,” he reminds me, and I toss him a stern look.

“That’s not how you meant it.”

He looks annoyed. “Oh, and ye ken I meant it, do ye?”

“I know how you meant for her to hear it.”

He looks away again, staring at his hands. “Aye, well, I was full of shite thon night too.”

I sigh, pick up some water in my hands, and drip it slowly back into the tub. The drips drip louder than you’d think they might. That, or it’s just quieter in here than you’d think possible.

“Did you bring her back here?” I don’t know why I ask that for. Because I already feel sad? To make myself sadder? To fight with him?

“No’ here,” he tells me.

A sneaky clarification.

I inhale sharply, and I think he hears it.

“But somewhere?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then his head falls back against the side of the tub. “Aye.”

I nod once, feel my heart sink at the thought of his hands on someone else.

“So—” I drag my finger around the edge of the bath. “How many girls have you had sex with in this bath?”