Never (Never, #1) (25)

And then, at the same time, I say, “You killed a man!” and he says, “I killed a man!”

And then our eyes lock, and we squint at each other.

“Midtour,” I remind him.

Jamison shrugs. “Aye, some folk would pay extra for that.”

I give him a look. “Well, not I.” I sniff. “And colour me suspicious, but I don’t trust you at all, in general nor as a tour guide, so…”

“Sure, yeah.” Hook smirks. “Pirate and all.”

“Right.” I give him a stern nod.

“That sounds like quite the tour,” Rye whispers playfully.

“Shut up,” I snap.

I don’t know when it happened or how even—certainly it was without invitation—but Jamison Hook strolls with us through the village market.

He greets people as we pass them, and sometimes I think there’s an audible swoon from girls around us.

An older woman at a fruit stall tosses him an apple, and he catches it with a wink, then offers it to me.

I shake my head, and he takes a bite. The crunch is loud, and the juice of it runs over his bottom lip. He wipes it away with the back of his hand, and I swallow heavy.

Jamison Hook spins around on his heel, and his eyes catch the light and they look a bit like the surface of Neptune, which I know about now because I believe I passed it to get here. Dark and light, like the shifting and moving all swirly blue and ultramarine.

“So.” Jamison clears his throat. “Where’s the Never Boy today?”

I flash him a little look. “With the Never Girl.”

He squints. “Is that no’ ye?”

I give him a tired, amused look. “Not today.”

“He’s with my sister.” Rye doesn’t look up from the gold lamp he’s inspecting.

“Ah!” Hook gives me a pointed look. “How wile* unlike him.”

I roll my eyes and keep walking ahead.

“How’s it going thonner with the wee man anyway?” Jamison calls after me, and it sounds like a sincere question though I won’t trust his sincerity, even if I feel like it.

I like it when he refers to Peter as the “wee man.” It’s so mildly derogatory, so technically inoffensive, yet it would offend Peter so terribly; I do my best not to smile at him for it, squashing it away every time it comes. “I can’t imagine he much likes you calling him that.”

“Sure but that’s my primary reason fer doing it.” He gives me a playful look, and I roll my eyes like it annoys me and I don’t love it a little bit. Peter’s just so big for his boots sometimes, you know?

“It’s going fine.”

“What’s it like living with the Lost Boys?” Rye asks.

“It’s fine,” I say, but it comes out all high-pitched.

“Fine?” Hook repeats sceptically, and Rye turns around, intrigued.

“Fine.” I grimace. “Well, weird.”

“Weird how?” Rye frowns.

“I don’t know. Weird like—they’re very removed from regular life and…societal norms.”

“Right, sure.” Jamison gives me a look. “They’re a bunch o’ half teens who live all together in a tree house that’s captained by a maniacal…I want to say fifteen-year-old?”

Rye tilts his head, considering this. “I think he’s a good bit older than that now.”

“Literally?” Hook blinks. “Aye, he’s about four hundred years older than that.”

“They’re not regular teenagers is what I mean.” I flick him a look that I hope communicates my point, which he still misses. “I mean…it would appear that they don’t know about a lot of”—how do I put this delicately?—“stuff.”

Rye frowns more, and I’m wondering if I’ll have to have the ruddy conversation all over again.

“They didn’t know about sex.”

“What?” blinks Rye, eyes wide and surprised.

I nod at him, exasperated.

“And you told them?” He balks.

Hook snorts a laugh, and I toss him an unimpressed look because I give Rye a hopeless shrug. “Well, they didn’t know!”

Rye’s jaw has dropped, and his eyes are bright. “How did you—why did that—what?”

I whack my hands on my cheeks, feeling hot again. “Oh, and I suppose, how would they know! No one’s told them.” I sigh. “The importance of mothers, honestly—or fathers! Or just, you know, community knowledge that’s sort of…passed down.” I eye Rye. “Someone should have told them!”

Rye shakes his head, grinning big. “So happy to have let that baton pass me right by.”

“Well, so anyway.” I give Rye a little glare. “I told them and, my god”—I rub my temples—“I might have really put them on a bad path. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if one of them goes up and kicks someone they’re attracted to right in the stomach.”

Hook eyes me cautiously. “For why?”

“Because that’s what it feels like when you’re attracted to someone, you know? A punch in the gut.”

Rye considers this, then shrugs. “For me, I just can’t get them out of my head.” Then his gaze trails behind me. “Hey, I’ll just be back in a minute.”