Never (Never, #1) (29)

The baker shakes his head quickly, staring at Hook. “I’m just down a shilling. I’m not after trouble.”

I hear Hook breathe out his nose loudly. He’s annoyed, but he’s calm.

“Daphne?” he calls, not moving a muscle, eyes still on the cleaver, hands still on the pistol. “Come here, would ye, please?”

Rye shoves me wordlessly forwards, and I take a few nervous steps towards him. The baker and the son are staring at me, frowning as I approach them cautiously.

“Here,” Jem says, catching my eyes and nodding me closer to him. “Reach into my pocket now.”

I stare at Hook and he gives me a somewhat pleasant and indifferent look.

“Get this man a couple o’ shillings fer his bother.”

I stare from Jamison to the baker to the little boy, and then Jem rolls his eyes. “Come on, Bow. We d?nnae have all day.”

I give him an unimpressed look and move directly in front of him. I glance over at the baker’s son nervously, but Hook ducks his head to catch my eye, and he does this clever thing where he tells me we’re fine without saying a word.

I reach my hands into his coat and pat down Jem’s body. His eyes catch mine, amused, and I don’t ask for a few seconds where I’m meant to be feeling.

He presses his tongue into his bottom lip. “Front left pocket,” he tells me without looking away.

I swallow heavy.

“Ye watch those hands,” he says so quietly no one but us could hear it.

I pull out a handful of coins—gold, silver, and bronze, just as you’d expect—but none of them look like our shillings from back home.

I hold them out in my hands and stare up at Jamison, waiting.

He glances down at my hand and then past me back to the baker, monitoring it all.

“Two of the silver ones with the lass who has flowers in her hair,” he tells me without looking at me.

I pick out two of those and then put the rest back in his pocket. And though you might have missed it if you blinked, Jamison winks at me as I do it, and my heart skips a little beat.

“Thonder to Redvers, Daphne, if ye d?nnae mind.” Hook nods his head, still not lowering his gun. “On the table in front of him.”

I nod and do it, staring at the little boy with his arm pinned, wondering when the baker will let him go.

The baker looks at the coins on the table, then over to his son. He nods his head, telling him to lower the gun. And then, finally, he lowers the cleaver.

Hook sighs pleasantly and lowers his pistol, tucking it away. He walks over to the little boy and picks him up with a great and wonderful ease and then walks over to the butcher.

I’m still standing there, a little paralysed by all of it, of what I nearly just saw—

Jamison leans in close to the baker and whispers to him, “Ye even look as though y’are about to hurt a bairn again, I’m gonna take a cleaver to yer fucking face.”

I don’t even have a chance to gasp at that (though it did deserve one) before Jem reaches over and grabs my hand, pulling me away and through the crowd.

Once we’re through the crowd, he lowers the little boy to the ground.

“Farley.” Jem gives him a look. “I’ve told ye before, if ye need something, just tell me.”

“I didn’t steal it, Jam!” The boy stomps his foot. “I swear it, I was running and I knocked it and it fell.”

Jamison groans and swats his hand through the air. “Then just fecking stay away from the square, ye ken?”

“Okay.” The little boy nods, smiling up at him. “Thanks, Jam.”

And then he races off.

I look up at him,* and I guess if I could feel the galaxies or even just see them, maybe I could have seen a new moon peeling open behind Jamison Hook, but my eyes aren’t quite yet that way inclined.

I nearly shake my head at him, in a tiny bit of awe.

“You’re not half as bad as he says you are,” I tell him.

Jamison’s head tilts, and his brow furrows. “And yer twice as brave and beautiful than he lets ye think y’are.”

The tension in my face melts away like rain does in a puddle, and I feel like I’m staring up at a big tree I’d really like to climb or breathe in or lie under. He’s strangely grounding to be near. The feeling you get when you’re near a giant calm lake or when you’re sitting by a fire outside on a cold night or when you’re watching a big storm roll in from the safety of under a blanket and behind a window. That’s what it’s like to be next to him, and that’s what I’m thinking about as I’m looking up at him and he’s staring back at me, jaw tight, kind of frowning.* Then he glances down at our hands, his holding mine, me now terribly conscious of the fact that I’m gripping his impossibly tight. He stares at them for a couple of seconds and then back up at me, neither saying anything nor moving his hand away, so I move mine. I don’t know why.

Not because I want to but because I suppose I should, right? I’m not here for him. And yes, Peter’s hands were up and down the body of a girl who’s not me, and that made me feel sick and invisible all at once, but there’s a part of my brain that tells me that it doesn’t matter because they’re not fated, so then neither are Jamison and I.

He clears his throat and puts his hand in his pocket as Orson and Rye walk over to us gingerly.