Never (Never, #1) (70)

“Oh, saw you on your way over.”

“Oh.” I nod.

“She’s looking for Jam,” Orson tells him.

Rye rolls his eyes. “Course she is.”

“He’s at the Dirty Bird,” Calhoun tells us both.

Rye pulls a face. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

Orson shrugs and I look between them, confused.

“What’s the Dirty Bird?”

“Have ye ever been so drunk that ye fall asleep under the table at a pub and ye wake up with peanuts on yer face and just one shoe?” Orson offers.

I shake my head, flicking my eyes between them. “No.”

Orson shrugs. “Well, that’s the Dirty Bird.”

Orson leads us there, and on the way, Rye bends down and whispers in my ear, “Are you sure you want to go there?”

I roll my eyes at him. “It’s a bar, Rye.”

“Here, it’s a tavern.” He gives me a look. “And it won’t be like anything you’ve been to before.” He looks me up and down before he pushes a dark, heavy door open.

He’s right.

It’s dark, windows all boarded up. It’s lit by candles—candles everywhere, actually, the floor, the tables, the wall—and the wax from them is pooling everywhere. Aside from the wax, the floor (I think) is made exclusively of peanut shells. It’s filthy. It’s the back end of human civilisation. This is where the plague started, I’m sure of it. Which plague? Oh, just all of them, probably.

It’s all shadows and shady people, women with theatre makeup on and men with busy hands.

It’s not the kind of place you want to find the person you like to tug on your coat.

I spot him quickly—a bit because he sticks out here, as though there’s a spotlight on him, partially because everything here is so ugly and he’s so magnanimous, but also because…just because. Your eyes drift in a room, you know? Mine drift to him.

It is worse than I expected. Before I even reach him, I know that to be true. He’s with two girls. One of them’s Morrigan,* and the other has raven-dark hair. There are empty pints tipped all around them, and the girls are laughing, fawning, touching all over him. And then right as I look over, he claps the arm of the bartender merrily, who hands him a dark-green bottle. Morrigan leans over and bites down on the cork, pulling it out and grinning up at Jamison mischievously.

My mouth goes dry, and I instantly feel a tiny bit sick.

Rye nudges me. “Let’s go,” he whispers.

I shake my head.

“Daph—” Rye calls for me, but I’m already walking on over. I stand directly in front of Jamison, hands crossed over my chest.

“Wow.” I eye him up and down.

Jamison looks over at me, completely unfazed. “Are ye talking to me?”

“Yes.” I stare at him, daring.

“Okay.” He pushes up from his stool so he’s standing. He burps and sways but catches himself. “Care t’ expound?”

I squint up at him. “How drunk are you?”

“How”—he gets very close to my face—“is that any o’ yer business?”

I sigh. “Jem—”

“Fuck you.” He points right in my face, and I shift backward.

“Excuse me?” I gape at him.

“Fuck ye and go,” he spits, looking me up and down. “What’re ye doing here? Why dae ye keep coming to me?” He lifts his shoulders dismissively and stares me down. “I d?nnae want you about. Ye keep fucking everything up.”

“We’re friends,” I say quietly and hold my breath so I don’t start crying.

“I d?nnae want to be yer friend!” he yells loud enough that the whole tavern goes quiet for a minute.

He glances around, self-conscious for half a second, and then he shakes his head as he looks at me. His top lip, which I have had a particular fascination with over these last few days—the shape of it, how it curves and is perfectly defined by his facial hair, the colour of it, how it sits when he’s thinking—it’s usually the most splendid thing, and here, now, it’s curled up all ugly and spiteful.

He gives me a tight smile. “Ye ken it’s easy to forget sometimes when yer with ye, because yer English and ye read books and ye think yer smart—”

“I am smart.”

“Yeah, okay, if ye say so.” He scoffs, and that one winds me up a bit.

I’ve always known I’m clever. I’ve never cared before if people didn’t think I was clever because I knew that I was, but him scoffing at that—I feel like an ant.

Jamison waves his hand around my face. “It’s all just to distract from what ye really are,” he slurs.

I stare at him defiantly. “And what am I?”

He gives a thoughtless shrug. “Yer just a girl.”

“Okay?” I frown over at him and shrug back. “I’m a girl, and you’re a boy, and what’s your poi—”

“No.” He cuts me off. “I’m a man.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay.”

He lifts his eyebrow, catching my eye to deliver this next one. “And I’m interested in actual women.” He nods his head towards Morrigan.

I take a couple of breaths to steady myself, and he uses the moment to drink half of that bottle he’s holding in one go.