Jem nods his head a few times, then starts walking down the mountain a lot faster. “A’m going t’ kill him.”
“Jem!” I scurry after him.
“No.” He shakes his head. “Enough’s enough.”
“Jamison, wait.” I reach for him, and he spins again, grabbing me by the shoulders, holding me tightly as he ducks so we’re eye to eye.
“You could hae died,” he tells me.
“I know.” I shrug. “But I—”
“Didn’t?” he cuts in, shaking his head madly. “That daesnae make it okay.”
“It was an accident, I think.”
His face pulls. “Ye think?”
We stare at each other crossly before he breathes out, shakes his head, and starts walking again.
“He’s just so forgetful,” I call after him. “Where are you going? You’re going the wrong way.”
Jamison stops dead in his tracks and stares over at me. “Yer having a laugh, right?”
“What?” I frown.
He stares at me wide-eyed. “Are ye really going back t’ him?”
“Well.” I breathe out, annoyed. “Where else can I go?”
He presses his tongue into his bottom lip. “Really?” he asks, and I don’t like his tone.
“Yes, really.” I put my hands on my hips. “The last time I came to you, your hands were very full.”
He starts to shake his head again. “Thon was before—”
“Before what?”
“Afore—” He stops short. “It daesnae matter. It’s—” He scoffs and keeps walking. “What the fuck is it with you and him?” He looks over his shoulder at me. “Yer smarter than this. Yer better than him.”
“I think it’s fate,” I say, and I sound worried. I think I look it too, my brows all knitted together. I want Jamison to tell me I’m wrong, but he doesn’t, and for some reason, it looks like I’ve slapped him.
He takes a moment to recompose himself. He steadies himself, giving me a long look. “Do ye no’ think you choose yer fate?”
I shrug as though I’m helpless to it all. I think I am. “I don’t know that you can control it.”
“D?nnae like that.” He scrunches his face up. “Sounds…awful.”
“Not awful. Just inevitable.”
“And you’re sure you and him are inevitable?” Jamison asks, eyebrows tall and waiting. “All meant t’ be?”
Actually, Jamison, less so by the second, I think to myself as I stare over at him.
“Well, who else might I be meant to be with?” I say, hoping he’ll say something like “me, you idiot” and finally kiss me stupid and maybe more right now—I think I’d quite like to do that with him on the side of a mountain—but Jamison doesn’t say that. He doesn’t do it either. There’s no kiss, no wandering hands, no wonderful more where he’s pressed up against me how I think about all the time when I’m sure Peter’s not looking. There’s no protest from him, just eyes that look a bit ragged, and I suddenly feel nervous.
He nods slowly. “All right.”
Jamison clears his throat, pushes his hands through his hair. I don’t like it when he does that. I like it when it falls over his face. He’s less buttoned up. I think I can see him clearer, and sometimes, I don’t know why, but often I find myself worrying with Jamison that I’m not seeing him clearly at all.
“So how was yer man after yer birthday?” he asks without looking at me.
“He didn’t mention it,” I say, definitely looking at him.
“Right.” He nods.
“Hickeys and jagua smudged all over him though.” I eye him carefully for his response, half expecting him to fly off the handle and thunder down the hill again, yelling that Peter’s gone too far and I’m an idiot, and I’ll run after him to calm him down and maybe I’ll get to hold his arm— But then Jamison just gives a quick, indifferent shrug.
“Well, when opportunity knocks,” he says mostly to himself, but he catches my eye quickly at the end before he glances back away. “Or, ye ken, knowing her, when opportunity throws itself at ye.”
I let out this sound that is all air escaping my lungs. Less of a breathing out as much as the sensation of someone invisible coming up behind me and squeezing all the air I have in me right out.
“Oh, come on.” Hook tosses me a look. “Ye know I think he’s a fucking twat o’ a boy, but you can scarcely blame him fer that.”