I stare over at him, and I feel like it shows on my face, my little sunken heart all on display for him to see. “Can I not?”
He shrugs big, and I can’t be sure but I feel its intention was to hurt me. “She is gorgeous.”
My mouth tugs downwards but I nod. “Okay.”
“Honestly.” Jamison eyes me. “I’d probably hae a crack if I could.”
I take a quick short breath, ignore the stinging in my chest that’s worse than when his mother closed the gash in my face, and give him a defiant look. “And why can’t you?”
“Besides the fact that she’s a fucking nut, I cannae imagine that would go down particularly well wi’ ye.” He eyes me.
“With me?” I say and stare at him as though I’ve no idea what he’s talking about.
“Aye,” he eyes me. “You.”
I scoff. “I can assure you, I wouldn’t care,” I lie, and it’s an obvious lie, I think. To me, it’s an obvious lie—my eyes are glassy, my cheeks are hot, we’re in each other’s faces, and I feel like he should know that actually, I’m full of shit, but whether he does or he doesn’t, it doesn’t seem to dull the sharpness of his pride.
“Is thon so?”
I put my nose in the air. “It is so.”
“Right then,” His jaw juts out as he nods. “Maybe I will.”
“Marvelous.” I shrug breezily. “I hope she likes tables.”
He gives me a ragged look. “I hope she likes baths.”
“Do you know what?” I glare at him. “You’re not very mature for a twenty-two-year-old.”
“Actually, a’m twenty-three.”
“Since when?” I frown.
“Since two days ago.”
“Oh.” I pout. I don’t know why. “Happy birthday.”
He rolls his eyes a bit. “Thanks.”
“What did you do for it?” I ask, trying to keep the conversation light and pleasant.
“Nothing,” He shrugs. “I had some drinks at the Dirty Bird.”
“With who?” I ask lightly, and I don’t let it show on my face that it hurts my feelings that he didn’t tell me. Why didn’t he tell me?
“Just some friends.” His eyes graze over the trees we’re passing, but mine fall to their stumps. Am I not his friend?
I suck in my left cheek, try to ask it like it’s any old question, completely unloaded, just asked for the sake of asking—“With Morrigan?”
He flicks his eyes over at me briefly, then away again, and I get the feeling that he’s reluctant to answer. “Among others.”
I let out a puff of air, walking ahead of him as I study the horizon intently for no reason at all.
“Are ye jealous?” he calls to me.
I spin around, eyebrows up. “No more than you are of me when I’m with Peter.”
I’m glaring at him, and I don’t say a word, but I’m begging for him to tell me that he’s a madman when it comes to me and Peter, that his jealousy is insatiable when it comes to me, that he hates it more than he can wrap words around, and he’s glaring back at me, and I wonder for a brief moment if it all could be true. And then his eyes pinch.
“I just d?nnae get jealous.”
I think my face falls. That or you can see physically on my face the whiplash I get from the merry-go-round he and I are on.
Hook eyes me. “Does thon bother ye?”
“No, it wouldn’t bother me at all if you weren’t a complete and rotten liar,” I tell him bravely.
“I’m no’ lying.” He shrugs, completely indifferent.
“You lied again!” I stomp my foot, trying to get off this stupid ride.
“No, Daph. I d?nnae get jealous.” He shakes his head, then eyes me, and there’s a mean look in there. “Especially no’ of boys who live in trees with girls who d?nnae ken what they want.”
“Take that back,” I tell him quickly.
He puts his face up close to mine. “Which part?”
I scowl at him. “You know which part.”
“I winnae take it back.” He shakes his head. “It’s true. Ye are a girl, and you d?nnae ken what you want.”
My eyes go round. “You don’t like girls,” I remind him, and it’s obvious that I’m hurt.
“No,” he tells me as he looks me square in the eye. “I d?nnae.”
“And I am one?” I ask, eyebrows up.