He waves his hand towards me dismissively. “Evidently.”
“Fuck you,” I tell him angrily, but actually, I think I just sound sad.
“All right.” He nods, unfazed, and walks ahead.
I walk after him, head down, and he groans as he shakes his head.
“When did we start fighting?”
“We’re always fighting,” I tell him with a sigh.
He faces me. “Aye, and whose fault is that?”
“Yours!” I yell at him, poking him in the chest. “Why are you such a prick about everything?”
And then Jamison gets right in my face and yells, “Because ye make me so fucking angry.”
“So?” I yell back. “You make me angry all the time, and I never hurt you!”
“Ye nev—” He chuckles dryly. Pauses. Breathes out. “Sure, okay, if ye say so.”
“Do I?” My face falters. “Hurt you?”
And then I don’t know what’s happened, but he looks winded. Just innately winded. Like everything about me right now is deflating him on the spot.
“Jamison,” I press. “Answer me. Have I?”
He says nothing, so I keep going.
“When?”
He rolls his eyes and brushes past me again and trots farther down the hill. “Yer a fucking eejit,” he says mostly under his breath but definitely loud enough for me to hear.
“Stop talking to me like that!” I yell down at him.
“Then stop being a fucking eejit!” he yells back.
And then there’s a ripple through the trees and the smell of summer in the air as Peter Pan lands next to me.
“Girl.” He peers at me. “Is this scoundrel bothering you?”
I stare at Hook I’ve got daggers for eyes now. “Yes, actually.”
Peter flies over to Hook and glares at him. “I should cut your throat for this.”
Hook gives him a disparaging look. “For what?”
It flickers over Peter’s face that he doesn’t know for what he’d be cutting his throat. Can’t imagine that would matter too much to him. I think he’d like to cut it either way.
“For that—for—what you did to her,” Peter says like he knows, and he moves back over towards me.
Hook rolls his eyes at Peter and then looks past him back to me. “What dae I do to ye? Hurt yer feelings? Call ye a girl? Make ye jealous?”
“Oh.” I shake my head at him, pretending my heart isn’t a splattered can of tomatoes on a tiled floor. “But you don’t get jealous, so how the fuck would you even know?”
Peter looks from me to Hook, brows low and confused, and Hook just says nothing. His nostrils are a bit flared.
I grab Peter’s hand, and he lifts me into the air.
“Come on, Peter. Let’s go,” I say to him, but I’m staring at Jem.
“Give Calla my regards, would you?” he calls after me, and I pretend something gets in my eye when the tear spills from it.
“He is scum, Daphne,” Peter tells me once we’re back in the house, lying down in his bed. “Pay no mind to him.”
“No.” I stare straight up at the ceiling. “I shan’t.”
Peter elbows me gently. “I won’t send you away again.”
I look over at him. “Promise?”
“I promise.” He nods, and his mouth looks very pink. He brushes it over mine, and it makes me feel sad and happy in the same strange moment. “I came for you because the trees told me that you needed me.”
“I did,” I tell him.
“Did I save you?” he asks with a frown.
“I suppose.” I flash him a quick smile, and Peter doesn’t notice the edges of it are turned down.
“Ah.” He sighs, putting his hands behind his head. “The cleverness of me.” I say nothing when he says that, and Peter notices, frowning as he perceives my sadness. “Should I fly over the way and gut him later?”
“No,” I say quickly. “No.” I shake my head.
“Are you sure?” he asks pleasantly. “It wouldn’t be a bother.”
But I fear he is wrong. I would be quite terribly bothered, and therein lies the problem.
“Peter?” I roll in towards him.
“Mm?” he says with his eyes closed.
“When you call me a girl, do you mean it nicely or cruelly?”
Peter’s eyes spring open, upset by the question. “A girl is the nicest thing you could ever call someone.”
That pleases me a bit. “Do you think?”