“Orson will stay with me,” I tell him with a shrug.
He sniffs, amused. “Orson’s coming with me.”
“Fine.” I shrug. “Brodie—”
“—is a child,” Hook tells me gently. “Ye have t’ come. I cannae leave ye right now.” He crawls up the bed and lies down on top of me, eyes roaming my face. “It’s no’ safe.”
My eyes pinch at him. “I feel as though you’re being dramatic.”
“Aye.” Jem kisses my nose and gives me a tender smile. “If only.”
He pulls something out of his pocket. Two identical necklaces. No chain, just yarn or something like it, with some small netted crystals at the bottom.
He slips one over my neck, and I pick it up to look at it.
Black tourmaline, clear quartz, and amethyst.
I give him a confused look. “What’s this?”
He shrugs like it’s nothing, but there’s something on his face. “Ye like rocks.”
“I do.” I nod.
He shrugs again. “An’ we can wear the same ones.” He slips his over his neck and tucks it in under his shirt before reaching over and doing the same to mine. “D?nnae take it off,” he tells me, tacking on a smile at the end. “Okay?”
My mouth pulls, confused, but I shrug. “Okay.”
He kisses me, then keeps his face close to mine for no real reason I can tell.
I give him a sheepish smile. “Can I tell you something?”
He nods, eyebrows up.
“I thought you were going to end things with me.”
His face pulls, amused. “When?”
“Just now.” I shrug.
Jem’s face unravels to entirely bemused. “Why would ye think that?”
“Just…felt ominous.” I shrug again, feeling stupid now. “Over there at the end of the bed, something to tell me…”
“I see.” His face pinches into a smile.
“I’m glad you didn’t?” I offer.
“Aye, sure.” Jem sniffs. “Me too.”
I sit on my hands, feeling embarrassed as I purse my lips. “I said mean things about you in my head,” I blurt out.
He laughs now, a big one. Barrely and deep.
“Did ye?” He sits up, shaking his head. “Like what?”
“Oh.” I shrug airily. “Just, you know, pirate this, pirate that, serves me right for falling in l—”
I stop myself short. My face freezes, eyes wide in a mortified horror. Not him though. His smile is cracked wide, eyes delighted.
“In what?” he asks, mouth open, waiting.
“Nothing.” I shake my head quickly.
“No.” He shakes his head back. “Go on.”
I inspect my hands thoroughly. “No, it was nothing. I didn’t say anything else. I said it serves me right for falling in…your…vicinity. Because I fell.” I nod at him. “Near you.” I nod again. “Remember?”
“Aye.” He nods back. “I remember.”
I throw myself out of bed and scurry over to where my new dresses he had made for me hang. I love them. They look like the kind of dresses someone who lives with a pirate might wear.
I pull the shirt on over my head—big billowy sleeves that fall off my shoulders—and then I tug on the big, pillowy, white linen skirt with an embarrassingly high slit up the side.
Jem walks over towards me as I wrap the black leather underbust waist corset around myself, and he takes the lacing from me, threading and tugging it together, and I don’t know why having him put clothes on my body is equally thrilling as him taking them off me.
He ducks down so our eyes catch.
“You d?nnae want to say it first?”
I put my nose in the air. “I don’t know to what you’re even referring.”
Jem sniffs a laugh, holds my waist in one of his hands, and pulls me in towards him, brushing his mouth over mine.
“Fer what it’s worth.” He gives me a look that makes me turn to a puddle. “I fell a long time ago.”
“This is nice,” Orson says, nodding his chin at Jamison and me as we stroll through the summer rainforest hand in hand towards where the council is held.
Jem rolls his eyes but lifts my hand to his mouth, kissing it all the same.
“Haven’t seen Jam this happy in…” Orson thinks to himself. “Ever.”
Jem rolls his eyes again.
“You two have been friends for how long?” I look between them.
Jem glances at me and says nothing, but Orson juts his chin in Jem’s direction.