“Is that what people call you?”
“It’s what my friends call me.” He shrugs and then thinks to himself for a minute. “My mum calls me Jammie.”
I look over at him and make no efforts whatsoever to conceal my smile. “Well, that’s entirely adorable.”
“Quiet now.” He stares straight ahead, but he’s not actually annoyed, he’s just trying to look like it. He looks at me out of the corner of my eye. “I d?nnae mind Jem though.”
“Do you not?” I give him a pleased look.
He nods. “Ye may call me that.”
That makes me happy. “Okay.”
“Okay.” He nods again, but just once this time, and then he pauses. “And what will I call ye?”
I roll my eyes. “Daphne.”
He shakes his head. “You d?nnae have any nicknames?”
“Daphne’s rather horrible to shorten.” I shrug helplessly.
“Nothing yer mother calls ye?”
My mother barely calls me at all, not even by name. I don’t tell him that though. How can I? The confession of such a thing would imply to him that I am perhaps, inherently, unwantable. I don’t want that thought so much as whispered into the ear of his mind.
I just shake my head.
He looks at me, equal parts annoyed and confused. “Nothing affectionate at all?”
“Well, my mother thinks nicknames are superfluous and a waste of time,” I tell him with a quick smile. Also I suspect there’s some element of a lack of care at play, but I can neither conclusively confirm nor deny that. I clear my throat. “So she named me something that you can’t really shorten.”
His face pulls in a curious sort of discomfort, then he lifts an eyebrow. “Daphne Belle Beemont-Darling. Wee bit long, d?nnae you thi—”
“It’s Beau! Pronounced ‘bow,’ as in tie a bow, Beaumont,” I interrupt him with a growl. “Bow!”
“Bow, is it?” He tilts his head, smirking. “Sure, but that’ll do.”
Our eyes catch, and he swallows, and the sun feels like it’s kissing my cheek, and I feel a strange, new kind of warmth fall upon me as his eyes flicker over me.
“Jam!” says that pirate from the other day, Orson Calhoun. He grabs his shoulder. “We’ve go’ trouble.”
Jamison rolls his eyes. “What now?”
Rye appears behind Calhoun, a little frown on his brow.
“One of the wee bairns stole a loaf o’ bread from the bleeding prick baker, and he’s demanding his hand fer it.”
“Oh, fuck.” Jem rolls his eyes and moves past me quickly.
“You okay?” Rye asks, shoving his hands through his hair as we walk quickly after Hook.
“Fine, yes.” I nod. “Where did you go?”
He shrugs. “Just lost you for a minute.”
Actually, he lost me for a little more than twenty, but I didn’t mind it （all things considered*）， so I don’t say anything.
Jamison’s pace picks up as though he feels the urgency of the moment, and the way people move out of his way, it’s almost as if he’s the mayor of this odd town.
There’s a crowd gathering at the other end, a bunch of kids yelling and screaming, and Hook pushes his way through them all, and then I see it—this horrible-looking man with greasy hair and about nineteen chins, one hand raised in the air, clutching a butcher’s knife, the other holding down the arm of a sweet, little blond angel boy.
He’s squirming and crying, and I gasp at the sight of it. Jem looks over his shoulder at me as though he’s just remembered I’m there. It’s just for a second before he looks back at the unfolding situation.
“Redvers,” Jamison says in a calm voice. “Put that cleaver down. Yer bread’s not thon good.”
The man glares over at Jamison. “Wee bastard stole a loaf from me.”
“I wasn’t stealing it!” the boy cries. “I knocked it over. I was picking it up!”
“Fibbing scunner!” the baker yells and grips his cleaver tighter. I see him pull back a bit, so I cover my eyes for a moment, then peek out my fingers.
“Aye.” Jem nods and gives him a tight smile. “But I wudnae think it’s worth dying over.”
The baker glances over at Jem, then gives him a sinister smile. “I’m not going to kill him. Just a hand.”
Jamison shrugs. “Aye, but see, then I’d have to kill ye, so…”
The baker peers over at Hook right as he takes out his pistol and points it straight at the baker’s horrible head.