I spot the shop and walk towards it.
“Was it him?” he calls after me.
I stop walking. I don’t say anything, just turn back around to face him.
Jamison’s head pulls back. “He teased ye? About what yer wearing?”
I say nothing, but our eyes hold.
“How?” He shakes his head. “There’s no’ much there of it to tease,” he says, barely with a straight face before he puts his hand on my waist, grabbing my eye again. “Thon was a joke.” He ducks more to make sure I know it, flicking his eyebrows up in this playful way. “Sure, but I like it.” He shrugs, looking me up and down. “Probably prefer there to be less, if I’m being honest.”
My jaw falls open, and my eyebrows go up.*
“Joking!” he says again, shoving me playfully. That’s flirting, I think. “No.” He shakes his head. “I am joking.” He pauses, licking his bottom lip. “Till November first, and then a’m probably no’ joking anymore.”
My eyes go wide again, and instead of laughing how I’d like to, I take a quick breath. Jamison’s face falters, and I feel an exciting kind of important.
He swallows a bit nervously. “Ye have no’ said anything in about a minute.”
I shrug breezily. “Well, you’re just saying so much for the both of us.”
He squashes away a smile, nodding a couple of times. “There’s no’ a single thing wrong with what ye’ve got on.” He gives me a look and pauses briefly. “Or not got on.”
I fold my arms over my chest and give him an unimpressed look,? and he laughs again.
I sigh and swing open the door to the shop. The door closes behind me, and I check over my shoulder only to see that he’s not followed me in.
That won’t do.
I crack open the door and poke my head back out.
“Are you not coming?” I say to him.
Half a smile crawls up the left side of his face, then he walks in after me.
“Morning, Bets.” Jamison beams, walking right over to the older woman at the shop front.
She’s got sort of golden, wispy hair, sparkly blue eyes—ones that have wrinkles around them that you trust—and a lovely mouth.
“Jam.” She gives him a warm nod, and her eyes fall to me. Her eyes flicker down me how I worried everyone’s would, but she is a seamstress, so I suppose it’s situationally okay.
“This here is my dear friend Daphne.” He gestures to me. “She’s looking to procure some new clothes, ’acause she’s under the thumb of a maniacal misogynist.”
He flashes me a curt smile, and I roll my eyes at him.
“Right.” She nods, and I pick up a cockney accent. “He not a fan of your pyjamas then?”
“No,” I tell her, keeping my nose in the air.
She breathes out her nose and shrugs. “Quite like ’em myself. But what we after?”
“Well.” I flash her a smile and clear my throat. “I should like to say at the start, I don’t actually have any money.”
Bets rolls her eyes, and Jamison looks over at me like I’m crazy, but I quickly push my hair behind my ears, flashing her my earrings.
“But I do have these.”
Both she and Jamison stare at my ears, and he pulls back once again, surprised.
“Colombian Muzo emerald earrings. Maybe just a tiny bit smaller than three carats each.”
She nods once. “That’ll work.”
Hook gives her a look, a bit annoyed almost.
“All right, lass.” Bets steps out from around the counter. “What are we making for you then?”
“Um.” I frown. “Just some clothes?”
“What kind?” she asks. “Do you want to look like us, or you want to look like you?”
“Me, thank you,” I tell her politely, and even though Jamison is turning a book over in his hand, not really paying attention to me, I think I see him smile a tiny bit as I say that.
“Right.” She nods. “I’ll make a few pieces then. Dresses?”
“Sure.”
“Shorts? Those little tops you humans like.” She pauses, eyes pinching at me. “You are a human, yes?”
I flick my eyes over to Jamison, amused, before I look back at her. “Uh, yes.”
She nods again. “All right. Come back in an hour.”
“Oh.” I frown, looking from her to him. “Should you not like to know what colours I like?”
She writes something down without looking up at me. “I know what colours you like.”