“I believed in him,” Baz says. “And then, the year after my mother died, he didn’t come.…” He throws me a pillow and walks over to a tall wooden chest of drawers. “I thought I’d been very, very bad. But now I think my dad was probably just depressed and forgot about Christmas. Fiona showed up later that day with a giant stuffed Paddington.”
“The bear?”
“There’s nothing wrong with Paddington Bear. Here.” He’s holding out some pyjamas, his pyjamas. I take them. Then he sits at the end of his bed and leans against one of the posts. “So … you came back.”
I sit next to him. “Yeah.”
He’s still wearing his dark green suit. He slicked his hair back for dinner—I wish he wouldn’t do that. It looks better when it’s loose and falling around his face.
“We can go talk to the numpties tomorrow,” he says.
“On Christmas Day? Do numpties celebrate Christmas?”
“I don’t know.” He cocks his head. “I didn’t really get to know them. According to the books, they don’t do much but eat and try to stay warm.”
“What do numpties eat?” I ask.
“Rubble,” he says, “as far as anyone can tell … maybe they just chew on it.”
“Do you think Penny is right? That it was your mother’s murderer who hired the numpties?”
Baz shrugs. “It would make sense—and Bunce is usually right.”
“You’re sure you can handle going back there?”
He looks at his knees. “I’d rather talk to the numpties than go back to Nicodemus, and those are our only two leads.”
“I still wish we had a motive…,” I say. “Why would someone want to hurt your mother?”
“I’m not sure they did want to,” Baz says. “What if the target was the nursery, not my mother? There was no way of knowing that she’d be the one who came. Maybe the vampires wanted to take the children—maybe they wanted to Turn us all.” He’s rubbing his hand along the top of his thigh. His legs are longer than mine; that’s where all his height is.
“I’m not a very good boyfriend,” I say.
Baz’s hand settles on his trouser leg and tugs. He sits up straighter. “I understand, Snow. Trust me. I’m not planning our next mini-break—I’m not even going to tell anyone about us.”
“No,” I say, turning slightly towards him. “That’s not what I mean. I mean … I’ve always been a terrible boyfriend. That’s why Agatha broke up with me. I basically just did what I thought she wanted me to, but I always got it wrong, and I never put her first. I never once felt like I was getting it right in three years.”
“Then why did you stay together?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to break up with Agatha. It wasn’t her fault.”
He’s smoothing his hand along his leg again. I like everything about Baz in this suit.
“I’m just saying,” I say, turning a bit more, “that I don’t know how to be your boyfriend. And I don’t think you’d want that from me.”
“Fine,” he says. “Understood.”
“And I know that you think we’re doomed—Romeo-and-Juliet style.”
“Completely,” he says to his knees.
“And I don’t think I’m gay,” I say. “I mean, maybe I am, at least partly, the part that seems to be demanding the most attention right now.…”
“No one cares whether you’re gay,” Baz says coldly.
I’m sitting sideways now, facing his profile. His eyes are narrow, and his mouth is a straight line.
“What I’m saying is…” My voice fades out. I suck at this. “I like to look at you.”
His eyes shoot over to me, and he lowers his eyebrows but doesn’t turn his head.
“I like this,” I go on. “All of this that we’ve been doing.”
He ignores me.
“I like you,” I say. “And I don’t even care that you don’t like me—I’m used to it, I wouldn’t know what to do if you did. But I like you, Baz. I like this. I like helping you. I like knowing that you’re okay. When you didn’t come back to school this autumn, when you were missing … I thought I was going to lose my mind.”
“You thought I was plotting against you,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “And I missed you.”
He shakes his head. “There’s something wrong with you—”
“I know. But I still want this, if you’ll let me have it.”