I like it when he refers to Peter as the “wee man.” It’s so mildly derogatory, so technically inoffensive, yet it would offend Peter so terribly; I do my best not to smile at him for it, squashing it away every time it comes. “I can’t imagine he much likes you calling him that.”
“Sure but that’s my primary reason fer doing it.” He gives me a playful look, and I roll my eyes like it annoys me and I don’t love it a little bit. Peter’s just so big for his boots sometimes, you know?
“It’s going fine.”
“What’s it like living with the Lost Boys?” Rye asks.
“It’s fine,” I say, but it comes out all high-pitched.
“Fine?” Hook repeats sceptically, and Rye turns around, intrigued.
“Fine.” I grimace. “Well, weird.”
“Weird how?” Rye frowns.
“I don’t know. Weird like—they’re very removed from regular life and…societal norms.”
“Right, sure.” Jamison gives me a look. “They’re a bunch o’ half teens who live all together in a tree house that’s captained by a maniacal…I want to say fifteen-year-old?”
Rye tilts his head, considering this. “I think he’s a good bit older than that now.”
“Literally?” Hook blinks. “Aye, he’s about four hundred years older than that.”
“They’re not regular teenagers is what I mean.” I flick him a look that I hope communicates my point, which he still misses. “I mean…it would appear that they don’t know about a lot of”—how do I put this delicately?—“stuff.”
Rye frowns more, and I’m wondering if I’ll have to have the ruddy conversation all over again.
“They didn’t know about sex.”
“What?” blinks Rye, eyes wide and surprised.
I nod at him, exasperated.
“And you told them?” He balks.
Hook snorts a laugh, and I toss him an unimpressed look because I give Rye a hopeless shrug. “Well, they didn’t know!”
Rye’s jaw has dropped, and his eyes are bright. “How did you—why did that—what?”
I whack my hands on my cheeks, feeling hot again. “Oh, and I suppose, how would they know! No one’s told them.” I sigh. “The importance of mothers, honestly—or fathers! Or just, you know, community knowledge that’s sort of…passed down.” I eye Rye. “Someone should have told them!”
Rye shakes his head, grinning big. “So happy to have let that baton pass me right by.”
“Well, so anyway.” I give Rye a little glare. “I told them and, my god”—I rub my temples—“I might have really put them on a bad path. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if one of them goes up and kicks someone they’re attracted to right in the stomach.”
Hook eyes me cautiously. “For why?”
“Because that’s what it feels like when you’re attracted to someone, you know? A punch in the gut.”
Rye considers this, then shrugs. “For me, I just can’t get them out of my head.” Then his gaze trails behind me. “Hey, I’ll just be back in a minute.”
Hook and I watch him duck into a shop. Hook watches the shop for a minute, then turns back to me, something processing behind his eyes, but it dissipates when he looks at me.
He walks a few paces faster than I do, and I wonder if he does this so I’ll stare after him.
He’s wearing dark trousers that don’t fit very well, but somehow I mean that in a positive way, a white shirt with a navy jacket with big buttons, and high-top leather boots that are undone.
He looks back at me, smile cocked. “Ye get the punch in the gut around me, don’t ye?”
I scoff, indignant. “I do not.”
“Aye, you do.” He smirks, eyes all lit up. “I ken ye do. You buckle a wee bit whenever ye see me.”
I stare at him, wide-eyed, shaking my head. “You’re crazy.”
“Am I?” He tilts his head playfully, and maybe, just maybe, I’m not kicked in the gut, just perhaps a little bit flicked or something, but that doesn’t really count.
“Well.” I take a huffy breath and put my hands on my hips as I stare up at him. “You feel a punch in the gut when you see me too.”
“No.” He shrugs indifferently as he shakes his head, and I feel my cheeks flush again but differently. My face falls a little.
He lets it hang there—the awkwardness, the disappointment that shouldn’t be there but nevertheless is disastrously evident on my face—and then he leans in towards me. His face is close enough to mine that I can feel his breath. His eyes flicker to my mouth, and he runs his tongue over his bottom lip.
“That’s no’ where I feel it,” he whispers. He takes out a flask and has a swig before he offers it to me.
“Well, so—” I shake my head at him as I glare over. Swallow. “Where do you feel it then?”
He lifts his eyebrows playfully.
“Ah!” I stomp my foot, annoyed to have fallen into that trap. “You’re disgusting.” I walk quickly down the street, shaking my head at him. “Filthy! You’re deplorable even! I can’t believe—”
He grabs my wrist and spins me around so we’re toe-to-toe. “That yer attracted to me?”
“No!” I yank my hand away from him, smacking him with it. “That I’m even…spending time with you!”
“Aye.” He nods, conceding as he swallows. “But y’are attracted to me.”
“I…” I scoff, shaking my head.
“Look at ye!” Jamison beams, all smug. “Yer lost for words.”
I scoff again, reach into his internal coat pocket, and grab his flask. I yank off the lid and take a big sip, and he stares down at me, eyebrows up, but I think perhaps a little impressed. I rather like the feeling of impressing him, and maybe my brain runs through a few hypothetical scenarios where I might be able to impress him again.* I screw the lid back on extra tight and hand it back to him.
Our hands brush as I do, and for a sliver of a second, the smug look on his face is knocked off, and he’s looking over at me with a face that looks like my heart feels—caught off guard and a tiny bit afraid. It’s just for a moment, but I see it before he blinks it away and he’s back to smug all over again.
“Did that help?” He gestures to his flask. “Do ye feel more in control of yerself around me now?”
I give him my biggest eye roll and walk past him.
I hear him laugh and then he’s next to me again. “D?nnae worry. I have that effect on many a girl.”
My chin drops to my chest a bit. “How many girls?”
His eyebrows go tall. “Many,” he overenunciates.
I make a sound at the back of my throat. Jamison Hook is probably the most annoying man I’ve ever met, but let’s be sure about this: he is terribly manly.
He flicks his eyes over at me, amused. “Sure, but how’d sex come up anyway?” He takes another swig from his flask.
“Well,” I sigh. “Peter said for me to sleep with him—”
Jamison chokes on his rum.
“Not like that!” I clarify quickly, shaking my head, though I did enjoy how his hearing that made him react. That makes me feel a good bit better. I peer up at him, and our eyes catch, and my heart trips a little.
“What way then?” he asks, shaking his head as he squashes away a smile. Always squashing smiles… I wonder if it’s a pirate thing? Are they not supposed to be happy?
“In his hammock. With him.”
“A hammock.” He eyes me. “Yer sleeping in a hammock?”
“Mmm—” I purse my lips, considering this. “it’s a cross between a hammock and a nest.”
I can see him trying to imagine it, but to his credit, it’s hard to picture.
“Do ye enjoy that?” he asks.