“What?” he says after a few seconds.
I pause. Scratch my cheek. Try to figure out why I said that.
“I like talking to you” is what I say, and ultimately, it is the truth.
Three seconds go by before he says anything.
“Aye,” he says, and I hear the sound of him dragging a chair over to the other side of the divide. “I like talking to ye too.”
“Just don’t peek,” I tell him.
Pause. “No promises there.”
I smile—a lot—so much that I’m glad he can’t see it, and I lower myself into the bath. I don’t know whether it’s because I haven’t bathed properly in apparently forty-one days,* but it’s perfect. The perfect temperature, the perfect amount of water—it smells like it has oils in it to the perfect combination. The shape of it holds me to the perfect cradled recline.
I breathe out.
“’Tis a grand bath,” he tells me.
“It is.” I nod. “Thank you for letting me use it.”
“Thank ye for taking yer clothes off in my home,” he says nobly, and I try my best not to laugh, but I do and then so does he.
“Grubby, dirty, messy,” I hear Briggs say under his breath, and I snap my head in his direction, peering over the side of the bath.
He’s so little he can’t see in, and when I spot him, he’s staring at my pyjamas, carrying them away.
“Briggs!” Jamison sputters.
“Filthy girl,” Briggs keeps growling as he wanders off.
There’s an uncomfortable silence.
“I think he meant my clothes.”
Jamison starts laughing. “Well, fingers crossed.”
I hear the sound of his chair push back, and he stands. “I’ll be back in a second.”
“Okay.” I nod and he leaves.
I sink down into the bath and try not to look the feeling I’ve got that I’m doing something wrong directly in the eye.
Why do I feel like this?
As though I owe Peter everything when I’m quite sure he’d be sure he owes me nothing.
He’s such a strange boy. All instinct and wild animal, and that is, for the most part, very exciting and almost dreamlike to live alongside.
There is, however, a fine line between dreams and nightmares.
Peter can be callous and impetuous; he’s incredibly temperamental. He’s hotheaded, he’s arrogant, he’s proud—but then there’s that boyish charm. And you can excuse so much because he’s never known a parent. Every time I’m with him and he’s good to me, it’s akin to successfully petting a lion. I’m immensely proud and relieved and delighted that the lion’s decided not to bite me, but he can bite me, and when he does, it can be quite severe.
The bites, I think they might be worth it for getting to lie down with a lion—it’s a special kind of thing that only happens once in a lifetime, I suppose. I do wonder, though, might the span of my lifetime be significantly less because of it? And if so, is that worth it?
I hear the door open again.
“Jem?” I call.
“Bow,” he calls back. “Decent?”
“Not remotely.”
He sniffs a laugh from the other side of the divide.
“You didn’t leave me a towel,” I tell him.
“Did I not?” He pauses, and it hangs there. “How awful o’ me. Sure, I’ll hand deliver it then, will I?”
“Jamison.” I glare at him though he can’t see me, and he laughs at his own joke. Then he slings one over the top of one of the panels, and I stand up, wrapping it around myself.
I step out from around the divide, and Jamison’s eyes fall down my body and his mouth falls open a little. He blinks twice at my ankles before his eyes pull back up over the rest of me.
I swallow as I fasten the towel to my body, extra tight.
“Your brownie took my clothes.” I purse my lips.
He nods once, smirking. “Filthy girl.”
I say nothing, just shift my weight between my feet, staring at him, sort of stuck.
It’s not the worst feeling though, here with him, like this—him trying not to look at me, me trying not to like it as much as I do.
He holds up a finger and turns to his bed, fetching something.
He carries back a pile of clothes.
“From Bets.”
I stare at the clothes in his arms and shake my head.
“I haven’t paid for them yet.”
“I paid for ’em.” He shrugs.
I stare up at him wide-eyed as he puts the clothes in my arms.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say quietly.
His mouth pulls a little. “Daen want ye to have to sell your earrings.”
“Jem—”
And then he shrugs dismissively. “Sure, I only did it so I could take ’em off ye at a later date.”
I drop my chin and squint over at him as though the idea incenses—not excites—me.
“You’re awfully presumptuous.”
He flicks his eyebrows up. “And you, Bow, d?nnae hide the intrigue behind your eyes all thon well.”
* * *
* Ignoring the part where I’m doing it because a boy was mean to me. I can’t say for certain (as we’ve never spoken of such things), but I have the distinct suspicion that she would not approve of that specific detail.
? I’d never make it back through the galaxy alone.
? Maybe? I don’t know. I can’t be totally sure.
* Even though I think it’s a bit like a funny kind of showing off.
* Completely delighted, I’m very sorry to admit.
? Though just hovering below the surface of me, I am very impressed.
* Yours, perhaps. I don’t know.
* Because the ocean doesn’t count.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Peter didn’t say a thing, not a single thing, when I walked in with my new clothes…as though he didn’t even notice at all.
All the pieces Bets made for me were completely divine, by the way, and he hasn’t said a thing about them once—absolutely zero inquiries. No wondering where I got them, no questions about how I paid for them or when I got them, not even a peep about whether a devilishly handsome pirate won me over a tiny bit by sparing my mother’s emerald earrings—not a single word.
Which then begs the question: Did he even mean what he said in the first place, or was it merely a throwaway thought he said without thinking (how very much like Peter) that I took to heart when I wasn’t meant to take it anywhere?
It is hard not to take the things he says to heart though. I see it happening all around us all the time. I watched him tell Calla that her hair was too long and it was getting in the way; the next day, she arrived with it noticeably shorter.* I heard him tell Kinley that he throws like a girl,? and then I saw him practicing by himself later on. He told Brodie he was taking up too much space on a seat a few days ago, and then Brodie didn’t come to dinner that night.