We walk next to each other now, and the mountain is starting to get snowy, though it’s not cold yet.
Jamison’s mindlessly picking plants as we climb on up, looking over at me every now and then, and I last only a few minutes before I ask the next question.
“Are you together?”
He looks over at me, and my lips are pursed as I wait for the answer, not looking at him.
He looks back straight ahead and shakes his head. “No.”
We stare at each other for a few seconds before he looks around.
“Snow.” He shakes his head and takes off his jacket.
“Oh, I’m fine,” I tell him, but he drapes it over my shoulders anyway.
“Nae, take it.” He gives me a look. “My fragile masculinity cudnae handle thon wee fairy coming back and tearing me up because yer fucking founthered.”
I hug his jacket to my body, not because I’m that cold but just because I like how it feels on me, and I eye him. “What if you catch a cold?”
He shrugs. “Then I s’pose ye’ll hae to come and bathe me.”
I bite back a laugh and so does he, looking off and away.
“We’re nearly there,” he tells me.
“Nearly where?” I look around. We’re sort of near the top, but I’d say to the peak is another couple of hours. “Do you even know where you’re going, or are you lost?”
“Dae I seem lost?” He looks at me over his shoulder.
I inspect my nails. “Perhaps morally.”
“Sure, what’s yer dad like then?” he asks rather suddenly, frowning over at me.
“Sorry.” I blink. “What?”
He glances over at me. “What does yer relationship with yer father look like?”
I don’t know why this completely catches me off guard, but it does, and I stop in my tracks. “What are you asking me that for?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “D?nnae ken. Ye just sort o’ strike me as someone with a complicated relationship with their father.” He grimaces.
I stare at him, wide-eyed. I don’t even think I’m offended—though maybe I am a small bit? I just shake my head, barely.
“I don’t know him.”*
Jamison nods slowly, thinking to himself, squashing a bit of a smile away. It’s a knowing smile, a bit as though he knew it all along, and now—now, I am offended.
“You think that’s funny?” I ask him, hands on my hips and ready for another fight.
Jamison walks right over to me so we’re toe-to-toe and tugs on the lapel of his jacket I’m wearing, adjusting it to my body and pulling it snug against me.
“No, I d?nnae.” He shakes his head, eyes falling down me. “Who the fuck is leaving ye behind if they have a choice?”
His head moves in towards mine. He’s still holding on to the jacket, pulling me into him, and I’m acutely aware of my own breathing and that I haven’t yet closed my eyes. I’m staring at him getting closer and closer, and I know I should shut them because that’s what you do before a kiss, which I think this is about to be, but then I shouldn’t like to because his face is so lovely and I might cut myself on his jaw if I don’t watch it closely, and actually, honestly, I’d really like to watch it closely.
His eyes aren’t moving from mine as he leans in closer, and from the top of the mountain, this cool, soft air blows down around us and through us, dancing over our noses, and it’s the kind of wind that you feel to your core, but it doesn’t hurt like those awful winter chills we get in England. An ache does set up camp in my bones though, that’s true—a new imbalance in me that I won’t recognise or understand for quite some time. And I feel nervous, but I think it’s the good kind? And I don’t dislike it; maybe, honestly, I rather love it? His hands are on me, and his eyes still aren’t moving, and I think it’s starting to snow. I can feel it on my face—these tiny, cold drops that make me blink every time one lands on me—and they’re landing on him too. One falls on his cheek under his eye, melting away into him how I suspect I will too in a minute, and if I could frame this moment, I would—take a picture, stare at it every morning to start my day off spectacularly right. And right as his lips hover over mine, the feeling of his breath on my face is a kick all over me, and I don’t want it to stop. The breeze is moving around our ears like a whisper, and he’s moving in towards me slowly, slowly, so slowly that right as I think our top lips graze, he pulls back.
“Thirty-one days,” he breathes out, nodding to himself as he stares at the ground.
“What?” I stare at him, hurt and confused that he just dashed the moment completely.
“He’s steeling himself,” says a voice I’ve never heard before.
A woman’s.
I look past Jamison, and my eyes land on her.
Lean, pretty but sharp featured, sparkly eyes. I can’t completely place her age, but she’s young. She’s youthful looking.
“For what?” I frown over at her.
She raises her eyebrows. “For you.”
Jamison catches my eye, then rolls his before he turns and claps his hand over her mouth.
“Thon’s enough out o’ ye.” And then he kisses her on the cheek.
She looks up at him, annoyed. “Why would you bring her to me?”
British accent. Quite proper.
I stand there feeling self-conscious and stupid, wondering who he’s brought me to. Another non-girlfriend of his? Fucking pirates! Fucking men, actually—I hate them all. They’re all scoundrels.
He shrugs. “I wanted to see ye, and she was so doonhairtit,* asleep in a wee canoe all by herself.”
The woman looks over at me, impatient. “Why were you in a canoe?”
“On land, what’s more,” Jamison butts in, looking over at me.
“Oh.” The woman grimaces. “The saddest of canoes.”
Jamison nods his head towards me.
“She came t’ see me last night. I wasn’t expecting company. I was…entertaining someone else”—he catches my eye, and I throw him a disparaging look—“and so struck with sorra,? she wallowed in a canoe.”
I glare over at him for a moment before flicking the woman a look. “He took many liberties in that tale.”
“I’m sure he did.” She nods. “Nevertheless, who are you?”
“Daphne,” I tell her, but for whatever reason, that doesn’t quite seem sufficient, so I glance at Jamison quickly before I compulsively offer her my surname for no reason. “Beaumont-Darling.”
She looks me up and down and then, rather suddenly, without asking or warning, she grabs my hand. She flips it over in hers and inspects my palm, squinting at it. I look back over at Jem, my eyes wide with a mild concern, but he just gives me a half a smile.
Then the woman drops my hand and grabs Jamison’s. She runs her hands over his palm twice,? stretches it out, and peers down at it. Then she grabs mine again. Holds both our hands, lined up next to each other, and moves them around to catch the light she’s looking for.
“Hm,” she says. “Interesting.”
And that’s all she says before she drops both our hands and looks from him to me.
“She has the kiss.” She points to my mouth.
Jem nods. “I ken. I quite like it there.”
She glances at me. “Pan hasn’t taken it?”
I flash her a quick smile. “He’s tried.”
Jamison shifts a little uneasily next to me.