He wears a dark brown fedora and lifts something coiled in his hand. A whip. He uses it to tip the brim of his hat. “Ms Croft?” His accent round and crisp like his sister’s.
“Mmm.” My smile is slow, neurons too occupied with the feast of looking to supply speech. Jamie tilts his head and narrows his eyes and I feel parched. “You know who I’m supposed to be?”
“I am a bloke. You know, the Bishop still has a Lara Croft screensaver.”
I grimace and Jamie’s smile comes and goes, a brief flash of teeth. A trademark smile. His full leonine grin saved for rare occasions, which is probably for the best given its brain-scrambling effect.
Six foot four in his stockinged feet, shoulders, jaw, that full lower lip. Eyes like graphite, grey and dangerous. Brown isn’t the right word for Jamie’s hair. Dark gold? Basically, he’s a tribute to nature and science. Evil. Genius. Science. The Optimal gene modification only selects “favourable” DNA which is pretty much science mumbo-jumbo to justify politically incorrect design features. When Miriam warned me that activated Shields grow stronger, smarter and more “attractive”, I thought she was joking. When she explained my enhanced pheromones were part of the pre-reform Affinity Project’s legacy plan – to insure the passing on of the synthetic gene – I wanted to puke. When she broke it to me that I would now suffer a weekly hour-long power-period on account of my hopped-up fertility I was ready to go on a killing spree. Clear skin and bumping up a cup-size is no compensation for the rest of it, but I can’t deny Affinity nailed it where Jamie’s DNA is concerned. Looking at him makes me want all kinds of things the now reformed organisation won’t allow – “no unsanctioned affiliations”. If he reaches full signal maturity he may as well be chiselled from stone and set on a pedestal. If. There is another option, but I refuse to think about Helena and her miraculous counter-signal or the fact that she could give him a normal life.
Along with the fedora and whip, he wears a brown leather jacket over a pale khaki shirt buttoned halfway, a tease of flesh in the gap. The strap of his satchel cuts diagonally across his chest. Dark pants and boots complete the costume.
“Indiana Jones.” I want to lick my lips but press them together. “It suits you … though, isn’t that kind of the eighties?”
“Shhh.” He lowers his voice, and tips his head at his twin. “Gestapo about her theme.”
“Don’t criticise the theme.” Kitty raises her claws where she gleams beside Pete, dazed in his Batman suit. “The Nineties Halloween was unanimously approved by the student council. The theme is good.”
Jamie ignores her and bounces his eyebrows at me.
I sift for words I can say aloud, words that aren’t crazed with hormones. “I look ridiculous, don’t I?”
“If only,” he says, in his deadpan drawl. He directs a narrow glance at Gil Bishop, who I hadn’t noticed till then. Gil blinks at me in a gormless manner. Jamie jabs him in the stomach with the handle of his whip. Nearly losing his fangs, Gil laughs and coughs, raising his hands. He winks at me and grins at Jamie. With a flourish of his Dracula cape, he turns and swoops Lila around the waist. She squeals and straightens her skirt and wig.
Unsure what to say, I make a dismissive noise. My outfit’s not that bad, is it? Though I could go another drink. A drink of anything. Jamie makes me thirsty.
“Hmph.” Jamie watches Kitty and Pete, his sister trailing a talon over Batman’s chest.
Taking his face in my hands, I turn him back towards me. “Don’t be like that.”
With a grumble, he pulls me against his chest then laughs when he finds the fake grenades on the back of my belt.
I press up on my toes, brushing my cheek against his, searching for the spot at the edge of his jaw where it dips beneath the ear, eager for the warm scent of his skin. If I could go around all day with my nose pressed against Jamie’s neck, I would. The scent of his skin is like some kind of DNA-related catnip – my favourite symptom of our Synergist connection. I draw deeply for the subtle fragrance, but what hits me is a pheromone bomb that makes my head swim. “Whoa.”
Jamie grips my waist to keep me from swaying and squints at me. “You all right?”
I’m generally against public displays of affection but my whole body hums and I wish we were alone. Jamie arches an eyebrow as he reads my expression. “Better hold your breath, love.” His lips are soft, the kiss lingering and the sensation like dissolving from the inside out. His smile stretches over mine. He leans back, smacking his lips and suspicion contracts his brow. “Everton, have you been–”
“Come on, you two.” Jamie’s mother appears beside us with a tray of finger food.
“Yum.” Distracted like a child presented with shiny things, I disengage from Jamie and scoop an hors d’oeuvre straight into my mouth. “You’re a genius, Barb,” I mumble, mouth full. “Love the wig.” I put my arm around her waist and kiss her cheek, a salty pesto kiss. She squeaks, nearly up-ending her tray as I jostle her.
Jamie catches it before it falls.
“Oh!” Barb cries.
“Whoops.” I giggle. “Sorry.”
“You don’t know your own strength.” She smiles up at me. “It’s good to see you happy, Evangeline.”
Is it that unusual? I giggle again.
Jamie tugs my hand. “Everton.”
I love his low, urgent voice, the way his eyes get all intense, the vertical creases forming above the strong line of his nose, the concern parting his lips–
Leonard steps forwards with his camera in hand, trying to be heard above the noise of the crowd.
I can help. I blow on my fingers, a short, sharp, shriek of sound that makes everyone flinch.
Leonard wiggles a finger in his ear and chuckles. “That’ll do it.” He waves at the staircase for couples shots.
Jamie growls in my ear. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Eric, Kaylee,” Leonard calls. The muscular, brown-haired centurion in breastplate, helmet and flowing cape is from Kaylee’s Spanish class. He looks almost dumbstruck by his luck and pleased to have the opportunity to put his arm around his date.
“So?” I shrug at Jamie and smile at the antics on the stairs, still tingling from where his breath has warmed my skin. I want him to do it again.
Jamie groans and lowers his face into his palm.
“Pete, Kitty.” Leonard waves his daughter onto the bottom step. My chest flutters inside, the echo of an old anxiety, the wish for Kitty’s happiness. Pete has featured in Kitty’s late-night texts to me over the last couple of weeks. “Not entirely committed to the idea of Pete but open to it,” she’d said. I’m pro Pete, myself. Someone to take her mind off recent events. Someone to make her smile. I remember her flirting with Aiden and shiver a little.
Jamie rubs his face. “Miriam will kill you.”
“Pfft.” I raise my palms. “Who’s going to tell her?”
Gil and Lila go next, delightfully disproportionate, his mass, her tininess, and I laugh with everyone except Jamie as Gil pretends to bite her neck. I wonder if tonight their flirting might become the real thing.
Jamie sighs. “Miriam will kill me.”
I swivel to look at him, my head sloshing with the sudden movement. “What are you talking about?”
“Abe, Imogen,” Leonard calls and the flourish of Abe’s Phantom of the Opera cape catches my attention. My vision blurs as I follow the movement, my balance out.
Jamie grabs me before I can right myself. “You’re drunk.”
I roll my eyes and pretend not to wobble. “Hardly.”
“Completely.”
I pull away, coming out of my happy daze, feeling his frown like an affront. “Barely.”
“Right, you two,” Leonard claps his son on the shoulder and the others turn towards us. Jamie cloaks his concern with immediate ease.
“No cape, Skipper?” Gil calls.
“Who needs a cape?” Jamie unfurls the thick length of the whip with a lazy flick. The lash of the tip cracks the air, parting the crowd. Squeals and shouts echo off the triple-height ceiling. Quicksilver adrenaline releases nervous laughter in the aftermath.