Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,13

Wendy said.

Peter grinned.

“So,” he said brightly, “are we going down the trellis, or are we going out the front door? Tink’s not a patient girl, so we’ve got to make a choice quickly.”

“I … I don’t have a key to lock the door yet,” Wendy stammered.

“Okay, then on my back you go. You don’t look like you scale a lot of walls. I’d rather actually make it to the party than take you to the emergency room.” Peter turned around and crouched low so Wendy could climb on his back.

Wendy swallowed, tightened her resolve, and wrapped her arms around Peter’s neck. His hair was terribly soft against her cheek. He smelled like smoke, metal, and—strangely—flowers. Fresh in a way that she’d never known boys to smell. Like maybe he used floral shampoo or something. She could already feel his wiry muscles beneath his jacket, but it still startled her when he curved his hands beneath her thighs and lifted her properly onto his back with a small hop. Peter was much stronger than he looked, she realized dizzily.

“Curl your legs around my waist, Darling. I need my hands for climbing. I can’t hold you.” His cheek inadvertently brushed against hers as he spoke.

Wendy was too beyond words to reply, but she dug her ankles deeper into his hip bones like he requested.

Then, before she could really process all the sensory information about being this close, he was out the window and scaling down the side of her house. The wind blew hard, whipping her hair around his face. Wendy apologized anxiously, but Peter tossed his head to get it out of his eyes and laughed, bright and sweet.

“It feels like flying doesn’t it?” he asked. “It’s better when you’re climbing higher up.”

“How high do you usually go?” Wendy clenched her eyes shut in terror as Peter stretched to put his toe on the top of the downstairs kitchen window.

“Higher than this.”

He held on to the edge of the trellis with his fingertips for a second before swinging down to the kitchen windowsill. Wendy shrieked, even as Peter clamped onto the top of the kitchen window without falling. His boots landed solidly on the slim strip sticking out of the siding, where Mrs. Darling had wanted to put a flowerpot so she could look at marigolds while she washed the dishes.

Peter tightened his grip on the ledge and paused. He shifted Wendy’s weight on his back so he could reach behind and cup the side of her head reassuringly. “We’re okay. We’re almost down.”

Peter stretched a leg from the sill to the grass below and eased them into the alley. Then he leaned back gracefully so that Wendy could unwind her legs from around his waist and release her iron grip around his throat.

“You didn’t have to hold him so closely.”

Wendy turned around.

The girl, Tink, was scowling at her. Her arms were tight against the side of her body and her hands were clenched into fists.

“You could have just held him normally,” Tink said.

Peter sighed like this was an old argument. “She was holding me normally.”

“Who is she, anyway?” Tink spat. “And why did you bring her with?”

“He asked me to a party,” Wendy replied blandly. She wasn’t going to be intimidated by someone who thought crushed velvet was an okay fabric to wear in the twenty-first century.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Tink growled. “I was talking to him. You have no idea what you’re doing, and your opinion is meaningless to me.”

“I mean … you don’t have to come with us, if you don’t want to,” Peter said with a sharp grin. He flicked a spike on the shoulder of Tink’s leather jacket. “I’m sure Darling and I will have a nice time without you.”

Darling? Tink mouthed in disgust.

Peter’s grin grew wider.

Wendy stuck out her hand to be shaken, boldly. “Wendy Darling. Nice to meet you.”

Tink looked at Wendy’s hand and turned away from it with a wave of her own. “Whatever.”

“This is Tinkerbelle,” Peter said. “My ex-girlfriend.”

“Ex-something,” Tinkerbelle muttered.

“Tinkerbelle is an interesting name,” Wendy remarked as Peter began leading them down the alley and toward the street. “Is it a nickname?”

Tinkerbelle ignored her, opting to glare at the ground and trudge beside Peter in silence.

Peter shook his head and answered for her. “It’s a nickname. She’s good at metalworking and fixing electronics, so I used to call her Tinker. After a little while, I added the ‘belle.’” He grinned. “I mean, look at her … it fits.”

“That’s actually kind