I point at my face with one index finger and pull a suitably bland expression, letting sarcasm seep into my voice. "Shook." Then I ask with renewed interest, "Does this mean you'll start paying for your own treats?"
Jack looks immediately irate at this. He picks up yet another chocolate bar and waves it in front of my face. "You didn't pay for these!"
"Yeah." I make to grab at the chocolate bar, but Jack yanks it away at the last minute, narrowing his eyes at me like I just attempted to commit an indisputably heinous act. "But I did pay for all those packs of sweets and chocolate bars you consumed in the last month," I remind him.
Jack huffs like he thinks I'm being purposefully difficult. "That's only because you wouldn't let me steal like I wanted to."
"You can't just pick the locks of vending machines," I chastise him. "It’s unethical. Think of the poor Fortune 500 companies who would lose out on twenty pounds worth of confectionery. Do that enough times, and they'll go bust. No more Milky Ways for the children's lunch boxes."
"Good," Jack says, bluntly defiant. "Childhood obesity in England is at an all-time high. I'll take my knighthood in the post for my service to our country."
I snort out a laugh, eyeing Jack with amusement. "As a former fat kid," I say drolly, pressing a hand to my heart, "how dare you."
Jack latches on with more interest than I expected. "You were fat?" He looks me over thoughtfully, like he's trying to imagine it.
I feel suddenly self-conscious, my body instinctively scrunching back in my seat and folding in on itself, an old habit I thought had vanished with age and the slow but steady restoration of my self-esteem. Back when I was a child, then a teenager, I would attempt to make myself seem smaller and therefore less visible. This is an impossible feat these days. With my height and muscle mass, no amount of physical contortion will make me look anything other than the large man I've grown into.
Jack notices my tactical retreat; he'd be hard-pressed to miss it with how unsubtle the knee-jerk reaction was, but he does me the favour of not commenting on it out loud.
"Yeah," I answer belatedly, wincing at the inherent-sounding weakness of my voice. "Pretty much all through my adolescence."
Jack contemplates that for a handful of seconds before he draws some kind of conclusion and hits me with another question. "Your mum a bitch to you about it?"
I blink at him, surprised although I probably shouldn't be. He did get a front-row seat to what she can be like when she locked herself in Teddy's bathroom, and he came with me to get her.
"What makes you ask that?"
Jack gives a half shrug. "She just seems like the type who would."
"She was." I try not to sound too bitter even though Jack is unlikely to care either way. "Made me feel kind of shitty about myself back then," I admit, internally cringing at how stupid it must seem to Jack after everything he went through as a child.
"Back then?" Jack makes a low sound of incredulity, looking at me with startlingly angry green eyes. "Generous. She doesn't exactly make you feel great now, does she?"
"Nah," I concede, forcing a smile so I can pretend I’m not as uncomfortable as I am to be discussing this. "But I care less these days, so that's something, I guess."
Jack stares at me then, all blatant and calculating, like he's trying to figure out the best way to approach something. I'm immediately nervous about what that something could be. Knowing Jack, it will include violence or crime or violent crime.
"How attached are you to your mum exactly?"
Ding, ding, we have a winner.
I let out a tired sigh. "Don't assassinate my mum, Jack."
"Well, if you're not going to go for the most obvious solution," Jack grumbles, clearly irritated that his murder idea has not been well received by the focus group.
"Killing people isn't ever asolution," I reprimand him, exasperated. "It's a last resort."
Jack looks at me like he thinks I'm a very thick child and mutters, "You're only saying that because you haven't met enough evil bastards. We're on our way to meet one right now. So many people would be better off with that fucker dead; you have no idea."
He seems to genuinely mean that. Like he's the one person who believes in global warming, and he's trying to save the polar bears single-handed.
"Okay." I try not to sound annoyed, but it's difficult when he's so clearly hiding things from me. "Can you just tell me what the deal is with you and him?"
"No. Stop asking." Jack sounds more serious than usual, his tone holding a warning edge that threatens to slice in deep at the barest of touches.
There are a million arguments, good logical ones, waiting in the wings to twist my tongue. But I'm certain all that will lead to is another big fight and Jack becoming even more closed off than he is on the regular. I can't have that. We need to work together on this if we're going to have any chance of succeeding. I refuse to let this mission be compromised by our inability to function as a team. I'll just have to hope Jack will eventually trust me enough to share his fears about Bullet before it's too late, and we're about ten seconds away from death. I'd rather not die as a result of romcom-level miscommunication.
I hold both my hands up, signalling that I'm backing off and keeping my mouth firmly closed.
