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Wendy fidgets with the sleeve of her sweater as she trudges a few steps behind Bae, John and Michael. They’re chattering about hot rods what brand of due backs is better (she should tell them that smoking is an awful, smelly habit but her brothers hate it when she nags), junk she’s not interested in, so she falls back.
There’s been a lot on her mind, lately. Well, only one thing, actually, but that one thing is like a myriad of things to be worried about – a tangled labyrinth of problems that are writhing and twisting in her head since the day before.
Peter Pan. The greaser spent the night inside her room, ghosting across her consciousness, laughing mockingly at her from his seat on her chest. She can’t get him out of her thoughts, can’t stop the memory of his thumbnail scraping under her lips, can’t stop smelling his sour smoke smell. There’s just something about him that both scares and intrigues her – maybe it’s a taste of the forbidden?
Wendy imagines how her father would react, what he’d do if she dragged the infamous leader of the Lost Boys into their little home, kissed him, saying daddy this is my boyfriend.
She winces at the mere thought of his expression. He’d freak, of course, he’d go nutso. He’d take one look at Pan’s slicked back hair and his leather jacket and the cigarette that seems permanently on the brink of falling from his smirking lips – and her daddy would flip.
She can’t deny that this thrills her, just a bit. She’s spent so long being the precious little girl, the only daughter, that even the slightest hint of rebellion is enough to make her breath short and her mouth dry. She’s always been the straight edge. Bae has a longer leash than she does, being the oldest boy, but she’s always envied the way he seems to flirt with the other side, the kids over the tracks, the ones who smoke and dance and drink.
She’s read books upon books about how women are either good or bad – angels or demons, patronised or condemned – and she feels like it, too. Bae and her brothers can wear their hair slicked back and smoke if they want, and then go back to being respectable, easy as breathing – but if Wendy were to dye her hair, slap on some lipstick and even wink at a boy she’d forever be that Darling girl, the whore. She’s forever condemned to cotton candy and aspiring to housewifery. She can’t help but panic when she thinks of that, leaving school to be chained to the kitchen sink. Her fingers itch to write, but all too soon any ink will be washed away with cleaning fluids.
Wendy’s gaze flicks from brother to brother. She thinks of how loud they are, how big – even soft-spoken Baelfire, considered shy by male standards, is allowed more speech than her. She thinks of the food they consume, the space, always sitting with their legs spread wide and how she always has to cross hers, confined to the edge of the couch. Her silence at dinner parties, treated as a virtue. How often her daddy sends her warning glances when she tries to bring up the topic of suffrage.
Don’t speak of such things, Wendy, he says, it’s too heavy for dinner.
But, of course, Bae is free to discuss anything he wants.
He’s free, full stop. When he goes to medical school – she’s sure he will – he’ll have the time of his life, train to be a doctor, and have every opportunity that is available to a white man laid out in front of him.
And Wendy will marry a boy who is perfectly nice, just so long as she does as she’s told and never speaks out of turn. Which, she’s beginning to think, is adult speak for never speaks at all.
She hisses out a breath, forcing the frustrated lump in her throat to dissipate. She doesn’t want much. She’s not asking for thrones, or crowns – she just wants to be equal. To be free. There’s disgust roiling in the pit of her stomach, the thing that’s been there for years, now, ever since she picked up Jane Eyre at the bookstore and found a woman who cast off her oppression, who said no net ensnares me. She thinks of her pink-and-pastel self, her perfect clothes and her perfect little life, and she just wants to rip the clothes from her back and –
Well, she wants to do something.
She looks down at where her skirt covers her knees, and while her brothers aren’t looking and the street is empty, tightens her fingers in it and pulls the material up. The hemline inches higher on her legs, slowly sliding over her skin until she can see the curve of her calf meeting her knee.
Another quick glance at her brothers. They’ve barely even noticed she’s fallen behind, so they won’t have an inkling of this freedom she’s allowing herself.
Her skirt bunched in her hands, Wendy gives a tiny huff of excitement. Is this what it feels like? To wear short skirts and feel the air on her legs? It’s nice – no, much better than nice, it’s good – and it doesn’t feel half as scandalous as her mother says. It’s just free.
She’s so caught up in the feeling that she doesn’t even hear the rumbling engine of a hot rod roar down the street. When she does pick up on it, she figures it’ll just go past – she doesn’t know anyone in her neighbourhood who drives one, so she’s not embarrassed – and her brothers will be flipping their wigs so much that she’ll have even more time to wallow in this, whatever it is.
Instead, the engine chugs to a halt beside her.
“Nice legs, sweetheart,” comes Peter Pan’s lazy drawl, and she lets go of her skirt in shock, “you thin? I can give you a ride to prison.”
He appraises her from the driver’s seat of his hot rod, one arm slung over the door and a wry grin blooming on his lips. He raises an eyebrow at her over the rim of his aviators, which are perched on the edge of his perfectly snub nose, and gives a little wave. His vehicle’s a bent eight, for sure – bright red, sleek and shiny, with blue flame printed on the sides. He’s obviously stuck on the thing; it looks spotless, the thumb of his right hand practically stroking the steering wheel.
Figures. He’s a greaser, after all, and greasers dig their V-8s.
“No. Thank you.” Wendy replies primly – with the memory of cool air around her knees and freedom just barely on her tongue – and begins to walk purposefully forward.
Her brothers are staring, open-mouthed, at the boy in the car. As expected, their wigs are flipping. Although Bae’s probably freaking out in a different kind of way. Her brother’s eyes are slitted, his brow furrowed as his gaze flicks from her, to Peter. Her, to Peter.
“Oh c’mon, sweetheart. I’m here, alright? Just hop in.”
She spares him a quick glance – he’s following at a slow crawl, just barely gunning the engine. A cigarette is wedged between his lips, and it bobs up and down as he speaks. He gives a lopsided smile, a wiggle of his eyebrows. The backs of her legs are still chilly, suddenly unused to fabric brushing against them even though the time spent without could only have been minutes.
“What about my brothers?”
Peter lifts the hand not on the steering wheel to slide his sunglasses further down his nose. He gives them a once-over. John looks as if he’s about to faint. Michael seems to be hyperventilating. Bae scowls. Peter snorts. Shrugs. “They can walk.” He says dismissively.
Wendy scoffs. “Well it’s definitely a no, then.”
“Sweetheart –” he groans, but she cuts him off.
“Don’t call me that!” she snaps, stopping in her tracks. She plants her hands firmly on her hips, facing him, and scowls. He brakes.
His answering grin is nothing short of predatory. “Not a chance. It suits you too good, dolly.”
“Oh, jeez –” she hears Bae mutter, and from his tone she knows he’s rolling his eyes.
“And just how, Peter Pan?” she demands, and she’s fully aware that her voice keeps rising and his smile keeps getting bigger, but she can’t seem to bring herself to care.
“You’re a sweet chick,” he tells her, moving his hand in a therefore kind of gesture, “all sugar and candy. Butter wouldn’t melt. Good girl. So, sweetheart.”
“I guess you’re all clued up on me, huh?”
He takes the cigarette from his lips, blowing out a steady stream of smoke. She can smell it from here, a faintly sour tickle just under her nostrils. He tilts his head, smiles, and says; “Not that hard to figure out.”
She seethes, his matter-of-fact tone a burning itch in a place she can’t quite reach. “’Scuse me?”
“You ain’t that difficult to get to the bottom of, that’s all.”
Wendy knows he’s trying to make her angry. She can tell by the little smirk playing on his mouth, the infuriatingly playful gleam in his eye. Everything about him; the set of his jaw, the way he tips his head to look at her – it all screams smugness. And she knows she shouldn’t let him get to her. She should stare straight ahead, ignore him, forget the way that every word he utters feels like the breeze on her legs, how even though she fears the hunger in his eyes there’s something feverous that stands to attention at the back of her head in recognition of it.
She should do what is expected of her, and be exactly as he says; simple. Easy to figure out. Boring.
Or, she could get in the car.
Do something, she thinks.
She wets her lips, gives it a once-over. Gives him a once-over. He’s appraising her, an eyebrow raised, cigarette dangling from his fingertips. He raises it, slowly, to his mouth, and puts his lips round it in a way that’s – surely – not an accident. The blush that rises to her cheeks certainly isn’t.
It’s the short, huffy little chuckle he lets loose afterwards that does it.
He thinks he’s such a big shot, she thinks venomously, I’ll show him.
Wendy straightens her clothes, clears her throat. “Fine.” She spits, and marches towards him.
“What?” Bae exclaims. “What? Wendy – you’re joshing me, right? C’mon –”
“No, Baelfire. I’m not joshing. I’ll see you later.”
To her surprise, Peter scoots over to the passenger seat, hauls himself over the door with an agility she hadn’t expected, and opens it with a flourish. She walks round the hot rod, eyeing him suspiciously as he gestures her in.
“Sweetheart,” he intones, winking, “nice of you to finally accept my generous offer.”
She rolls her eyes at him – something she’ll regret later, being so rude, but now she’s too mad to care – and slides into the proffered seat. The leather is soft, carefully maintained, as is the rest of the care. To be honest, she’d never picked him as the meticulous type.
He closes the door firmly, and goes to the driver’s side. Her brothers still stand, their maws hanging open, on the sidewalk. He gives them a smug little wave, calls out a “catch you, boys”, and puts the pedal to the metal.
The wind hits her full in the face, not quite stinging her eyes but enough to make her hair blow back from her face and stream out behind her like some tawny flag. She knows it’ll be a scraggly mess by the time they get to school, but – well, to be completely honest, the ride is smooth as hell.
Peter drives good; something she can’t tell tales on. It’s still reckless, though; he handles the wheel with the light kind of touch he applies to his due backs, barely keeping his eye on the road. He seems to sneak more glances at her than at what he’s doing, sliding his tongue out to wet his lips and offer her a snide grin.
Wendy doesn’t return them, for the most part. She still smiles, but that’s because she’s going faster than she’s ever been and the laugh tears itself from her lips seemingly of its own accord – she feels free, better than hiking up her skirt or splashing through puddles – and she just can’t help the wave of adrenaline that rears up in her throat.
She raises her arms, craning her neck to look at her fingers wiggling in the wind. She watches the trees go by as they whip underneath them, squinted against the sunlight dappling through their branches. It’s a beautiful day, all cerulean blue skies and cool breeze, the trees painted a lush green in their spring-time splendour. The air smells sweet, the slight sting of Peter’s smoke only just tickling her nostrils. She inhales deeply, filling her lungs til they ache, expelling it in a wild laugh. The noise of it seems to burst in the car, and she closes her eyes against the glare of the sun – all she can hear is the bright, happy bubble of her mirth, the roar of the engine, the wind in her ears.
All too soon, it’s over.
Peter manoeuvres the hot rod into the school parking lot, and Wendy abruptly lowers her arms and opens her eyes. They’re early – the strangeness of a greaser like Pan arriving early to school is not lost on her – and only a few students mill about the red-brick buildings.
She shoots him a glance, finding that he’s staring at the steering wheel still, an odd half-smile on his lips.
“I knew you’d like it.” He tells her, looking up to capture her gaze.
She’s struck, once again, at the allure of his features. A flutter bum, for sure, she thinks, fighting a grin of her own. “Did you?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“You think I’m that easy to figure out?”
“Everyone likes going fast once in a while,” he tells her, and the way his fingers curl over the edge of the steering wheel seems like less of a habit and more of a promise.
She glances over them, taking note of their length and dexterity – why, exactly, she’s not sure but she feels something pleasant hum over her skin when she does. Her eyes trail up his leather-clad arm, over his broad shoulder, the smooth plane of his neck to his impish grin. He stares back at her, the dark green of his eyes glittering over his sunglasses, pale cheeks flushed with the wind. They are caught in silence, for a moment, until Peter jolts and breaks her gaze. He glances down at his knees, mouth working, and he almost seems nervous – but that’s ridiculous.
Wendy presses her lips together to keep from laughing. That’d be a tale to tell; Peter Pan getting anxious.
He does look the part, though. He wets his lips, clearing his throat. Then, all at once, he slides over the leather seat and crowds her against the passenger door, one arm round the back of her, the other gesturing closely to her face.
“Listen,” he starts, and suddenly his voice takes on its old whiskey tone – scratchy and rich, golden and strong, somehow smooth and rough at the same time – she assumes is from years of cigarettes, confidently brushing an errant piece of hair from her forehead, “there’s a dance on tonight.”
“At the Neverland?” she asks, drly, and his eyebrows lift in surprise.
“Why’d you think that?”
“It’s where you hold your… dealings, isn’t it?” Wendy shifts so that her hair is out of his reach, and his hand falls to her knee instead.
A jolt tingles up her spine, but she ignores it. She waits for his answer, pursing her lips and sitting ramrod straight.
“I wouldn’t bring you there, sweetheart,” he tells her, his voice lowering to the soft croon that she’s sure has brought many a girl to her knees. He brushes his thumb over the material of her skirt, tempting it higher up her leg, and brings his other hand to toy with the neck of her sweater.
She risks a quick, side-glance over the parking lot, where more and more students are gathering. People are staring, she knows that much – they aren’t used to seeing sweet, virginal dollies consorting with hub cap boys – their eyes a hot iron on her back. “Where, then?”
“’S a, uh… underground kinda thing.”
“Where?” she insists, and as she does she reaches behind her and inches a hand over the span of the door, searching for a handle. He has her backed into a corner – literally – his chest pressed against her shoulder, his knees jammed into the crevice of hers. The position is achingly reminiscent of every romance novel she’s ever felt the need to hide from the prying eyes of her family, every paperback whose contents are worthy of blush. Only, she’d never pictured Pan as the handsome counterpart to her heroine.
Instead of sighing, Peter only grins, his gaze darting from the irritated set of her mouth back up to her eyes. He’s inches away, now, and that thrills her in ways she hadn’t expected. “A warehouse, up near the passion pit.”
“Be still my beating heart,” Wendy mocks – the courage with which she does so is stolen directly from the fictional heroines she idolises, the Jane Eyres, the Elizabeth Bennets, channelling their wit and poise rather than the heaving bosoms of the pathetic protagonists in her Mills and Boon paperbacks – “a warehouse. I can barely contain my excitement –”
“Didn’t take you for a snob, sweetheart.” He cuts her off, and his left hand brushes the hemline of her skirt with purpose. She can feel the warmth of his palm radiating through her leg, clambering up to her spine and prickling at the back of her neck.
“You don’t take me for much, Pan.” She retorts, sharply, and her fingers find the door handle. She opens it with a sharp snick, sliding out of the hot rod with as much grace as she can muster. “Thanks for the ride.” She straightens, pulling down her skirt once more so that it covers her knees, managing a curt nod.
He looks up at her, the heat of his gaze searing, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a slightly awed smile. “See you round,” he tells her, sliding out his tongue to wet his lips.
Wendy turns away without answering, hurrying inside the school to her locker.
She spends the rest of the day trying to avoid his gaze, despite the fact he’s suddenly managed to transfer into all her classes – even home economics is not without the lingering scent of smoke and his hungry eyes – and he finds every opportunity to talk to her, leaning up against classroom doors and blocking her way.
He doesn’t even try to keep his fascination with her private from the public eye, either. He openly stops, mid-conversation with his lackeys, to drop into step beside her with a wink and a grin. He licks his lips at her in ways that should be illegal – and greets her with a “hey, sweetheart,” before pulling up the closest seat to her in class, his arm swung round the back.
By lunch, details of her back seat bingo with Pan have spread around the school like some awful, hormone-ridden disease.
It’s only at the end of the day, after being interrogated by all her friends and Bae about the lift to school, that she finds a note in her pocket. The paper is torn from a textbook – she resists the urge to tut – and folded haphazardly. On it, scrawled in black marker, are the words:
Still waiting for an answer, sweetheart.
***
“Still can’t believe you wrote her a fuckin’ ballad.” Felix snorts, leaning back in his seat.
Peter eyes how his heavy boots are propped up on the table between them, the chair barely supporting his weight, and is sorely tempted just to push him off. Instead, he just scowls.
“Ha ha,” he retorts dryly, “big tickle. And it’s not a fuckin’ ballad, you dunce. I’m just reminding her that I never got an answer.”
Felix shrugs, staring up at the ceiling. He uses his switchblade to dig out the blood and dirt from under his nails. The guy’s in the habit of keeping his hands somewhat clean after they do business. He makes sure to wash his knuckles, scrub his knife, peer into the dusty old mirror they’ve got hanging in the shitty bathroom so he can fix any hair out of place.
Peter doesn’t know. He kinda likes it, to be honest. Rocking up to the bar where his good old man’s always at, blood slicked on his hands. He likes looking messy, with a few scrapes here and there to remind everyone who thinks that the Lost Boys can be tangled with that they’re a force to be reckoned with – that this is their feeding ground, now. He likes waltzing in like he owns the place – any place – because, as far as he knows, it’s not far off the truth.
So he wipes the worst of the muck from the lines of his palms and his face, but leaves the rest.
He wonders what Wendy Darling would think. She’d probably be disgusted at what he does. He deals in crimes, in goods that ‘fell from the back of the truck’, everything she’s probably been taught from day one to despise. She’d probably go quiet, turn away from him, never look his way again if she knew the extent to what he’s done.
Peter cinches his tongue between his teeth to stop the sharp little inhale that threatens to hiss through them. He looks down, stares at the paperwork he had Rufio draw up for him. The contract.
He tries to focus on the words, but the black characters seem to be too tightly-packed together for his eyes to see, and they swim in and out of his vision. The only constant is the cotton-candy pink of Wendy, the sweetness in her face. He wonders, again, how she’d react to his injuries. He thinks – no, he wishes – that she would touch his cheek, wet a cloth with warm water, slowly and gently ease the dried blood from his skin until he was clean.
He growls, presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, willing himself to abandon those thoughts.
He’s obsessing over her. Peter Pan, pining. It’s fucking humiliating, and he wants it to stop so badly – he could give up on her, let her fade into the background and forget – but then he thinks of the way she’d gotten so fired up over his challenge, the spark in her eyes when he told her you’re a sweet chick, and he finds he doesn’t want to.
What he wants is Wendy Darling.
And he’ll do anything to get her.