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His posture shifted as he shook his head. “That one hasn’t worked in quite some time.”
“Oh,” she mouthed more than said, conversation lulling. She stood a few steps from the sofa. A few steps from a decision to do something different. Her feet had walked her to and from much more frightening destinations than a piece of furniture occupied by Aster Bishop, and yet, she remained immobile.
His eyes caught on the book in her hands, and he arched a brow at her.
“Another one?” he asked, a tiny smirk on his face. “I was getting worried you didn’t have enough.”
The smirk, his teasing, propelled her into motion. She walked the remaining steps to the sofa and sat next to him, sideways so she could face his profile, legs crossed beneath her. With a deep breath or simple shift, her knees could brush up against the fabric of his trousers.
She held up the book, offering it to him. “It’s for you, actually.”
He didn’t react immediately. He’d gone still, almost vacant behind the eyes, before he blinked and shifted to better face her. Question warred with suspicion on his face.
She held the book closer to him. “Take it.”
Still looking uncertain, he took the book and flipped it over. His eyes widened as he read the title. Silently, he flipped the book over to inspect the back. He flipped it again, opening it to the dedication, the title page. Molly watched, enraptured.
Still silent, he closed the book and looked up at her.
“There’s already a seventeen-week wait for this with the library,” he said. “Thank you.”
If someone had suggested to Molly six years ago that giving Aster Bishop a gift and watching him love it would send her stomach fluttering, she wouldn’t have believed it.
But Molly couldn’t deny how his appreciation had an unfamiliar pride swelling in her chest. He’d already returned to paging through the book, entirely unaware of the effect his response had on her.
She took another metaphorical step.
“Hey, Bishop—Aster,” she started, silently berating herself for the hesitation.
His head snapped up, gaze searching hers.
“I was wondering,” she started, apprehension nearly stalling her. She pushed through it. “Could you tell me some—about us, I mean. I’d like to talk more. Not just tiptoe around you. Or have you tiptoe around me. Please? I can’t take all this caution.”
He broke eye contact, looking down at the book in his hands. Carefully, almost reverently, he placed it on the coffee table.
“What would you like to know?” he asked simply.
She swallowed, trying to identify why a part of her felt mortified, the kind of embarrassment associated with preteen hormones, like drawing hearts around initials and confessing to crushes during sleepovers. She hadn’t thought this far ahead, and the first question that came to mind echoed the one she’d asked Roy and Alannah after that terrible dinner. “How did we go from . . . you know, how we were . . .”
“My vicious mean streak and your overbearing competitiveness?”
“An unstoppable force meets an immovable object, yes.”
Aster’s mouth twitched with humor. “Academic rivals is a safer summary.”
“That glosses over the time you bribed—with literal gifts—everyone in our ecology class to pair up without me for the final project.”
With a grimace, Aster said, “Well, you showed me in the end. You did it by yourself and got the best grade by a mile. And I seem to recall all the books on my topic mysteriously checked out from the library at that time.”
“I have a multitude of interests.”
“I just used the digital catalogue. And bought the ones I still wanted.”
“Of course you did.” Molly shook her head. “But—yes. All of the above. That. How could we possibly have gone from all that to you taking care of me and my broken leg?”
His eyes widened with clear horror at the mention of her leg.
“Roy and Alannah filled me in,” she supplied.
