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He stared at her like a man on the verge of starvation, ravenous for her flesh and fighting every instinct to reach for it. Something unspooled in Molly’s chest, a heat winding its way outward, seeking purchase.

“Just be gentle with me, Graham,” he breathed, reeling her in with her own name. “You’ve got me on the gallows here.” He let her braid fall. “But I’ll be damned if you’re not the most beautiful executioner I’ve ever seen.”

She wasn’t sure if he pushed or she pulled.

Or if the whirlpool sucked them in together.

But the brush of his lips against hers, so brief and barely realized, felt like a lightning strike to her soul. She had to take a step back, pulse fluttering beneath her skin, bones burning her from the inside out.

Aster didn’t look at her. He didn’t even look like he was breathing, as if he too couldn’t believe what he, or she, or they had done. She watched him swallow, wrangling his self-control: a starving man temporarily sated.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, offering them to her.

“I’ll give you some space tonight. I think we both might need it. They cleared you to drive, right?”

Molly nodded.

“You’ll have the phone backup link before the party is over. But I’m going to have my friend Bentley pick me up.” It was the first time he’d ever told her where he went when he needed to disappear.

She nodded again, not trusting her voice to let him go despite knowing he was right.

He left her in the garden, in the place where they’d once kissed and now barely kissed again. In his wake, Molly considered the difference between drowning and dry land, not knowing where the whirlpool had just dropped her.

Before

Molly gazed longingly out the window. She loved the library, she did. But on a beautiful weekend in late spring, even she had her limits. There were flowers blooming beyond the glass, a little bee bumbling between petals. Birds chirping. Her peers hanging out, laughing.

A particularly loud group of students whooped and hollered from somewhere beyond the window, and several faces she recognized passed by in a blur. Bishop’s friends. Of course he was capable of interrupting her without even trying. She could picture him easily, boasting about some new yacht or private jet his daddy had just bought, dangling an invitation over all his subjects’ heads.

Molly had spent her whole day studying. She had exams to ace and not nearly enough time to ensure that happened. There had been a short, forced break where Roy, Alannah, and Simon had stolen her for lunch on a picnic blanket outside, but that had been it. The panicked call she’d made to her dad about how she was going to fail and lose her scholarship didn’t count as a break.

She checked the time. The library would close soon, which meant Roy would be showing up to enforce a hard stop on her studying any minute now. Reluctantly, she began collecting her notes, cramming everything into her bag.

She departed her favorite carrel desk, weaving between rows and shelves, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she realized she had not been as alone in the library as she’d thought.

She stood frozen, stunned by a head of shockingly blond hair slumped against a table. Bishop was snoring—quietly, but snoring all the same—on an economics textbook. His laptop was open but dark, and several other books were scattered on the tabletop around him. There were two crushed energy drink cans on the floor by his feet.

It was so ridiculous, so unexpected, that a giggle bubbled up Molly’s throat. She knew Bishop got decent grades, good ones even, but the idea of him actually studying for them seemed downright incongruous with everything else about him. Molly was the one who studied, who put in the work. He was supposed to be outside and enjoying his weekend with his gaggle of paid actors—sorry, friends.

She couldn’t help herself. She stepped closer.

He was taking the same Intro to Global Economics class she’d had last semester. That exam had been awful. The cram session she’d done the night before the test had probably taken a couple of weeks off her life expectancy due to the stress alone.

Bishop suddenly shot up, a page from his textbook so adhered to his face that it ripped when he lifted his head. He tore it from his skin, sucking in a deep breath as he looked wildly around. His ice-blue eyes were rimmed red.

When those eyes landed on Molly, it took another second for the panic of a sudden waking to drain out of them. But when it did, something like horror took its place.

“That class sucked,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

Bishop dragged in another breath, sitting straighter. He looked down at his textbook, then back up at Molly, eyes locking with hers. “Miserable,” he finally said, toneless.

With that nearly cordial response, Molly then defaulted to the kind of offer she would have made to anyone else in this position. “I have a study guide,” she began, “from when I took it last semester. I could send it to you.”

In the space of a blink, embarrassment flooded his face, though he recovered quickly, his features settling into annoyance instead.

He slammed both his book and his laptop shut in quick succession, then said, “Fuck off, Charity Case. I don’t want anything from you.”

Chapter 6