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“Because I just turned mine in too.” Molly froze at the top of a stairwell. Bishop stopped in front of her. Hands in his pockets, he cocked his head, oozing the kind of smug confidence that said he firmly believed he’d already won. He went on, “Wanted to get a look at the competition.” A pause as he dragged his focus up and down Molly’s person. “It’s not looking good.”

His eyes widened, just briefly, at Molly’s sharp intake of breath.

Bishop had said a lot of terrible things to her in the time they’d shared this school. About her relative poverty. Her fashion choices. Her intelligence. Her friends. And a couple of comments here and there about the frizziness of her hair or the density of her post-summer freckles. Molly was more than used to it. He was a lot of swagger, a lot of talk, throwing insult after insult at a wall until something stuck.

Why, of all things, was this the one that stuck?

He was talking about her qualities as the competition. She knew that. And yet, her brain unwound at the double meaning that he’d called her ugly.

Molly’s looks, however they were weighed and measured, were the least interesting thing about her. They had to be. Because she was smart. And she was hardworking. And whether her face was especially pleasing to anyone else—even Simon when he said nice things about it—shouldn’t have been of any consequence.

And maybe it was just because she’d started her period the night before. And that tracking down the required signatures to run for class president had been harder than she’d expected. And that Roy and Alannah were so sickeningly in love it was starting to make her feel a little insecure about her own relationship. But whatever the reason, and much to her chagrin, Molly could only turn from Bishop, rush down the stairs, and throw herself into the nearest bathroom, where she locked herself in the first stall she found and sobbed.

Chapter 10

Bentley Burke

“Any special requests for your birthday?” Aster asked as he set a plate of toast on the table next to Molly’s coffee.

She blinked. It was a peculiar, mind-boggling thing, celebrating a birthday for an age misaligned with her lived experience. She hadn’t quite wrapped her head around it, the number in her head versus the number on a calendar.

And since she couldn’t control any of that, she’d decided to take control of something else. Gathering her courage, she spoke plainly. “I’d like for you to be able to sleep in your own bed.”

In the weeks following her last appointment, she learned how fully hindered she’d been by the hope that her memories would make the hard decisions for her.

And the hardest decision of all was the one to allow herself to fully fall for Aster, independent of a past they didn’t share and based solely on the strange reality tragedy had dropped her into. His partnership filled the gaps left by her hope and her memories quite nicely.

He straightened against the back of his chair, eyes narrowing. “That sounds more like a gift for me. It’s going to be your birthday. Besides, I think we have some other things to work through before—”

“On that topic,” Molly interrupted. Aster took a bite of his toast, waiting. “I think I’d like to have sex with my husband again.”

Aster choked on his toast mid-swallow. He coughed hard, cleared his throat, and ran a hand over his brows, down the side of his face, and to his jaw. “You can’t just spring something like that on a man.”

Molly had spent the past couple of months making a sport out of earning Aster’s smile. As it turned out, flustering him was even more fun. She grinned.

“You’re serious?” he asked with a look of incredulity. Then it shifted to something more awed. “You’re serious,” he repeated.

“I’m serious.” She wanted the chance to fall in love again. She wanted to give herself permission to experience her own life and not expect a rush of memories to contextualize it for her.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with your last appointment, does it? You’ve been—it has obviously stuck with you.”

She refused to flinch. “It does and it doesn’t. I’m tired of waiting for the past to catch up with me. I’d like to move forward.”

“Is it time for big romantic gestures, then?” he asked. When she looked, she couldn’t quite believe the wild excitement rolling off him. “I told you I had them. If we’re going there, I plan to woo you first.”

“Woo me? Will there be a courtship period as well? A dowry request?”

He snorted a laugh. “No need. You’ve already married me.”

“Fair point.”

Aster looked contemplative; the thoughts vying for his attention flicked and flittered beneath his serious exterior faster than Molly could make sense of them.

“I’m no longer accepting requests for your birthday,” he finally announced.

“No?”

“No. I have a plan. It’s going to be perfect, and you get no say in it.”