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Ashley had crushed on people before. Attractive girls. Nice girls. She’d even fallen in love once, or at least what she’d thought was love at the time.

This didn’t feel like any of that. It felt like the decision to fall for Molly had been made without the higher functions of her brain. It happened somewhere deeper, somewhere she barely had access to. It was like there had never been any choice in it, if Ashley had wanted to choose differently. Which she didn’t.

Molly wiggled closer.

‘You still alright?’ she asked.

Ashley nodded.

‘You keep checking.’

‘I’m going to keep checking.’

Ashley wasn’t used to that level of care. It made something inside her unclench. She closed the distance.

The kiss was slower than the first one they’d shared, neither of them in any hurry to prove anything. Ashley became aware of tiny sensory details: the faint taste of wine still lingering, Molly’s hair brushing her cheek, the warmth of a hand settling lightly against the small of her back.

Downstairs, a cupboard door closed.

Ashley pulled away instinctively. ‘Sorry.’

Molly blinked. ‘For kissing me?’

‘No. I just...’ She glanced towards the floor.

Molly followed her eyes. ‘Your dad?’

Ashley gave an apologetic nod.

Molly swept a stray hair from Ashley’s face with a smile. ‘He’s downstairs,’ she murmured. ‘We’re up here.’

‘He’s got an uncanny ability to make me feel like he’s everywhere. He’s like a ghost that haunts the place.’

Molly laughed quietly. ‘That’s possibly the least sexy thing anyone’s ever said to me mid-kiss.’

Ashley groaned. ‘Sorry.’

‘You did it again.’

‘What?’

‘You apologised.’ Molly kissed her once, briefly. ‘I’m starting a new rule.’

‘What’s the rule?’

‘No apologising unless you actually stand on my foot.’

Ashley smiled. ‘That seems specific.’

‘I’ve got delicate feet.’

‘Have you?’

‘No idea. Probably. I think everyone does.’

Ashley laughed into the next kiss, and something about laughing at exactly the wrong moment made the whole thing feel more intimate rather than less. The room seemed to shrink around them. Not because it was small—though it wasn’t huge—but because Ashley’s attention kept narrowing until there was only Molly.

Outside the bedroom door, the house continued to creak and settle around them. Pipes knocked somewhere in the walls. Floorboards groaned under someone else’s footsteps. Every ordinary sound reminded Ashley that they weren’t alone.