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“Hell,” I breathe.
“Yeah, so…” He grins that sexy grin of his. “Library?”
“Lead the way.”
“I’m readinga book about the influence of the moon,” he says as we make our way through the school yard.
“Mm. You read a lot.”
“Never enough,” he says.
“I guess there are never enough books,” I mutter.
“Oh, is that a Steinbeck quote?”
“Nah, that’s just me.” I smile at him in spite of myself. “I used to practically live in a library before coming here. That’s the only place I’ve ever called home. The shelves with the dusty books, the smell of old paper and glue and leather, the light falling from tall windows making the motes in the air dance. The words on the pages that took me traveling into other worlds. They set me free in ways I couldn’t even comprehend. I’m who I am because of the books I’ve read in my life.”
“They must have been some damn good books,” Ashton mutters and gestures at a path leading to a part of the Academy grounds I have never visited. “This way.”
I glance at him, not sure what his comment meant. His gaze looks distant.
“Oh, before I forget, I wanted to also give you this.” He stops and opens his backpack, taking a package out. “Here.”
I hesitate. “What is this?”
“Remember I said that I got you a gift?”
I take it from his hands. “You already gave me a pepper spray.”
“That doesn’t count. This is the real gift.”
This package feels soft. “Don’t tell me it’s clothes?”
Red touches his high cheekbones. “Why? You’d trust a demon’s taste in fashion more than mine?”
“But—”
“I think we all saw how you had to go to Zoey to get some clothes that didn’t look like curtains sewn together—”
“Ash.”
“—sorry.” He lifts a hand. “Why does it bother you when I say that those clothes were terrible? It’s not like you chose them, right?”
When you see it that way… “No. I didn’t.”
“Zoey’s clothes helped show off that hot body of yours—”
“Ash!”
“You don’t like that, either? You’d rather I lie and say you have a terrible body?”
I shake my head. “You actually expect me to believe I’m hot?”
“Damn.” He laughs. “You girls are weird. You are beautiful, Mia. And hot. Believe it. In any case, what I was trying to say is, Zoey’s clothes showed off your body but they were, after all, Zoey’s clothes. You need clothes that show whoyouare.”
“And you think that clothes chosen byyouwill show who I am? You don’t even know my size!”
“Doyou?”
