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“This wasn’t how I expected this conversation to go,” she admitted.
Aster looked up from where he’d been fastening his belt. Perhaps unprepared for the look on her face, he leaned forward with a renewed urgency, capturing her lips for another brief but bruising kiss.
“I love you,” he said against her mouth. Then, still hovering close, “And I’m terrified of losing more of you.” His hand against the back of her neck gave a possessive squeeze, as if willing her to understand through touch in the same way she willed him to understand through words. “What’s in that room, it’s more than just trinkets. And it’s important. I can’t figure out the right way to explain it. I’ve been trying for months.”
Molly’s heart raced, curiosity commingling with anxiety. She knew Aster was a bit of a perfectionist in how he wanted to share their past with her, but this felt like an entirely different thing. The need to know took root hard and fast in Molly’s psyche. In the span of a blink, whatever history Aster was so afraid of became the lynchpin to Molly’s ability to move on.
If only they could put it behind them, whatever great and terrible thing it was, Molly could have her peace and progress.
With eyes closed, Aster continued, “It’s in the bowl with my taffies. The key. At the bottom. I put it there the other day.”
Molly didn’t mean to pull away, but she needed to get a better look at him, from an extreme close-up to a complete picture. “It is?”
“Let me close up here and we can—I’ll show you. I need to quickly clean this up before I go. It’ll take two minutes, tops. You don’t even need to wait for me. Bentley loaned me his car today.”
She slid off the desk, heart in her throat. “Okay. Alright. Yes. Thank you.”
“But please don’t unlock the room without me. Please, Molly. I need to explain.”
“I won’t. I promise.” She could barely speak, adrenaline barreling through her veins. She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you at home,” she said, and left him to lock up.
Molly had needed space to gather herself, to get her hammering heartbeat under control, so she hadn’t waited for Aster. But instead of finding the calm she needed, chaos met her back at the apartment complex. Neighbors milled in the street, caution tape stretched across the entryways, and a general sense of hysteria hovered everywhere. Molly had to weave between throngs of people in the parking lot, expressions ranging from dazed to devastated. One woman carried a frying pan in one hand and a tiny dog in the other, both of which she brandished absurdly when Molly stepped a little too close.
Police lights burst in her vision. She lingered near her building, trying to make sense of the madness.
“What’s going on?” Molly asked of a neighbor she only vaguely recognized from their occasional passing hellos.
“Bad pipe or something. Heard them talking about a gas line.”
“What?” Molly stepped closer to the tape cordoning off her building. The spare room was so close. All that missing history that could lay her past to rest. Just up the stairs in front of her, first door on the left, key in the candy bowl, and down the hallway.
Her neighbor scoffed as if the emergency presence bustling around them was nothing more than an inconvenience. “You know how it is. Gotta act like the whole complex is about to explode because someone said there’s a leak.”
Instructions to back away from the buildings erupted in far-too-concerning shouts.
Molly’s higher thinking, things like logic and risk aversion, blinked out of existence, brain too overloaded by adrenaline.
She couldn’t not know. Not after so many months kept locked from her, not with whatever had Aster so petrified of hurting her. She had to know what was in that room. She had to. It was the only thought barreling through her brain, the only desire powering her entire person. She knew of nothing else, thought of nothing else. Her heart was in her throat, nearly choking her. She couldn’t lose this too.
She bolted.
Faced with the sudden panic of missing her chance to see inside that room, she abandoned any concept of self-preservation, caution tape be damned. She took the stairs two at a time. She’d told Aster she would wait for him, but these were extraordinary circumstances.
She flung open the door to their apartment.
Instead of surging forward, she found herself flying back, arms circling her waist from behind and tugging her back down the stairs.
“Are you insane? Molly, you can’t—”
An explosion erupted from a neighboring building, careening outward. Far worse than any land mine. It obliterated everything in its path: cabinets and counters, tables and chairs, and spare rooms holding memories unknown.
Framed in the doorway like a horrible snapshot of lost opportunities, the last thing she saw was the royal-blue brocade sofa sitting against the wall.
A patch of brocade, deep blue and incinerating in the heat of unexpected flames: the exact spot where Orion Bishop brushed the object in a passing moment of assessment upon pulling the piece from storage.
A tufting button, jettisoned by the sheer force of explosion: twice pried from the sofa by a bored Aster Bishop, twice repaired, and twice the source of a lesson in respect from a father to a son.
A rolled arm, shattering under the force of detonation: once drenched by a bottle of red wine spilled by wealthy, enthusiastic friends celebrating a graduation and the freedoms it brought.
