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“Is that what he thinks he’s doing?”
“He’s the dumbest smart person I know. But that dinner might have fucked him up a little bit. I think he needs some . . . reassurance.”
Molly bit at her bottom lip, rotating her mostly empty beer bottle in front of her.
“What’s different about it?” Eli asked quietly.
“About what?”
“While I was talking about touching me versus touching him, you said it was different.”
“I’m not married to you.”
“Which should make it easier, I’d think.”
Molly let out a long sigh. “No, God. It makes it so much harder. There’s so much expectation attached because of the marriage thing. Touching him would be—would mean—there’s just—” Molly gripped her hair at the roots, frustrated more than anything about her inability to speak like a fully functioning human. Her brain kept shouting out sentiments she couldn’t articulate. She let out a strangled noise and pressed her forehead against the wooden table in a show of resignation, ignoring the cold splotch of condensation she’d landed on.
“Molly?” Eli asked. She merely hummed in response from her position face-to-face with the table. “I can’t lie and say that made any sense. Care to try again?”
She lifted her head, wiping off the patch of wetness above her right eye. Eli didn’t even have the good graces not to look amused.
With a bracing breath, she started again. “There’s history. History I don’t know, and that’s killing me. I’m barely figuring out how to talk to the man, but touch? What does it mean? What’s a casual touch? What’s more? Do we touch a lot? Do we keep to ourselves? Do we cuddle? It’s a floodgate I’m not ready to open.”
Eli considered her with a frown, fingers steepled in front of his face. “Alright, that was better,” he finally said. “I’ll give it a B.”
“A B? Are you serious? I’ve only gotten one B in my entire—”
Eli laughed at her. Actually laughed at her mere moments after her meltdown. And for some reason, Molly laughed back, a different kind of floodgate breaking, one aware of the absurd humor in her circumstances.
As Molly came down from the tingling thrill of a giggle fit, grateful for a reason, any reason, to find something funny about her life, Eli’s face grew serious again.
“In an effort to protect my good alcohol, maybe start with his name? I promise, it would mean a lot to him.” He grimaced. “Gross. Sincerity tastes awful.”
Molly considered. She could do that. She could try it at least. And she wanted to. If only because she needed some measure of control over the narrative of her own life.
“Thanks, Eli,” she told him, meaning it. “I won’t mention the kidnapping if you’d rather I didn’t.”
Eli’s face lit up as he grinned, filled with proud fondness. “This is why we work so well. You get me. I didn’t even have to ask.” He lowered his voice, leaning partway over the table. “Now can we try finding me a boyfriend? I have terrible luck in love, and we’re losing daylight.”
“You wear reading glasses?”
The question flew from Molly’s mouth almost as soon as she walked in the door, surprised by the sight of Bishop on the brocade sofa, book in hand, and a pair of simple silver frames perched on his face.
He pulled them off as soon as she spoke, clearing his throat as he looked up at her. “Ah—yes, sometimes.”
Molly smiled. They were fitting, in a way. He’d always been fierce academic competition.
“I should warn you, I’m in a terrible mood,” he said. “I was at the hospital for hours.”
Cautiously, Molly stepped closer to the sofa.
“Did you and Roy get everything settled?”
“Eventually. Waters even tried pulling the I’m Roy Waters, and I’m important in the world of Minor League Baseball card, which was a little nauseating to watch.”
He looked buoyed by Molly’s soft laugh, as if he hadn’t expected her to find any humor in it.
“You didn’t try pulling the I’m Aster Bishop and I’m important in the world of generational wealth card?” It was a joke, but also a test of his name: of its shape in her mouth, its feel against her tongue, its lingering effects in her throat.
