Page 78

“Ugh, that sucks.” Ashley took her hand. “I’m not going to be much help in this situation. There’s nothing you can do to at least save what you have?”

Esther shook her head. “At this point, the only thing left to do is turn it off and back on again. It took me forever to fiddle my way to this point in the project, and now I have to do it all over again, and I’ll miss movie night again, and Uther will be pissed.”

A tear escaped the corner of her eye before she even realized how worked up she was getting.

“Hey.” Ashley stood, framing her feet around Esther’s and cupping her cheek to wipe away a tear with her thumb. “You are brilliant. You did it once, and now you know you can do it again. This is just your sleepiness talking. Uther knows that grad school is not the same as undergrad and will understand. Just remember this won’t be forever.”

“It won’t?” Frantic, Esther fisted the side of Ashley’s sweater, pulling her closer. She felt like she was trying to grasp water, to stay in a moment that was steadily slipping away.

“Of course not.” Ashley smiled, probably interpreting Esther’s anxiety as a need for assurance and not that Ashley had just turned up the volume on their ticking clock. “In a few months, you’ll graduate, and you’ll have your life back. Or as back as working a full-time job to pay back the loan you took out in order to skip days of sleep getting a degree to get that full-time job to begin with.”

Ashley chuckled, but when Esther couldn’t find the will to join, her smile waned.

“Is there something else that’s bothering—” Ashley started.

Esther kissed her, swallowing Ashley’s concerns before they could be voiced. This was their moment. The clock could tick as loudly as it wanted, but it couldn’t have this cluster of seconds forming minutes leading to an hour. This was theirs and Esther would take it. The kiss was too short, and when she opened her eyes, Ashley stood over her, their foreheads pressed together and breaths intermingling.

“Esther.” The word was a single breath Esther consumed, and she tasted the truth in it.

Ashley heard the clock too.

26

Ashley

Ashley stood in the doorway of the Platt House attic watching Esther snooze on her desk and wondering if she should just let her sleep.

She needed to make a decision soon though. She was quickly becoming a creepy vampire stereotype, watching her unsuspecting lover while she slept. Maybe she’d give her a few more minutes. She backed out of the room when a loud crash from downstairs broke Esther from her sleep.

What were Uther and August up to down there?

Well, since Esther was up. Ashley rapped at the doorframe to get Esther’s attention. “Hey, sweetheart, do you have a minute?”

Esther ducked her head to wipe her mouth on her sleeve before turning around.

“Ashley.” Esther’s gaze slid across Ashley’s body, and she couldn’t help subtly flexing and hamming up the moment. “I have all the minutes for you, babe.”

“How’s your project going?” Ashley scanned the desk. Esther had nearly buried her laptop in a mountain of paper, and Ashleywould bet money whatever was in that mug had gone cold a while ago.

Esther sighed, tapping at her computer. “Slowly.”

“Do you need the night? I know we had plans, but if you need to work…” She had big plans for tonight, but if Esther wasn’t in the right mindset, it wasn’t worth pushing the moment. She could wait.

Esther’s eyes widened, and her brows shot up to her hairline. “No. Oh my god, I almost…No. This can wait.”

She shuffled piles around, taking a distracted sip from her mug and cringing. Definitely cold.

“Hey.” Ashley walked to the desk and crouched into Esther’s line of sight. “Are you sure? This is just a day on the calendar. I won’t be offended. You’ve been working so hard on this project, and you’re almost there.”

“No, I’m fine.” Esther drained the last of her mug and slammed it down like a shot. “This can wait.”

Ashley wasn’t sure she believed her. Esther was making that smile that was supposed to be comforting but was too teethy for an Esther smile. She was going to argue further when Esther took her hand.

“I know you’ve been working on some Valentine’s Day surprise,” Esther said. “Show me.”

That familiar intoxication whenever she was around Esther took over. They’d been together for real now for over a month. Surely this sparkly, hard-to-think feeling would dull and she could function like a normal human—or vampire—around her. In the meantime, Ashley bid rational thought adieu and led Esther to a smaller set of stairs at the back of the attic. Ashley had requested romance, and Esther had requested a quiet night in relative privacy. Since neither of them had exceptionally private housing, Ashley had enlisted the help of August, who’d lent them the upper floors for the night.

At the top of the stairs, Ashley pushed open a trapdoor, letting in a wave of cold air and exposing a box of starry sky. She helped Esther through the door and closed it behind them. She stayed silent, letting Esther take in her work. Twinkle lights were strung around the railing of the widow’s walk, and a corner was piled with soft blankets and the plushest pillows Ashley could find while scavenging through August’s surplus of guest rooms. Ashley had even tucked the heated blanket from her room into the pile.