Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
It’s a cake. Three tiers of dark chocolate dripping down white frosting, scattered with fresh white roses. I’ve hated birthdays. For twenty-eight years, I hated birthdays.
Asher’s face breaks into a half-smirk. “Happy birthday, Venom.”
I don't see him pull out his phone, but I hear the camera click. When I look up, he's already lowering it.
“Did you—”
“Candid shots are the best shots.” He sets the cake on the island. “You can thank me later.”
“For the cake or the unauthorized photo?” I tease, because I’m an idiot and his affection is starting to feel too much like home.
He shrugs, winking at me. “Both.”
Dinner unfolds in waves of laughter and wine. Jord tells stories about the restaurant he's opening, Le Chat, which has Lucinda in tears from laughing. Punk hacks Asher's Spotify mid-dinner, replacing his playlist with a form of heavy metal that has Asher rolling his eyes.
“I don't know what happened,” she says, examining her nails. “Technology is so unreliable.”
“You're a menace,” Asher tells her, but there's fondness in it. “You could at least listen to old school shit.”
My phone buzzes on the table. I ignore it. It buzzes again.
“Jesus, Ivy, answer it,” Lucinda says, but she's not looking at my phone. She's looking at hers, eyes wide with something between delight and disbelief.
“What?”
She turns her screen toward me.
It's Asher's Instagram. A post from thirty seconds ago. Happy birthday followed by my handle, then a carousel of photos I didn't know existed.
The first, me buried in a massive jacket on Mount Crow, frowning at the camera while snow falls around us. I remember that day. I'd demanded he take me up after he wouldn't shut up about it, then regretted it when I realized how cold it was. But Asher's smile in the photo is pure joy, arm slung around my shoulders.
I swipe to the next photo and choke on my wine.
Sick with the flu two months ago, my face is decorated with every product from my makeup bag. Lipstick whiskers. Eyeshadow war paint. Bronzer stripes. And Asher's face is pressed close to my sleeping one, his grin diabolical. I don't even remember this happening.
“You broke into my room when I was dying of the plague?” I gasp, hand on my chest in mock shock.
“You had a cold.” He's watching me over his beer. “And the door was unlocked.”
I narrow my eyes. “That doesn’t make it any better.”
The last photo stops my heart.
Us. Asleep on his couch. I'm sprawled across his chest, drowning in his hoodie, face buried against his neck. His arms wrapped around me, refusing to let go.
We look…
“Fuck,” Jord whispers, looking at his own phone. “The comments are already—”
“Friend goals,” Lucinda reads. “Ashvy is endgame. Why aren't they together? She's using him. He deserves better.” She pauses. “Oh, this one's creative. If my friendship doesn't look like this, I don't want it.”
My phone explodes with notifications. Tags, mentions, comments, DMs.
“You're so extra,” I tell him, but I'm smiling despite myself.
He shrugs, unfazed. “You deserve extra.”
Punk stands. “Bathroom.”
The look she gives me is barely a flicker, but I catch it.
“Second door on the left,” I tell her, though she already knows.
She disappears down the hall, combat boots echoing against marble. The others keep scrolling through comments, laughing at the increasingly creative speculation about whether Asher and I are secretly together.
“This one says you're clearly in love,” Jord announces. “Based on, and I quote, ‘he looks at her like he wants to eat her.'“
“Ridiculous,” I say.
“Completely,” Asher agrees with an eye-roll, hiding his smirk behind his bottle.
But when our eyes meet across the table, something electric passes between us. Six months of almost. Six months of dancing around this thing we can't name, can't touch, can't have.
“I need more wine.” I stand too quickly, the dim lighting catching my dress.
Asher tracks the movement.
“I'll get it,” he says.
I shake my head. “I can manage.”
“It's your birthday.” He's already following me into the kitchen. “Let someone else take care of you for once.”
His words land heavy, touching some buried insecurity I don’t talk about.
Lucinda and Jord exchange looks, and I know tomorrow I'll get an earful about boundaries and complicated feelings and why I need to be careful. But tonight, with Parker in Switzerland and my friends filling this cold apartment with laughter, with a cake that looks like art and photos that show a version of happiness I didn't know I was capable of, I let myself pretend.
Pretend that I'm just a normal woman whose marriage is falling apart. That Asher's a friend who cares too much. That the knife tucked against my thigh is for protection and not profession.
That I'm not going to destroy everything, eventually.
Because that's what I do. It's who I am.
Even on my birthday, especially on my birthday, that doesn't change.
I reach up to grab wine from the cupboard, when Asher’s reflection catches my attention in the window. My heart stutters, and I turn slow, noticing the small box in his hand.