“Gracious of you, darling,” she snorted.
“That is my defining character trait, yes.”
“What if I’d killed somebody?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised, and I would visit you in prison if necessary.”
She gasped, all feigned outrage. “You wouldn’t offer to help me hide the body?”
Jacob’s lips quirked without permission. “You’ve been here quite a while, Sunshine, and there’s no police sniffing around. So I imagine you hid it just fine yourself.”
“Well. Yes. Quite right.” She preened at the idea of being a capable murderer, because she was a ridiculous ball of fluff. Jacob kissed her forehead because there was really no other option, not when she was being so obnoxiously cute.
“Now,” he said, “stop stalling. Tell me this story.”
She sighed. “My parents were angry with me.”
He waited for a moment before nudging. “Did you hit them with your car?”
“Spiritually speaking, I think I’ve hit my mother with my car many times.” Her tone was dry, but her fingers were tapping a rapid rhythm against his rib cage. “My mum wants so badly for me to be successful. At anything. And for a while, I gave up even trying. I think failure was one thing, but giving up, for her—that was a bridge too far. They were disappointed with me and I couldn’t bear it, so I . . . I left, determined to find something to do. You know, to prove myself. And so, here I am! Trying not to fuck up again.”
It wasn’t a totally unexpected explanation—and the way Eve spoke about herself was hardly unfamiliar. She said that sort of thing all the time—that she was a failure, a disappointment, that she was trying but had no faith in her ability to succeed. Jacob couldn’t pinpoint exactly when those words had started to set his teeth on edge, but the feeling got worse every time. And here? Now? It was the worst it had ever been, like scratching bone.
Apparently, he couldn’t bear to hear Eve Brown criticized. Not even by herself. “Thank you for telling me,” he said, because manners were useful things, and he’d read somewhere that it was good to start positive before telling someone off. “But Eve, I think it’s time we had a serious conversation—”
“Boo,” she interrupted. “You know I hate serious conversations.”
“No,” he said sharply, turning to look at her. “No, you don’t. Stop acting like you do. Even the brightest, lightest things still have substance.”
She was quiet for a moment, clearly surprised. “I—well—”
“And this is exactly what I wanted to talk about. Eve . . .” He wrapped an arm around her and squeezed, corralling his feelings into actual, useful words. Sometimes her presence made that kind of thing easy, but sometimes, when he was drowning in all the emotions he felt for her, it was incredibly hard. “Eve,” he repeated, “I know you think you need to improve yourself, or grow up, or whatever else. But there is nothing wrong with you. You’re just . . . a bit different, that’s all. You’re just sensitive enough for the world to seem too fast and too loud. And you’re—you’re hurt, I think. You’re used to flinching in case you get hurt again. I’m the same, for different reasons, but still. The fact is, you’re smart, you’re creative, you’re dedicated, and you care about people. You’d do anything for anyone, even if you were terrified, as long as it was right. And what matters more than that? Tell me one thing, honestly, that matters more than that.” Expressing this stuff felt a bit like digging for gold; Jacob labored for what felt like hours (but was actually thirty seconds), and in the end he was mildly exhausted and utterly elated because—
There. There was his gold: Eve’s smile.
“You’re very complimentary, this evening,” she murmured. “I wonder why?”
He rolled his eyes.
And she, just like he’d known she would, sobered up after a moment. “Thank you, Jacob,” she said softly. “If you’d said something like that to me last month, I might not have believed you. But I’m starting to see sides of myself I didn’t even know were there. So maybe I’ll believe you after all.” She was teasing, but behind her smile he saw it: a burgeoning trust. Not in him, but in herself. “I . . . I suppose I never really thought of doing nice things for people as a skill. At least, not until I came here, and you offered to pay me for it.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re changing your mind,” he said, “because it absolutely is a skill. I should know. I have to work on it a lot.”
She laughed, and it was like little bubbles of sunlight popping against his skin.
“Your abilities,” he said slowly, “lie in the places people usually overlook. So you’ve been convinced you don’t have any at all. But you’re smart, and you’re capable, and if people struggle to see that, it’s their problem, not yours.” He really hadn’t meant to bring this next topic up, but the words spilled from his mouth without permission. “You know, Eve, you’re—we’re—different. And . . .” He cleared his throat, started again. “Do you feel like things are different when you’re with me? The way we communicate?”
“Well, yes,” she said pertly. “I imagine that’s how we ended up in bed.”
She had him there. “I wasn’t talking about that difference. I meant—you like the fact that I’m straightforward. You say it all the time. Do other people feel . . . less straightforward to you?”
Jacob expected her to reply with confusion, with more questions, with—something ordinary. But she wasn’t ordinary. She was Eve. Which is why she shocked the shit out of him by replying calmly, “Oh, I see. Yes, it feels different—rather like talking to my sisters. Easier and familiar, probably because we’re both on the autistic spectrum.”
His surprise dissolved almost instantly into of-fucking-course laughter. “You already knew.”
“Well, no,” she corrected, “not before I met you. You’ve made me notice my own behavior more. So I did some research and drew the obvious conclusion: it’s likely that I, like you, am autistic. I assume most of my family is, actually, which would explain why almost everyone finds us incredibly strange. It’s an interesting development, but also . . .” She smiled a little, her gaze on the ceiling as she spoke. “I already know who I am and how I am. In fact, I’m learning more about that every day. Having a name for some of those things is satisfying. That’s all.”
Jacob absorbed that for a moment, biting back a smile of his own. “You’re so . . .”
“What?” she asked, rising on one elbow to look at him. The lavender fall of her hair spilled across his chest, and her eyes were like starlit night. “I’m so what?”
“Perfect,” he finished. “Eve Brown, you are absolutely perfect to me.”
She beamed, so obviously happy it made his heart squeeze. Then she kissed him, and that was perfect, too. They were always perfect together, these days, and most of Jacob believed they always would be.
But a tiny little part of him—the young, cold, worthless part—still wasn’t quite convinced. That part had a long memory, and it was filled with loss.