I smile faintly. “You should back out while you still can. Doing this...this thing with me is a lot to handle. I have a lot of lines. I’ll understand if you want to call it quits. You don’t owe me anything.”

Ace starts shaking his head before I even finish speaking. “I’ll take my chances,” he says. He scans my expression before he asks, “What made you change your mind?”

“It wasn’t a what,” I say. These words are too honest, too truthful. But they’re the right words. “It was a who. Someone who said they saw a spark in me. They helped me realize that I could be brave. A lionheart, even.”

Ace laughs breathlessly. “They sound wise.”

“They are,” I say, my smile shaky. “But they’re also beautiful and thoughtful and patient and so very lovely.”

“Yeah?” Ace says, a smile pulling at his own lips. “You shouldn’t say things like that. They might get the wrong idea and think you like them.”

“It’s a good thing I do, then,” I say, the words unfamiliar and terrifying. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. “I like them so much, it’s kind of crazy.”

Ace’s smile stretches even wider, familiar dimples popping into view. “Say it again.”

“I like you, Alistair Clyde.” There’s something bright and colorful and warm blooming inside me, growing flowers in the gaps between my ribs and alongside the edges of my heart. “I like you so, so much.”

Ace’s eyes shine brighter than they ever have before. The midnight sky doesn’t begin to compare. “I like you beyond explanation, Karina Ahmed. You drive me insane and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.”

“I drive you insane?” I say, raising my eyebrows. My lips are stretching so wide that my cheekbones hurt. “You’re the one that won’t study no matter how much I beg you.”

“Actually...” He disappears from the screen and comes back holding a copy of The Merchant of Venice with colored tabs marking the pages. “I finished this.”

My eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

“Is Portia a cross-dressing fake lawyer?” Ace throws back.

There are explosions in my chest, little fireworks of glee injecting themselves into my bloodstream. “You really read it.”

Ace’s face softens. “I did.”

“I’m proud of you,” I say, my heart swelling with affection. “Maybe you’ll pass the Regents, after all.”

He laughs, throwing his head back. “Yeah, maybe.”

There’s a moment of warm, comfortable silence before Ace breaks it. “I want to ask you something.” For the first time since I’ve met him, he looks bashful. As if he’s somehow nervous to ask me whatever it is.

“Okay,” I say. My pulse is loud in my ears, because Ace is watching me like I’m holding the universe in my hands.