“You remember how I said I didn’t believe in love?”

He gave an uncertain nod.

“That was a lie.” I forced myself to look up at him again. “My perception of love was a little bit screwed—I guess seeing your parents fight every day kind of messes with your head like that, but . . . I did believe in it. I just didn’t believe that I would ever get to receive it, and especially not from someone like you.”

“We already talked about this,” Jasper muttered, squeezing my hand a little tighter. “I told you I liked you, no matter how strange you think you are—”

“I know. It just . . . never fully sank in. There was always this voice in my head that told me sooner or later everything would go to shit and you’d realize you didn’t actually like me like that.”

Even as I said it, the images of skeletons and cobwebs and dark basement corners seemed to fade away. Bet you didn’t expect this, did you, you stupid fucking skull. Quietly, I continued, “It only really clicked when I saw how hurt you were after you’d read the article. And at that point I felt like it was already too late; in my mind, it just proved that I didn’t deserve to be with you because sooner or later I’d fuck it up anyway.”

“But you didn’t,” Jasper said. “Amelia did, mostly. And our lack of communication, but that was mutual. We were both overdramatic idiots.”

“I guess,” I murmured. Smiling felt strange after hours of self-loathing and anxiety, and that was without the bloody near-death experience. “So . . . are we going to try again? With more communication and less crippling self-doubt this time?”

Jasper swallowed, like he still couldn’t truly believe it. “Really?

You’d want that?”

“Of course,” I whispered. “I like you. Like, proper like you.

Like you so much I sometimes can’t think around you and I feel like I’m being electrocuted or like I swallowed a tornado or the bloody sun or . . . yeah. Something like that.” I broke off, cheeks flushed as I prayed that Jasper was so high off his ass from his medicine that he wouldn’t remember this one bit.

Jasper let out a quiet laugh, only wincing a little bit as he did.

In a terrible imitation of my accent—which, to my horror, I found endearing rather than insulting—he said, “I proper like you too. And I would love to try again. And again and again and again, if that’s what it takes to get it into your thick head that I’m serious about this.”

“Okay,” I breathed. “But only if you promise not to get yourself almost killed again. And to stay far away from kitchen knives.

And sharp objects in general.”

“I’ll try.” He yawned quietly, turning his head a little farther so his cheek was squished into his pillow. “I don’t like being in the middle of one of your detective cases very much, I think.”