5:05 pm Wednesday – 11 April 2007

"I've seen a couple'a your movies," Molly said. She glanced to Odin, but she was mostly driving. Given she was a college student, in terms of social acceptability, her car probably could've been a lot messier, but it was still far from clean.

"Yeah?" What am I, a filmmaker? Media major? Or do I just like it?

"Yeah," she said. "My favorite's the…" She laughed. "The action one."

Odin didn't even have to think (although that wouldn't've done any good). "Migraine?" just came out, like the Grindhouse stuff.

"Yeah!" She glanced between him and the road like she was trying to remember something, then, lightbulb: "I liked the action a lot, but what I really got into was the romance stuff. Nice sex scene, by the way."

He almost blushed, grinning. Well, maybe he blushed, but when Molly looked at him, her reaction didn't say "you blushed." Odin said, "Most people don't really like that. Then again I normally only hear from guys."

"Girls are too shy to say anything to you?"

"Yeah. Cuz I'm so imposing."

He looked a lot shorter than her, the way she was sitting straight and he was sitting with a slouch.

She laughed. "Something about you really is kinda intimidating."

"What is it?" Odin found it hard to believe that, although she sounded like she completely meant what she said.

"I dunno. You have kind of an intense…gaze. You don't really look away the way most people do."

"Interesting you should say that. I remember thinking about it today." Do I? "Like…I was on my way to the library earlier, in the walkway – the skinny one? Where if you walk sloppily you could bump into somebody going the other way?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, as you well know, it's hard not to notice people coming or going in that. I don't always look at people going the opposite way as me, but I never look down. Most of the people I passed by on my way into the library, I don't know what to do, either completely avoided looking at me, but I know they did cuz you can always see the eye-flick, or they looked down." How did I just know that?

"I usually kinda look around. But I know what you mean."

"Yeesh. Yeah." Odin loved the way she smiled at him, then looked back at the road. Her lips looked awesome. And they were. "It's like…by not meeting my gaze, they're submitting, but…to what? To the shortish hot guy?"

"Maybe so."

"It's just silly. I get the sense that maybe it's human nature, or maybe it's not, but…if it's some societal thing, like, in The Olden Days, whatever they were, if looking straight into somebody's eyes meant it was a challenge, wouldn't we've dropped that? It's kind of understood that you're not supposed to penetrate anybody's aura, but a look? I don't get it."

"I don't either, but…I think maybe it's just cuz I'm appreciating how hot you are."

"Thank you, Molly."

"Not a problem."

5:36 pm Wednesday – 11 April 2007

"Do you wanna, like, watch a movie or something?" Molly asked, setting things down in places like she'd done it daily for most of her time at Biskind. She lived in an apartment with a friend named Polly, who was not there. The place looked very much poor-college-students-with-no-time-to-paintesque, with kind of an off-the-line off-white paintjob on the walls, a white kitchen with a white and green faux-marble floor and a really cool wooden-topped island, a crappy but soft enough beaten-down splotchy gray-white carpet, like to conceal hairs, dirt, dust and most small pieces of anything else that fell onto it. There was a poster about 10 feet in, on the left wall before it turned into an outcove with entry to both bedrooms, featuring some very high-ceilinged ancient Egyptian interior scene with maybe 10 explorers wandering about, pointing at things. Odin kind of wanted to be wherever those people were.

"Sounds great."

"Good," Molly said, setting her keys and purse down in an island table in the apartment. The kitchen was immediately to the right of the entrance, and the table was in that. Odin felt very uncomfortably like a voyeur, in the little entrance hallway, watching her, but her body language said she was coming right out. Being busy untying his fancy, a-little-too-worn-in brown Mexico '66s helped a little, but…come on. "There's nothin' to do around here."

Implying we can't make out for awhile, or that we should?

"What's our selection like?" Odin asked.

Molly moved into the living room, just outside the kitchen. To the left were two bedrooms. Past the living room was a patio large enough to sunbathe on, with walls high enough for people in the patios not to be spied upon. Not easily, anyway. Molly looked strange carrying her backpack into the living room and setting it down as Odin followed, slowly, taking in all he could and waiting for her to suggest what he was free to do.

"Not bad. We have a lotta poppy stuff, but a lot of it's good. Then we have some of our individual taste stuff. I hate romantic comedies – like, Adam Sandler stuff. I like Happy Gilmore a lot, but after that I got tired of it."

"I think I know what you mean. And Click was just awful." His phone vibrated as he spoke. That's three.

"Yeah, it was," Molly said, in complete agreement, with relief, like he was the first person to agree.

"I'm kind of a closet-Christopher Walken fan, but he didn't save it for me. I liked that he kinda reprised his role from that prophecy movie, but…I threw up when I saw that."

"How'd you see it?" Molly asked, standing a few feet in front of him, like she either wanted to go sit on the couch behind her or like she wanted him to move closer to her.

He fidgeted with his phone like he'd been too spaced-out to move closer, which was kind of true anyway, then moved closer to Molly, saying, "At the budget place in Courtland. It cost like $2."

"Still too much?"

"Yes." He felt that was about close enough. Few feet.

She giggled nervously. "Do you wanna sit down? I'll pick what to watch, or you can, and I won't make you try to guess how close to me to sit."

"Sounds good." He couldn't thank her, but he could try to include that in his tone, so he did.

She smiled, one of those heartfelt kinds. Why did her lips have to be so appealing? "Great. Sit wherever you want." She gestured like she knew he didn't need her to, but like she was that nervous.

"I will." She started moving for the TV, he started moving for the couch. "I'm also gonna turn my phone off. If you hear a flip, it's not me texting somebody."

She looked back just to smile at him, locks of her hair hanging over her face. He wanted to kiss her right then. That would be too fast, wouldn't it? What kinda girl is Molly, anyway? Odin wondered.

5 New Messages.

Exit – Read

He chose to exit.

"Oh! Hang on. Don't turn your phone off. I need your number," Molly said.

She dashed to her backpack. Although he kind of liked it, Odin felt guilty for watching her breasts bounce on the journey.

5:38 pm Wednesday – 11 April 2007

"Thanks," he said, selecting "store."

"How do I look?" asked Molly.

He studied it – the sharp-looking, 640x480 pixel JPEG, shrunken to display on his phone's LCD screen, saying, "Hang on a second. Sometimes they look perfect in the preview thing, but when I check 'em later they're all blurry." Really?...The hell…?

Molly put her hand on his thigh. Midway, on the top.

"How many seconds do I hafta hang on for?" She acted eager. Odin couldn't tell how much of an act that was versus how much of an excuse it was for her to touch him.

He thought about that, cycling between phone-menus. "As long as you want." Should I tell her to pull me out?

She giggled. Rubbed with her thumb. Her other hand was on her thigh, and she was was wiping sweat off her palm. It seemed like that, and the hand on his thigh was about that warm, and his hands were nearly sweating too. Whatever that said about how they felt about each other, Odin didn't want to know. It does not take this short an amount of time.

She said "Fair enough."

Seconds later Odin was sure the picture turned out great. Normally, it would've taken longer, but he focused on the phonework as much as he could so he wouldn't enjoy what she was doing too much.

"Done," he said.

Her hand left him.

"How do I look?" Molly asked, sitting up.

He shifted his gaze from his phone's display screen to her, straight into her eyes. "Beautiful." He was afraid that would come out like he was just complimenting her, in some shallow way. It didn't come out in some shallow way.

She smiled. The way she did it said she wanted to say something in response, but something about the way he said "beautiful" threw her off, made her forget or throw out her plan.

"Wanna see it?" he asked.

"Sure." Glad for the out he offered.

He moved his phone-hand toward her with the intent to show her. She could let him do it alone or she –

Yep.

She put both her hands on his and guided him in from the halfway point in his motion.

Another huge smile. One he'd earned. For all the time he'd known her nobody else had made her smile that way. Not that he'd seen any of her friends. Fuck, she doesn't have a boyfriend or something, does she? I want that.

"Have you seen my Facebook or anything?"

"No."

"I have some pictures of me there, and…I don't look this good in any of them. How'd you do that?"

"I'm just good."

"You are, Odin. What can I say." He realized her tone was noticeably softer now than it had been anywhere else. Maybe it was a comfort zone thing.

A silence for a few seconds. He thought she was going to do something. Maybe she was waiting for him to tell her he was giving her an opening. Odin said, "You could thank me."

She smiled. "I will. Come here."

He did, but, a little nervous about whatever she was going to do, got silly about it. Stuck his cheek out toward her, getting his face pretty close.

She put her hands on his face gingerly, one of them partially on his lips, pulled him in and slapped a big smooch on his cheek. It was wet and loud and great.

He came away smiling. "You're welcome." FUCK! I should've kissed her. She's not gonna wanna kiss again.

They stared into each other. He couldn't tell how she felt about it, but he felt like she was looking inside of him. Like somehow his pupils opened and linked them spiritually, and that in a certain ethereally beautiful alternate dimension, their spirits compared notes. "You liked Zoolander? Fuck, I did too. The funny stuff, at least. 'You've done NOTHING!'" "I didn't know anybody else had simultaneously soft and dry skin!" "Nobody likes speed limits." And things deeper that words not only couldn't describe but that words couldn't even hint at. Odin felt Molly's heart beating…unless it was just that loud.

"Want me to pick out a movie?" came out of nowhere, but from Molly, with a nervous taint. Odin was getting a little nervous too. He liked feeling that, but it was also scary, like maybe something would split them up tonight and they'd never have it again…so why get used to it?

"Sure!" Odin said. She got up, sticking her ass – her perfectly-rounded, perfectly-highlighted-by-those-jeans ass – in his face, and not only that, but she side-stepped in front of him to get around the coffee table between them and the entertainment center. It was completely unnecessary because the path without him in the way was a lot shorter than that one. "Did you have anything in mind?"

"Nope," she said, her backside pointed his way like she was aiming it. Light from outside falling on and bouncing off of her made her not only look angelic, but angelic and hot. He wanted to compliment her on that, badly. "You?"

"Similarly, nope. I'm so sorry." He turned his phone off, now that he remembered to. "I just turned my phone off."

"Are you sure you didn't text anybody?"

"Yes. Pretty much. No. Yes. Kind of."

She turned around and looked at him. An accusation. As soon as he was in her peripheral vision he tossed his phone to the side, looked around innocently. "Oh hey," he said, because he'd just noticed that she was watching him and everything. "I didn't notice that you were looking or anything a couple seconds ago."

"Odin, you're insane."

"Am I Odin, or am I your king?"

"Can't you be both?"

"Not to you."

She smiled. He didn't really know if that meant something, and she didn't either, but she liked it. He grinned to try to say what he felt about it. Maybe that's what her smile meant too.

"Okay. My king, you're insane."

"Duly noted." He clapped like he was ordering something. "To work, Miss Molly."

"Call me Miss Owen."

"Are you sure? It sounds less silly than 'Miss Molly'."

That look. He wasn't particularly close to her and thus couldn't appreciate the look as much as it deserved to be appreciated, but he could still feel it. With a warm voice, she said, "I'm sure."

He waited a second to savour The Look, then: "Miss Owen, get back to work."

"I'm sorry, my king!" And all the while, quietly urging her curvy body at him when she could. She was good at it – not once did it actually look deliberate, until – Whoop, thought Odin, grinning when she bent over, way too slowly. During:

"I'm an important man."

"Ah! I'm so sorry!"

"Faster!" He made a bullwhip sound.

She arced her back. "Ah no!"

"Yes! The whip!"

She pretended she was in an adrenaline-fuelled state of fear, unnecessarily dropping and fumbling with DVD cases, saying, "Not the whip! Never again!"

"Just pick a movie! I don't want to hurt you!"

She looked back at him. "You don't?"

"…No, I do, I was just…I was just…trying to…" With shifty, submissive eyes. Then he snapped them back to hers. "Stop stalling!" He raised his arm.

"Oh no!"

She grabbed a DVD case like she'd known all along she'd pick that one, but wanted to have fun with the kingthing for awhile.

5:44 pm Wednesday – 11 April 2007

Sitting very close to Odin, Molly kind of wiggled her ass into the couch. It was the kind of couch that, while not too soft, could hold maybe five or six people in it pretty comfortably. It was also huge, and Odin was afear'd Molly wouldn't sit next to him. When she did, so close their thighs touched, it suddenly became much easier to breathe.

"I hate DVD ads and stuff," she said. "Is it okay with you if I skip 'em?"

"Instead of answering directly, I'm going to let you in on a secret. If that doesn't work, gladly, I'll answer your question to the extent of my ability to. Okay?"

"Sounds great."

"The hint is this: I also hate DVD ad stuff."

She smiled. "I am so happy I could kiss you!"

She pressed the DVD player remote's skip button. "And…and you're just not gonna do it like that?" Odin asked. He wasn't done but Molly looked to him, as he spoke, like she was going to interrupt. "Miss Owen, you are cold as ice!"

She laughed, and looked at him like she wanted to rip his shirt off. Then back to the TV.

It's too big a risk. Go for her off-hand first.

Fuck that. I've lost less than two hours to this girl, and I really like her. If she really likes me, if it's too far, she'll just tell me.

Odin put his arm around Molly's waist. It was slimmer than he thought it'd be. Her t-shirt was pretty loose – tight enough to make stretched-out lines between her breasts, but it was more or less a tube, and it didn't close enough around her hips and waist to show their approximate dimensions, so his expectations were ones he'd extracted, and they were wrong. His guess aside, it was glorious.

Not to mention that she responded positively.

Odin had about half a second to appreciate how nice her waist and hips felt in his arm before Molly leaned INTO him. They fit perfectly; odd considering she was taller than him. Her hair ticked his neck, made him grin, and Odin hoped that didn't feel weird to Molly – the girl with her head in the spot from his shoulder to his neck.

Her arm started moving behind him like she wanted to place it somewhere. He let go of her to give her space. She put her arm around his waist, and now his arm wouldn't fit around hers. So it went to her shoulder, around her back. That felt better. They fit better.

She skipped more ads. She kept pressing the menu button, which kept not doing them any good.

"I really hate DVD ads," Odin said. Molly laughed, he assumed at what he said. Odin wanted her to laugh at how he said it, because somehow, something John Hammond said in JurassREDic Park – Steven Spielberg's film adaptation – jumped into his mind, and he impersonated Hammond's actor, Richard Attenborough, as best he could when he spoke.

"Me too, darling."

She sure enjoyed that.

Odin giggled.

After a second, Odin thought of something: "We're not gonna horror-out, are we?"

"What do you mean?" Molly said, reaching under his shirt and scratching at his back.

"I haven't seen it, so I may be…quite wrong, but…Texas Chainsaw Massacre's the same kinda movie Hills Have Eyes is, right? I mean the remakes. I haven't seen the original Chainsaw Massacre."

Molly looked up at him, twisting around oddly. Not oddly. Odin just hadn't been that close to anybody in awhile. It felt good, but unfamiliar. "I don't think it's possible to horror out."

"Good." She smiled. Odin continued, "I don't think it is either, but I wasn't thinkin' for me."

She pondered that. Why do I talk funny?

Molly grinned. "You're so sweet!" She kissed the bottom of his chin. Another wet detach-smack, another time Odin loved being alive.

"I'm glad I'm so sweet," he said.

"Me too," she said, back in her old position, not looking at him, but still very close.

5:57 pm Wednesday – 11 April 2007

"I don't know your roommate at all. Is she gonna be okay with me here?"

"You're fucking right she is," Molly replied, still seeming fond of Odin's holding her, still seeming fond of givin' his back some lovin' with her nails. They were short, but long enough to scratch something. "And if she's not I'll crush her."

"Miss Owen, are you a fan of Borat?"

"My king, I am a fan of Borat."

"When's the first time you saw it? Or any Ali G Show stuff."

"I never saw that. I would always see, like, a snippet, but I never paid attention."

"Did you have HBO in here or something?"

"No. Guys would have the DVD and stuff like that, they'd be watching it when we hung out, but I'd be talking or something." She got a little hesitant when she said "guys," like she wanted to, but wouldn't, say "I've had plenty of boyfriends before, but I'm yours now. I promise."

"Ah so, that's why."

"What?"

"I just wanted to use the expression." He grinned, then, in kind of a crazy high-pitchedish Southerner voice, "Don't pay it no mind."

Molly laughed.

"Is there anything I need to know about your roommate? I feel like she's gonna come in, see me and get mad or interrogate me or something."

"Don't worry about it." She patted his chest goofily, but a little more softly than she needed to. Odin assumed he was not supposed to react, so he did his best "indifferent" impression.

He saw his phone receiving another message. He'd lost track, and forgotten that he put it on silent mode as opposed to…off-mode, but he wasn't about to shrug the image of femininity off him to turn a fucking cellphone off. No matter how much cooler RAZRs were than all other cellphones. Well, it wasn't that bad an idea.

"Odin."

For his attention. He looked at her.

"You with me?" She put her hand on his face.

"Yeah."

"You looked kinda spaced-out. Are you okay?" asked Molly.

He thought about it. "I'm great."

"No you're not." She sat up, looked straight at him. She held his face with both hands. "What is it?"

"I don't know. Something feels off."

"Can I do anything for you?"

That snapped him out of it somehow, but instead of letting her see that in his eyes, he snap-looked down to her breasts. A second. Two.

Odin looked back up to Molly. "What?"

She laughed.

She kissed him on the lips. Another smooch, but he felt the wet part this time. He responded as he could.

"I'm glad I helped," she said, like she felt like kind of a tool. She let go of his face.

"You know I was kidding, right?"

"Yeah."

He put his hand on her face. "I like you," Odin said. "I'm not one'a those guys who's into breasts or asses or legs or anything." He tried to switch his voice into melodramatic/grizzled warrior mode, like he was doing a film trailer voiceover: "Got it?"

She smiled. "I got it."

9:46 pm Wednesday – 11 April 2007

"I always get plenty'a patients and shit like that, right? But there were a whole fuckin' lot today. I mean, there's a whole lot, and there's a whole fuckin lot, and this was a whole fuckin' lot."

"Where do you work? A hospital?" Odin asked.

"Yeah." Speaking: Molly's friend Darryl Waddell. Molly's roommate, Pollyanna Oakley, was also in the gang, but she was a little quieter, maybe self-conscious because of the only guy present. She took a bite of her macaroni & cheese. A big one.

Everybody waited for Darryl to inhale a little. Polly looked like she couldn't care less whether she said anything. Molly looked like she wanted to apologize to Odin for making him be with her friends. Odin just wanted to learn as much as he could about whatever he could, be friends with Molly's friends, and at the top of the list, not be bored and uncomfortable.

"Why were there so many people there?" Odin asked.

"You got me. I know there've been complaints of dog attacks 'n' shit lately, but, it's like, how could dogs – a few or many of them, even – take out that many people? I didn't keep track but we must'a had like 200 fuckin' people there tonight. We normally get plenty, like over 100, but past the 200 point it's a noticeably larger influx."

"That's what I was gonna say!" Odin said. "You got any guess? I'm guessin'…'Not really'."

"Yeah," Darryl said. Sip of her drink. "It's gonna bug me for months, though, unless we should happen to fall on the answer."

"You could just say 'It's the al-Qaeda!' and get the FBI to do all your work."

Laughs from everybody at the table. It wasn't that funny. Darryl giggled earnestly, but Polly kind of forced it out, like to tell Odin it was okay to ask her stuff, and Molly was just radiating Guilty.

"Guess so," Darryl said.

"You got any guesses?" Odin asked Molly. Under the table they were holding hands. Occasionally, Molly'd eat a French fry or something like that, or Odin would take a drink from his large water glass, but Darryl was basically the only person eating.

"None. I guess it could always be Martians doing things unspeakable."

"She's got it," Odin said, looking from her to Darryl. He looked to Polly, too, saying "She figured it out." They were in a booth at a '50s-style diner in the kind of large square space not associated commonly with '50s diners, but the decoration was pretty '50s. And the hamburgers seemed appropriately old.

"I'm glad," Polly said.

Another goddamn silence.

"Does anybody mind if I tell a story?" Odin asked.

"Not at all," Molly said.

Odin looked to Polly and Darryl.

Darryl shrug/gestured "go ahead" and Polly said "I'd love to hear one."

"Good," Odin said. "Now, two stories come to mind. I'd like to tell the longer one, but if anybody gets tired of it, let me know. Switching without transition to the second will be no challenge." He looked to everybody. "Is that clear?"

"We're all gonna like it," Polly said, like, "Of course."

"I can pretty much promise that," Molly said.

Darryl began, "I–"

Odin cut her off: "I don't care."

She laughed. Throughout the night he'd established he cared about everything everybody had to say, very clearly.

"I call this 'Clever Student.'

"Now, as far as I know, this is a question from a University of Washington test. The question is this, and it's a bonus question: 'Is Hell exothermic,' meaning it gives off heat, or 'is it endothermic,' meaning, Does it absorb heat?

"Most of that professor's students wrote proofs using Boyle's Law, which has it that gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed, or something like that. Now, the reason this story came to me, is that one student wrote what I'm going to share with you three.

"'First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time,' wrote the student. Because of that, we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving it. I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, we'll look at the world's current religions. Most of them state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions, and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

"'With our birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

"'Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell, because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately, as souls are added. This gives us two possibilities:

"'1: If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

"'2: If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

"'So which is it?"

Odin made relatively clear that he wasn't done speaking, which was good because even with that Polly made motions to answer.

He took a long swig of water. This was a lie; he wanted to know how the story was going over. Molly and Polly were positively into it, and Darryl had been looking away from him to eat much less often than she had in any flashfight-conversation they'd had previously in the restaurant. He could –

"To continue: 'If we accept the postulate given to me by Nicole during my freshman year that "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then Possibility Number Two must be true, and thus, I am sure that Hell is exothermic, and has indeed already frozen over.

"'The corollary of this theory is that since Hell is frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore extinct...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a diving being, which explains why, last night, Nicole kept shouting "Oh my God."'"

An eruption of laughter, even from people around them Odin had not noticed watching him. At the reactions of those people, he flinched.

10:32 pm Wednesday – 11 April 2007

"Are you sure you had to do all the push-ups and stuff?" Molly asked.

"Yeah," he said, obsessive-compulsively checking the foot of Molly's bed to make sure the big yellow "Play Golf!" shirt she was loaning him was still there. "Is it okay if I go wash my face?"

"But I'll miss you."

"Baby, I'll miss you too."

Didn't take long.

Molly said, "I missed you so much, sweetie! Jump in next to me!"

"How literally do you mean that?" Odin asked.

"Don't jump really hard or anything, but…pretty literally."

He leaned back a little to get more out of his jump, then went for it. He chickened out at the end and jumped with much less force than he originally meant to jump with.

Odin skidded, but landed pretty well, just short of Molly's face. He bumped into her pleasantly.

"Nice jump, honey," she said, waiting for him to crawl up to her a little. When he did – which took about two seconds – she rolled from her back to her side and threw her outside leg over his inside leg. Him being on his chest.

"Thank you."

She held his chin and kissed him softly, and kept her face very close to his afterward.

"You're welcome." Before he could ask himself, mentally, "Why does she like kissing me so much?" Molly asked, "Can I lay on you? I want you on your back."

"Fair enough."

They shifted. It felt great in a couldn't-really-be-duplicated kind of way. She slid most of her body onto him, he pulled sheets up and over most of their bodies, she made their leg feel like one, she poured her arms over him, he put an arm on her shoulders and back and slid it around in a random but repeating, soft pattern. Molly seemed fond of it, smiling at certain points and eventually in anticipation of those certain points.

"This is unfair," she said, resting her head sideways on his chest and looking up into his eyes. Molly was close – she could stick her tongue out and hit his lips. "I've known you for like six or seven hours and I like you more than most'a my friends." She waited for a second. He liked how sometimes while she was talking she'd rest her chin on his neck and bob her head. She added, "Friends I've known for most of my life."

Drawing a finger up her spine slowly, hardly letting it touch her, Odin said, "That's not unfair. We're totally supposed to be like this. However it is."

She smiled. "You're right," Molly said. "You always are."

He got the crazy eyes. The kind of crazy only kings possessed. Gruffly: "And don't you forget it."

"I won't, baby! I'm so sorry!"

He narrowed those crazy eyes. She gasped.