I surrendered my coat. “Not if that means you think you can talk me out of it. I want to do it. It would help, wouldn’t it? It would help you get to Professor X?”
He cleared his throat. “Well… yes. It probably would. It would actually make it a lot easier to get inside, to get where I need to be.”
“So, then, I don’t see the problem.”
“Well, it might not just be Professor X that takes the fall, Molly. It could be half your family. Your father.”
I lifted my chin. “Good.”
“Hey, maybe you’re angry with him now, but once this ball gets rolling, you’re not going to be able to stop it. He might go to jail for a very long time. He might never get out. That’s not only going to hurt him. It’s going to hurt your mother—”
“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t give a shit about her either. They both deserve it. My family hurts people, and no one cares. My mother least of all. All she cares about is her social life and her anti-depressants. My family kills people.”
He took a deep breath. “But they’re your family.”
“These are the people who are responsible for the death of my best friend. For what happened to Heidi.” I thought about her broken, bleeding body again. My breath caught in my throat.
He was quiet. He hung my coat up. He looked at me. Then he nodded slowly. “Maybe I can see where you’re coming from.”
I gave him a small smile. “And it means we can be together, doesn’t it? It means your cover would be dating me.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I guess it does.”
“It’s the best way for us to do this. You said last night that we were on opposite sides. But if we weren’t… if we were on the same side, then it’s all a little bit less crazy.”
He shook his head at me. “You kind of blow me away, Molly Colligan. This is the bravest, most ridiculous thing ever.”
“But it’s the right thing to do. What my family does is wrong. I don’t want to be part of it anymore.”
He licked his lips. “Molly, If we do this, you’re going to be very part of it. You’re going to have to pretend.”
“I know that.”
“But you still want to.”
“Yes.”
“Even if…” He fixed me with a stare. “Even if this makes things complicated between us? Even if this ends up making it harder for us to be together?”
I chewed on my lip. “I would want to do this regardless. It’s like finding Cori’s killer. I would have done that with or without you.”
“You did do that without me.”
“Well, this is the same thing. It’s not because I want to be with you. It’s because I want to do the right thing. That I get to be with you, well, that’s a bonus.”
He smiled back. “I have to admit that part doesn’t sound like it would suck.”
My smile widened. “Do we kiss now?”
He laughed. “We could do that.”
And I was in his arms.