He stared at her incredulously as she stood again.
Unlike Becky, she was not nice. Not nice at all. In fact, Molly Dearborn was kind of a bitch. So why was he fighting a grin?
“You’re a piece of work, Dearborn.” He shook his head. “Next time I take you home, I’m stuffing you in the trunk.”
Her eyes rolled heavenward. “Please be realistic, Dean. Basic geometry will inform you that someone of my size won’t fit in your tiny car’s even tinier trunk.”
A bitchanda pedant. She was a goddamn wonder.
“I’ll make you fucking fit,” he told her. “Watch me.”
Her lips twitched, but she clicked her tongue in disapproval. “Threats of violence are beneath you, Dean.”
After getting to his feet too, he leaned in and ran his fingertips lightly over the pink spot near the part of her hair, where their foreheads had collided. No bump yet. He’d have to check again later.
Her breath hitched at his touch, and as soon as he confirmed the lack of swelling, he met her stare directly. From only two inches away.
That pale blue wasn’t icy. It was the center of a flame. The hottest part.
Without conscious thought, he leaned in. A quarter-inch. More.
She didn’t move away. Her soft lips parted, and he let his fingers slide down over her temple, along her silky hairline, until he could cup her warm cheek. He waited a beat more, making sure this was okay with her, and—
The entire pack of junior interpreters skipped into the arbor, giggling and shrieking, before coming to an abrupt halt.
He was going to fucking drop-kick those kids, and no court in this fucking land would convict him.
The moment was gone. He turned to Molly, about to suggest they find a private spot near the canal, but she was already greeting the girls. Next thing he knew, they were walking as a group to the parking lot.
Didn’t matter. He’d call and ask her to prom that night.
But before he could, Becky calledhim. Convinced him things would be different. And yeah, he still wanted to date Molly, but she’d probably say no anyway. Girl like that—strong, confident, take-no-shit—might not want to date anyone. If she did, she’d choose someone who didn’t fuckingheadbutther while trying to ask her out. Definitely someone who could express himself better than he did.
He couldn’t even figure out how to make his first-ever girlfriend love him, and she was already way the hell out of his natural reach, so...
He and Becky were back on.
And once the senior project was turned in, Molly disappeared on him again. They didn’t talk, hardly saw each other. Until the week after prom, when she tugged him aside in homeroom to tell him it was her last day at Harlot’s Bay High. She was leaving. For good. Moving to California with her mom months before she’d planned for reasons she didn’t explain.
“There’s not much schoolwork left. I’ll do it in California and mail it here.” Those pale blue eyes were red-rimmed but dry. Oddly blank too. “And I can graduate without walking across the stage. They’ll send the diploma to me.”
He couldn’t say a word. Not without shouting or—no. He wouldn’t cry.Refusedto fucking cry. So he just glared at her as she tore off a piece of lined paper and wrote her family email address on it.
“Write if you want,” she said, and didn’t bother waiting for a response.
She didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t hug him. Didn’t do anything but press the slip of paper into his palm and walk away.
The right words didn’t filter into his stupid damn brain until much, much too late.
What the hell happened? Are you okay? Will you miss Harlot’s Bay? Will you missme?
I’ll miss you. Doesn’t matter if we haven’t talked in fucking weeks.
He didn’t have the fucking nerve to call and say that before she left, though. Didn’t even have the guts to write it in one of the brief emails he started sending her. Instead, whenever he saw the for-sale sign in front of her home, he got out of the car and kicked it. Then put it back upright again, because he wasn’t a total asshole.
Becky left for Johns Hopkins in late August. Broke up with him the first time she came back home for a visit. Told him she was going somewhere, literally and figuratively, and he wasn’t. She needed a different kind of boyfriend. Someonemorethan him.
He got it. Fucking gutted him, but he definitely got it.
