She had options. She always had options. Except the option she wanted most.
Dad nodded. “Great game the other night, Finn.” He patted Finn on the shoulder. Finn just smiled and nodded, outwardly ignoring the fact Dad had said the exact same phrase to him at the table.
“Thank you, Sir. It was a fun one.”
“Yeah for you, perhaps.” Molly threw an eye roll. “I had these godawful newbies in front of me. Didn’t know a thing about the game. Kept asking me dumb questions.”
Dad chuckled. “It’s all practice for when you’re a hot shot expert commentator for ESPN, Bug.”
She shrugged off Dad’s resolute belief in her with a dismissive wave. As much as she wanted it, it wasn’t likely to happen. The world of sports commentating was pretty male dominated. A lot of those women who did manage to get their foot in the door were the supporting acts to male stars. If they got lucky enough to headline, it was temporary – until they were too old or too saggy and needed to be replaced by a younger, hotter model.
She followed the men downstairs, rode in silence back to her quiet apartment, stripped off, climbed into bed and grabbed her trusty vibe from the bedside table. The best way to forget about feeling bad was to make yourself feel good.
Chapter 4
Molly
(17 years old - Four Years Earlier)
How the hell had Finn been in college for only a month and had not one, but two leggy, bottle-blonde, scantily clad women dripping from his arms?
Molly took a slug of the beer she’d commandeered from the cooler next to the back door in a bid to wash the bitter taste from her mouth. With a heavy sigh, she dropped onto the very same sun lounger she’d been sitting on when Finn had walked into her life the previous year.
Molly and Will’s parents were gone for the weekend, which – to a bunch of freshmen hockey players – meant only one thing: pool party. Did it matter that it was October in Minnesota? From the ripped, bare chests parading about her parents’ yard, she was gonna go with no.
Despite the chill in the cool fall air, the beautiful women strutted around in bikinis and heels next to the pool. Most of them weren’t her type, but she could still appreciate an attractive woman. Especially when they were scantily clad and didn’t care who saw them. To be fair, she didn’t mind the view.
It wasn’t their coldest fall, but at 70 degrees above the water, Molly didn’t care that their pool was heated. She was snuggling all-the-way up in her well-worn Snow Pirate’s hoodie and jeans, with zero intention of stripping off. She shivered.
There was no way any of the half-naked bunnies draped over hockey players in her backyard were warm. Idiots. She took another drink, knowing she was being unkind to her gender but completely unable to stop herself. Green was an ugly color on her, and she should go apologize to the women whose nipples were almost cutting holes in their bikinis.
Idiots. It wasn’t that Molly didn’t like women or didn’t think women should celebrate their bodies. She did, and she did. It was more the fact they were celebrating quite so loudly near her brother’s best friend. Finn-fucking-O’Brien
Did it help that Molly’s guts were in a tangled knot over the boy? Probably not.
Did it help that said boy had developed into a glorious example of a man and stood less than twenty feet from her, shirtless? Definitely not.
Did it help that upon arrival to the party Will stood at the door glaring at his teammates and snarling, “Stay away from my sister” at each of them? Not in the slightest.
She was a goner for Finn O’Brien, though. It didn’t matter which of Will’s teammates might have wanted to make a move, she only had eyes for one of them. She attempted to convince her eyes to look at something, anything that wasn’t licking every ridged ab on Finn Aiden O’Brien’s body and trailing a line with her tongue along that V leading into his—
“How the hell does Obi do it?”
Molly couldn’t see who had spoken but she held her breath and picked at the label on her beer.
“Do what?”
That voice she recognized. Will wouldn’t mind her having a beer – he was almost as underage as she was – but she tucked the bottle between her thighs all the same.
“He’s got three of the prettiest chicks at the party hanging off him.”
The blondes were multiplying. Finn looked like a young Hugh-fucking-Hefner.
“Yeah. He certainly has a type.” Will’s words coated her like molasses. Sticky, goopy, slow-pouring, and impossible to move through. She swallowed, but his words clogged every pore.
Their voices faded to the buzzing in her ears as she repeated the words over and over in her mind. Finn had a type, and it wasn’t Molly.
Tall, leggy, big-busted, bottle blondes, who probably didn’t know how to spell hockey, let alone follow what happened on the ice.
