“I’m the Molly you’ve been going on a date with every Monday,” she said laughing.
“Your voice is. Your glasses. Not your clothes. Even your hair. Or the way you’re carrying your laptop clutched in front of your chest. What am I missing here?”
Shit.
Could it be possible that when she dressed like this she was meeker too. That nice clothes gave her confidence and boring drab ones made her not stand up as tall.
Made her want to be invisible to most.
She knew that was the truth and her only excuse was the fact that if she came in looking like she did with Dean, people would ask questions.
Questions that had simple answers, but ones she didn’t always want to explain either.
The door was shut now and he went to sit down across from her at her desk. Didn’t look like he was leaving anytime soon.
“Oh, I know that’s your name. What I don’t understand is why you look like someone completely different from when I first saw you. Or when you come into the bar on your lunch hour. And it’s not even a little change either. Come on, Molly. I’m not making this up, am I?”
She blew out a breath. Even the days she went to have lunch with him, she strategically planned her wardrobe to do her Clark Kent change. “I can explain.”
“And I expect you to.”
She took a deep breath. “That night in the bar. The first night. It all happened the way I said. I haven’t lied to you. It was a blind date from hell.”
“So you are one person during the day and one person at night?” he asked, his head angled.
“No. Not really. What you see right now, this is who I’vealwaysbeen. I always hated it and always got picked on for it.”
“What? The drab clothing? You look like you said you were in school. Kind of scholarly and nerdy and not wanting to be seen.”
“That’s it,” she said, nodding her head.
“Then why not change? That night in the bar, was that the first time you’d done that? I don’t get it. I don’t get anything right now.”
There was just no way out of this, and she had to be honest.
“I lost a bet with Tonya. She’s the person who told you to come back here. No one knows I’m dating anyone either. I never told her what happened that night. I mean I told her, but not that I ended up in your bar.”
“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” he asked. “People I work with know you’re my girlfriend.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I told them. You come in all the time. You sit at the bar and we spend time together. I didn’t think it was a secret. Jesus, you met my son. Did you want me to be some kind of secret? Is being in a relationship with a bartender not good enough for you?”
Oh God.
This was going south fast.
“No, no, no. You have it all wrong.”
“Then explain it.”
“I’m trying to,” she rushed out to say. “It’s just... I lost a bet, I told you that before, and Tonya made me get a makeover for that date. I ended up in the bar and just thought, wow, wouldn’t it be neat to be the person I look like. The person I always wanted to be.”
“So… you were playing a game?”
“Not really. I guess it was more like a role. I never thought I’d see you again. I went home and was shocked by my behavior. That I even had theconfidenceto do what I always imagined I could. And then I wondered if it was the way I looked that gave me the confidence or if someone like you brought it out of me.”
“What does that mean? Someone like me?”
