Molly kept her smile in place just like Dean suggested she do when Tonya made that comment as she walked past Tonya’s desk later than normal. She’d purposely decided to come in closer to starting work so that she could get it out of the way.
He’d also reminded her that most are being nice, not negative. Just maybe a little surprised is all.
“Do you like it?” she asked. “I guess I decided it was time for a change.”
The lilac-colored fitted pants stopped at her ankles showing how skinny she was. Not scrawny, which she feared, but thin and toned as Dean called her. Her white sweater dipped into a V, but wasn’t revealing either. She had little flats on her feet, not penny loafers, but a cute silver and white print shoe that would go with a lot.
She might alter her wardrobe, but she still wanted her money’s worth and items that could be interchangeable.
“A great change. That pant color is stand up and take notice on you too with your red hair.”
She wrinkled her nose, not sure if that was good or bad. “You didn’t like this color in my shirt,” she said of the shirt she wore last year. One that she’d tossed before Dean showed up on Saturday.
“It wasn’t so much the color but the style. That shirt might have been something my mother would have worn in elementary school. It even had a collar on it that could have passed as a bib. I’ll never forget it.”
She was trying to forget it herself also.
Which begged the question of why she wore it when she didn’t even care for it when she looked in the mirror.
She was going to ask Tonya why she had said nothing before but then realized that Tonya had always made little comments about Molly needing to spruce up her wardrobe. She just wasn’t as nasty about it as Molly might have imagined.
Guess with a new wardrobe and man in her life, she was also growing some thick skin!
And why wouldn’t she?
She’d had the time of her life on Saturday with not only Dean but Jonah.
And when they woke up on Sunday morning, she was with Dean in the kitchen making breakfast.
Jonah came down and saw her there, smiled, said he loved the muffins she’d baked and asked what they were doing for the day.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Man, did it feel that way.
And when it was time to leave for home that afternoon, she hadn’t wanted to go.
Dean didn’t appear he wanted her to either, giving her a long, lingering kiss while sitting in his SUV, her leaning through theopen window. Jonah was in the back giggling and pointing out that his father was kissing someone.
Not in a bad way, more like a four-year-old who found something new to talk about.
“Well, it’s in the trash now.”
“Woohoo. Good for you. Do you have more to go along with today’s outfit?”
“I do,” she said, walking past and trying to go to her office.
Tonya followed right along. “So now that you aren’t avoiding me, do you want to tell me who the hunky man was that came here last week looking to talk to you? I know you’ve been hiding from me, admit it.”
She had been and refused to acknowledge it. “That’s Dean,” she said.
“And does Dean have a last name or a relation to you?”
“Easton.” She reached her office, walked in, and set her purse down, then turned to watch Tonya’s reaction when she said, “And he’s my boyfriend.” There was just dead silence. “What’s the matter? Does the cat in lab four have your tongue?”
“You’re joking, right? That hot, muscle-bound man is your boyfriend?”
“He is. We’ve been dating for well over a month.”
