“Yes!” choruses four-fifth of the girls in the back. Claire is pretending to pull up her pink Care Bear socks squished against the window next to Molly. JJ is tying his shoes, looking like a wet weekend in Donegal, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
This is gonna work.
??` ?? ?´?
WHATEVER ULTERIOR MOTIVESI had for bringing the girls’ here—by getting JJ and Claire to stop fighting—are quickly forgotten when Molly is pulling me through aisles and making me hold stuff for her.
The others are scattered elsewhere, maybe in this store and maybe not. I forced JJ to “keep an eye” on Claire, pretending I was none the wiser to their discomfort and Molly pretending to be sympathetic to Claire’s plight, all while sharing a conspiratorial wink with me when they weren’t looking.
We make quite the dynamic duo, a pair of meddling matchmakers with a shared mission.
The whole time Molly is picking things off the rack for me to hold for her (so she can go try them on), I keep wondering if it’s a given we’re going to go to the dance together, or if I need to ask.
Hell, I haven’t even asked to be her boyfriend yet. We’ve never even been on a proper date. We hang out all the time, and usually end up shifting at some point, but it’s not the same thing as bringing her out to dinner or to the cinema or whatever.
It’s all... undefined. A nebulous cloud of feelings that I’m terrified to put a name to in case it all disappears.What if she’s just not ready for that kind of relationship yet?
I don’t want to freak her out with a bunch of questions about our relationship status, about what we are, about where this is going. But I don’t want to go with or even be with anybody else. She’s it for me. I know that with a certainty that scares the shit out of me.
“Hey, Niall?” Molly asks, pulling me from my thoughts. She’s holding up a dark purple dress—something with a satin bodice and a flowing, tulle skirt—against herself.
“Yeah?”
“C'mon, I've asked you the same question a million times already. Yay or nay?"
“Nay,” I say, forgetting what that’s supposed to mean again. I’m too busy staring at the way the purple brings out the blue in her eyes, the way the satin would cling to her curves, my mouth feeling suddenly dry.
She frowns. “You didn’t even look.”
“I don’t need to. You’d look gorgeous in a bin liner.”
Molly rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling, a faint blush creeping up her neck. She shoves the dress back onto the rack. “Another thing I've said a million times, nay means no, yay means yes. Try to keep up.”
Shite.
She grabs a silky lilac-coloured dress next and holds it up. “Yay or nay?”
This time, I look properly, really looking, imagining her in it, the soft fabric pooling at her feet, the straps highlighting her slender shoulders. The colour reminds me of her bedroom walls. “Yay.”
Molly grins, adding it to the growing pile of dresses over my arms. The pile is getting heavy, a rainbow of satin and silk that’s slowly crushing me.
“Do you have a favorite?” I ask, nodding at the heap. It’s a stupid question, I know, but I’m desperate for a way in, a way to talk about this, about us.
“Dunno yet.” She shrugs, her attention already back on the racks, her fingers flying over the hangers. “I’ll know when I try them on.”
“Okay.” I shift my grip on the dresses, trying to keep them from slipping. “So... uh, what's your favorite colour?”
I’d set out to ask her about the dance or maybe our relationship status, but chickened out. Again. The words are there, but they get stuck in my throat, a lump of fear and insecurity.
Molly tilts her head, eyeing me curiously. “Hmm, probably purple.”
“Good, good,” I nod, like this is useful information, like I’m not just stalling.
“What's... your favorite colour?” she asks, still eyeing me strangely as she picks through the racks.
I think of her eyes. “Light blue,” and then before she can say anything else, I ask another stupid, pointless question. “Do you have a middle name?”
“Lynnette. What’s with the twenty questions?”
