My lips tightened with a scowl. “It wasn’t that bad, and anyway, it was so long ago that it’s irrelevant. We’ve only ever been friends.”
I thought about it again. Molly and I had definitely only ever been friends. We didn’t even flirt. That line was drawn in permanent marker and never crossed. We hung out as part of the group and made each other laugh, because she was fucking funny, funniest girl I’d ever met. And she was sweet and kind. And I liked it when she smiled at me. I liked making her smile. But that’s what friends did, right?
I picked up my drink again.
Jupiter looked over at me. “It’s not irrelevant if the feelings never went away.”
“The feelings didn’t go away.” Drew finished his beer then picked up his whiskey, looking at me. “You’ve always been closer to Molly than anyone else has.”
I looked at my empty glass and poured out more. This stuff was going down far too easily.
“That’s not true; she’s close to all of us.”
“Not in the same way as you two. No one else helps her with exams and no one else commissioned a diamond necklace when she passed them.”
Jupiter’s eyes opened wide in amusement as Drew stared me down, daring me to deny it.
“Hey, she didn’t just pass them, she aced them, and I know how hard she worked. Anyway, how do you even remember that?”
“Because I remember how long you spent finding someone good enough to make it. And because she’s never taken it off.”
We all sat there in silence, slowly drinking and contemplating. It was true that she never took it off, I noticed it every time I saw her. It hadn’t become one of those things that faded into the background the more you saw it. No, it sparkled bright. I tried to hold back a smile as a warm fuzziness crept into the pit of my belly, and it had nothing to do with the whiskey.
At least I don’t think it did, but I couldn’t be sure because the bottle was certainly not as full as it had been.
In fact, it was almost empty.
“Does anyone else know?”
Drew shook his head. “I don’t think so, no-one’s ever said anything. Fuck, you and Molly. That would be amazing, two of my favorite people.”
I spun my glass, the toffee-colored liquid almost the exact same shade as Molly’s eyes but without the constant sparkle. I hadn’t thought about it in a while, but I used to wonder what it would be like if she hadn’t been Cooper’s sister… wonder if anything would have happened, if it could have happened. I always reasoned with myself that it would have nosedived pretty quickly because neither of us worked in a career where we had a lot of spare time. As hockey was my life, medicine was hers. And instead, I’d traded the possibility of more for an amazing friendand an extended family. But after the last few weeks, I wasn’t so sure those reasons were still valid.
Or strong enough to hold up.
I ran my finger around the rim of my glass before pointing it up at Jupiter. “Okay, Jupe, let’s go back to this hypothetical situation of yours and say that, hypothetically, if you could be with this person that you hypothetically fucked up with, would you do it?”
“Hypothetically?”
My eyes rolled as I sipped. “Of course.”
He started chewing his lip as he thought. “Yes, I would do anything to get this hypothetical person back.”
I tapped my finger on the table as I thought about it. What to do?
“Well, I can’t figure out anything until I see her, but I currently can’t get closer than a hundred feet before she runs off. And she also said she didn’t have feelings for me anymore.”
Drew scoffed as he topped up our glasses. “Girls always say stuff they don’t mean. And regarding her running away, just get her in a space where she can’t.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t lock her up.”
“Why not?”
Drew and I both stared at Jupiter.
“You know what I mean, get her in a room and lock the door, or stand in the doorway so she can’t escape. Or the back of a car. I dunno. You want to talk to her, right? So you need to take action.”
“Reeves, it’s alarming how quickly you came up with those scenarios.”
