She frowned. “I can’t sit on your lap; your leg isn’t strong enough yet.”
“It’s fine for the moment. Sit.”
She crossed her arms in a huff. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’d swallowed twelve years of medical school overnight.”
“Molly, sit on my fucking lap.”
She didn’t bother to argue again and eased down tentatively, straddling me. I could feel her resting most of her weight on my right leg, and even then it wasn’t that much.
“Mol, I’m good. Sit properly.” She adjusted as I ran my hands up and down her back, needing to touch her skin, trying to memorize the planes of her body. “Okay, I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen until I say you can speak. Understand?”
She looked at me, her lips rolling as she held back a snarky retort, because I knew she’d have one.
“I know that we’re getting used to this new dynamic between us and it’ll take a bit of time, but we’re still Molly and Felix. That hasn’t changed. You’re one of the most important people in my life. The last month when you weren’t speaking to me, I was going out of my mind and I’m not letting you do that again. I know that something was wrong this morning on the phone, which I assume is why you snapped at me before.” She took a big inhale under my hands which were still running over her body. “Your feelings might be more developed than mine and you’ve had more time reconcile them, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have them. I do. But if this is going to work, you need to talk to me, because we have some steps to get through, which we aregoing to get through. So if you’re going to freak out on me every time we’re together, I need to know now so I can deal with it.”
She looked at me in silence, staring and blinking while I waited for her to respond, until I realized what was happening.
Smart-ass little shit.
“You can speak.”
A tiny smirk crept up the corner of her lip. “I’m not freaking out. I mean, I am a bit, but I’m not. Lex, you’re right this is new to you, and to me it’s something I thought about for a long time, thought about what it would be like, but I never expected anything to happen so I pushed it away. And now it’s real, really real, and it’s kind of overwhelming, but that’s not what’s freaking me out. It’s all the other truths in my life.”
“What truths?”
She sucked in her lip, like she always did when she was nervous. “Haven’t you ever wondered why I’ve never brought anyone home? Or talked about guys that I’ve dated? You’ve never seen me with another guy, haven’t you ever thought about why?”
I scanned through my brain. Nope, never wondered. I tried again. No. I hadn’t ever thought about why she had never brought a guy back to meet us. But actually, why hadn’t Molly brought a guy around? Not sure how I’d have felt about that, seeing some douche touching her, taking her home. But there must have been guys, unless… oh shit, is she about to tell me she’s a virgin? No… how the fuck is that possible?
My heart thumped in my chest.
“Why’s your face like that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your face is all screwed up.” She jumped up. “Oh my God, am I hurting your leg? I’m too heavy. I told you.”
“No, no. You’re not too heavy.” I grabbed her, pulling her back onto my lap, pressing my lips to hers, soothing us togetherbecause I needed her to finish her sentence. “Carry on with what you were saying.”
“Felix, haven’t you ever wondered why I’ve never brought a boyfriend home?”
I shook my head, answering honestly. “No. No I never wondered.”
Her chin dropped and I tilted it back up so I could look right into her eyes.
“Mol, I didn’t. I never wondered, because if I actually think about it now, I never wanted to. I had you all to myself. If I’d seen you with another guy, it wouldn’t have taken long until my head exploded. But that’s not what this is about, right?” I took a deep breath. “Tell me why you’ve never brought anyone home to meet us.”
I braced myself, trying to think about the most sensitive response to what she was about to tell me. To what I would do. How I would make it the most perfect experience for her. How I was definitely not worthy.
“Because of my job.”
Her job? What?
“I don’t understand.”
“Lex, I’ve never been able to hold down a relationship. My job is full-on and it puts guys off. They always think it’s fine, but then a month or two months in they can’t cope with the hours I work and it ends. I don’t work the Dolly Parton nine to five. I work seventy hours on a quiet week. Nothing has ever lasted longer than two months,” she cupped my face, “and I’m scared this will happen with us.”
I wanted to laugh with how much unnecessary worry she was carrying but I didn’t think she’d find it as funny as I did, and I wanted to take it all away because her expression was giving me a belly ache.
