Page 17 of Letters to Molly (Maysen Jar 2)

It was mostly junk mail. Everything would be tossed into the trash except for one bill from the power company.

And a letter.

I turned the white envelope over in my hand. There was no return address. There wasn’t a stamp. The handwriting on the front wasn’t familiar. I slid my finger into the corner to tear open the top but stopped when a horn beeped behind me.

“Sorry,” I said to the car behind me and drove ahead, getting out of the school’s loop. Then I set off across town toward the restaurant.

As I drove, I continued to glance at the letter in my lap. I so badly wanted to open it, but I also wanted to arrive at work alive, so I waited, resisting the urge to dive in at a stoplight. Instead, I took one of the hair ties from my wrist.

My hair was so full and thick, I quickly stretched out the elastic ribbon I preferred to wear, which meant I had to keep a backup or two handy. I gathered up my curls and was in the middle of tying them into a bun when the neon-green band snapped.

No. My stomach dropped.

My grandma had died of a heart attack the day a hair tie had broken. My car, the one before Beluga, had been sideswiped in the grocery store parking lot after a hair tie had broken. And Finn and I had signed our divorce papers the day a hair tie had broken.

There were other, more minor examples, but these broken hair ties had become an omen. On the days they didn’t just stretch but actually broke, bad found me. God, I hoped today was just a flat tire or a shitty time at work.

My eyes dropped to the letter. Was it the bad thing headed my way?

The sinking feeling continued all the way to work, and the second I had the Jeep parked, I tore into the envelope.

The envelope’s handwriting was unfamiliar. But the script of the actual letter was unmistakable. Finn was the only one who drew the first peak of the M in Molly that way.

Even with the college-ruled paper firmly in my grip, I had to read the letter twice before my brain registered it as real. The letter was short, only taking up about half a page.

Finn had written this fifteen years ago. He’d written me a letter after our first date and never sent it.

I just might have to marry you.

Those words jumped out even as I read them for a third and fourth time.

He’d married me, all right. He’d divorced me too.

How long had it been since I’d seen the name Molly Todd? How long had he kept this letter to himself? And why would he give it to me now?

My fingers dove into my hair. What was happening?

In a flash, my phone was in my hand and I’d pulled Finn’s name up on the screen. But I couldn’t bring myself to call.

I wanted answers. But I wasn’t ready to talk to Finn yet. Not after last night.

Instead, I tucked the letter into my purse and got out of the Jeep, heading into the restaurant.

The rear entrance to the restaurant was for employees only and it led right past the office and into the kitchen. I set my purse inside the office and came into the kitchen. Poppy was at the large stainless steel table in the center.

“Morning.” She smiled, her hands covered in flour as she rolled out a large oval of pie crust.

“Morning.”

“So? Tell me about last night.”

My jaw dropped. “What? How did you know?”

Damn it, Finn. Couldn’t he have kept last night to himself? Or at least have given me a warning that he was going to tell his sister we had sex?

Poppy gave me the side-eye. “Because you told me.”

“I did?” Maybe I was still drunk from last night. “When?”