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“That, and the fact that we are talking about someone who gave you the best possible life she could,” he answers wisely, pausing a second before giving me a glimpse into his life. “My mom married an asshole and was too proud to go after his estate after his secrets were exposed and she was left with nothing. But sheworked her ass off to give us everything we needed. Your mom was having fun and enjoying her life, then, when it mattered, she swallowed her pride and went back to her family.”
“You’re right,” I concede, pulling away from his body and smiling up at him until a goofy expression falls over his face.
“Sorry, you only have eye makeup on one side and its…”
“Oh, shit!” I spin around, forgetting that I had stopped what I was doing. Looking in the bathroom mirror, I can tell my hair is mostly dry at this point, so I won’t be able to do much with it, but I try to ignore that I looked like a clown as I finish up my eye makeup.
“You know I think you’re beautiful, right?” he says from right outside the bathroom.
I blow him a kiss as I stretch my foot back to close the door.
Royce
The sound of Molly singing softly to herself as she finishes getting ready lets me know that she’s trying to calm herself. It’s no mystery as to what has her revved up and I try to figure out how I should play this.
When she walks out of the bathroom, Molly runs her hand through the fresh curls in her hair. “I’m ready when you are.”
“What do you think about staying in tonight, Molly?” I cautiously ask her.
“No. I’ve been looking forward to this all week,” she answers, crossing the small space and sitting on my lap. “And honestly, it’ll help me get my mind off of this.”
She waves her hand in the direction of the café downstairs and I can’t help but to lean in for a kiss, my eyes widening when she slaps her hand over my mouth.
“No! You cannot mess up my lipstick,” she exclaims, then lowers her voice. “Until later.”
“I make no promises about your lipstick, but yeah, let’s get going,” I concede. Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed that she was wearing any since I’m used to seeing bright red shades on the women who party at the clubhouse.
There’s a fairly decent band that focuses on ‘80s and ‘90s music that’s playing about an hour from here, and I know she was excited about seeing them, but that was before my brothers dropped a pretty heavy bomb on her.
Molly’s most vivid memories of her mom seem to be strongly connected to the time they spent in the kitchen and her mom’s favorite music. I’m not sure Molly realizes how often she hums the old songs while she’s baking or when she gets anxious about something.
In that context, I should have figured that the last thing she’d want to do is cancel tonight’s plans.
*
Later, as we slide into bed, I ask her the question that’s been bothering me lately.
“Why don’t you ever make plans with me?”
“What do you mean? We had plans tonight,” she answers, her lips moving across my shoulder toward my neck.
“I made the plans. You respond to my texts and all, but you never reach out to me or ask me to do anything with, or for, you.” I lean back to study her face, which she is keeping carefully blank.
Christ, even to me, my words sound needy.
“I never had the impression that you liked women chasing you,” she says with a sigh when I don’t let her distract me with a kiss.
“And if I didn’t call you?” My voice is sharper than I intended, and I catch the barest flash in her eyes before she looks down, shielding her emotions.
Our heads are less than a foot apart on the pillow, but we’re suddenly in a standoff. Molly doesn’t look back up or say anything and I keep opening my mouth, trying to figure out what tack to take because I want to have this conversation without pushing her away.
“I thought we agreed we’re dating.” I settle on those words, stroking the side of her face and hoping she’ll look back up at me.
“Not seriously.” Her voice sounds like she’s being strangled. It suddenly feels like the blood is draining from my heart and landing like a lead weight in my stomach. “You just wanted to say that to your mom.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
