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Grant looked up at his friend, who was standing at the sliding door with his backpack slung over one shoulder. “Nope. We got it from here. See you tomorrow.”
Mateo held up a hand in a wave and disappeared through the door, and when Grant looked back, Molly was already walking away. “I’d better get started on my stuff too, if there’s any hope of me getting out of here at a decent hour.”
“Right,” Grant said, trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened. “Well, I’m here if you need anything.”
She paused, halfway to the building, and turned to him. “Thanks. You’re a great friend, Grant.”
Friend. There was that word again. While he loved being Molly’s friend, that wasn’t where he’d seen tonight going.
Molly sat on a stool in the vet suite, staring at the same page of Hope’s chart that’d been on the screen, for the last fifteen minutes. What was she doing?
There was absolutely nowhere else in the world she’d rather be than on the deck of Grant’s boat, laughing under the stars as the waves provided the background music. Really, there were few places in the world she wouldn’t want to be as long as Grant was there with her.
The problem wasn’t the company or the location, it was the words that would be said. Yes, she was well aware that their relationship had flown right past friends and had settled somewhere in romance-land. It wasn’t where she thought they’d end up when she’d walked into his rehab center two months ago, but now that she was here, she wasn’t overly opposed to it. In fact, she kind of liked the place where she’d landed. If everything could stay exactly as it was, she wouldn’t have a problem with dinner now or any night in the future.
But it couldn’t stay the same. That night on the dance floor, the thing that had shifted was awareness. One almost-kiss had made her achingly aware of where this was heading. This wasn’t the casual train. This train was headed toward forever. Wedding bells and picket fences were on this route. Okay, maybe not picket fences. Grant seemed more like the-world-is-my-backyard kind of guy, but same difference.
And while she wasn’t fundamentally against those things—in fact, the opposite was true—she wasn’t sure that washerfinal destination.
She’d taken that train before, and it had ended in a near-fatal blow to her heart. She felt certain she wouldn’t be able to last a second blow. Of course she didn’t think that was where this was going, but no one anticipated heartbreak. Love was always a risk. If you let yourself fall, there’s always the chance you’d hit the ground.
And that was precisely why she had to say no to dinner. Until she’d figured out what she wanted, she couldn’t go any farther. As much as she wanted to be with him, it wasn’t fair to Grant for her to stay on this train with no intention of going where he wanted to end up. That’s how people got hurt, and the one thing she wasn’t willing to risk was Grant getting hurt.
“Stay on or get off.” It was a simple enough choice, but considering how opposed she was to either option, she wasn’t sure how she’d make the decision.
Chapter Nineteen
“Today’s the day!” Hadley heraldedthe words as she passed Molly the first latte Saturday morning.
“Are you so excited? I mean, I know it’s thrilling for all of us who get to cheer on this turtle, who’s like our town mascot. But I can’t imagine how you feel.” Ellyn accepted the mug with both hands and took a sip.
“Honestly, it’s a little bittersweet.” Molly took her cup from Hadley. “I couldn’t be happier to see her go home, but I’m going to miss her more than I thought I would.”
That seemed to be a theme running through her life at the moment. Her stop here was always meant to be temporary. There was literally an end date before she’d ever shown up. But knowing a goodbye was coming didn’t make it any easier.
“Send-off is at two, right?” Ellyn asked.
“Yup. As long as everything goes according to plan, the turtle should be in the water at two o’clock.”
“What kind of things wouldn’t go according to plan?” Hadley asked.
“No idea. I thought we just put the turtle in the water, but apparently there’s a lot more to it than that.” Molly shrugged and sipped her coffee. Normally she could linger on Saturday mornings, but today she had to be at Turtle Rehab in thirty minutes for the release briefing, the first in a very tight schedule of meetings and final checks before Hope’s send-off.
“Before you go, I have to give you the surprise we’ve been working on.” Ellyn set her mug on the table next to her and clapped her hands together. “Hang on. Let me grab it.” She disappeared from sight, and Molly heard her sliding door open.
“Do you know what this is about?” she asked Hadley.
Hadley shrugged and blew on her coffee with the guilty look of someone who was involved up to her eyeballs.
Molly didn’t have time to press her on the subject before Ellyn reappeared with a package wrapped in brightly colored paper. She handed it around the partition to Molly.
“This is from both of us in honor of your big day.”
“You two really shouldn’t have.” She tore off the paper and pulled out a teal T-shirt. The small logo on the front and the larger logo on the back were the same. Both said Team Hope with a picture of a sea turtle. Tear stung her eyes as she took in one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone had ever given her.
Molly held it in front of her and examined it. “Y’all! It’s perfect!” She pulled it in and hugged it close to her chest.
“We’re glad you like it, because today we’re all Team Hope.” Hadley untied her robe and pulled it off to reveal a Team Hope shirt underneath.
