CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE MOLLY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MOLLY
I got my dad’s voice mail, again. “Dad, you need to call me. I’m actually worried. For once.” I hung up before I could say anything more, like how I wanted to murder him, because if he heard that, he’d never find Kelly’s murderer.
“No luck?”
I straightened, hearing Jess come into the kitchen.
I’d left the bedroom around six because my stomach was doing its best rendition of a pterodactyl squawk, or how I was assuming they would’ve squawked. It would’ve been more like a roar.
I’d realized this was not Ashton’s house or another one of Ashton’s places when I went down the stairs and saw a picture of Trace and Jess together.
The next picture over was of her mother.
Her brother. There were more people, but I didn’t know them, and then I meandered into the office and was captivated for the next hour because there was an entire wall of pictures of Trace during his high school and college years.
A lot of those pictures had him and Ashton, and yeah, my stomach was doing all these little flutters seeing Ashton smiling and looking young and dare I say .
.. cute?! He was hot, but he was cute too.
I was looking forward to teasing him about the dichotomy.
“No, but that’s typical with Shorty Easter. He finds you, not the other way around.”
Jess motioned to the coffee machine. “Want some?”
“That’d be great.” And of course, I fought back a yawn at that moment. “This is your new place with Trace?”
She was grabbing the coffee, and a soft smile came over her face. “It’s not far from my mom’s house, so she’s close if anything happens.”
“It’s nice. It’s ... adulting.”
Jess glanced back, a short laugh escaping her. “What?”
“It’s adulting. You and Trace. You’re doing it, despite, you know.”
Some of her smile faded. “Yeah.”
“Um. Hey.” Shit. I was an asshole friend. “I know I reached out when it first happened, but—”
“That’s not on you.”
“What?”
She finished the coffee machine and hit the switch, then turned to rest her back against the counter beside it.
“That’s not on you. I know what you were going to say, but you did reach out when it happened.
You were there when Trace and I were going through our thing, and you tried being there for me after Kelly’s body was found.
I—I wouldn’t let anyone by me, except my mom and Trace.
That was it. I kinda went insane after I found out.
” Her voice shook. “I—it was my fault and—”
“Hey.” I shoved off the stool, and closed the space between us.
Everyone thought Jess was this tough parole officer, and to be honest, she was.
No one wanted to mess with her, but she was—well, she wasn’t really soft inside, but what she was was an amazing friend, and she had an amazing heart.
I went to her, ignoring how she started to put her arms up.
I wrapped mine around her in a hug. “It wasn’t your fault.
I don’t care what you’re going to say. I don’t care about what you do for a living, who you fell in love with, anything else you might say.
The person responsible for Kelly’s death is the person who killed her.
Period. You do not blame yourself. You hear me? ”
She was stiff, at first, and then she let out a shuddering sigh and leaned into me.
She didn’t put her arms around me. Jess wasn’t that kind of friend, not really, but it said a lot that she stood and let me hug her.
So I had to hug her with everything I had in me.
I was pretending Pialto and Sophie were here helping me hug her.
They gave the best hugs. We always did them three ways too.
I heard her sniffle, so I kept on squeezing until it was long after the coffee was done.
“Thanks, Molly.” Jess stepped back, wiping a hand at her eye before she showed me where the coffee mugs were.
I nudged her aside, taking over from there. Selecting a mug, I asked her, “You want some?”
She nodded, blinking a little and wiping her face as she went to sit on the stool I’d left. “Thank you.”
I poured both of our cups and went looking for some cream in their amazing fridge. “I was going to say earlier that I’m sorry I haven’t checked in lately. I guessed you’d like some space, but I meant to reach out, but then ...”
Jess’s grin was knowing as I brought her coffee over and slid onto the stool next to her. “Then a guy tried to rob your place and you went a little insane?”
“Who wears green makeup to rob a bowling alley?”
“I’d like to think that if you’re planning to rob a bowling alley, the only makeup I’d want to wear is green makeup.”
I shot her a grin. “Maybe I almost shot him too fast. I should’ve asked his thoughts on what makeup to wear when robbing a costume shop?”
“That’d be hard. I wish you had asked him. I don’t know if I’ll be able to asleep tonight not knowing what color he would’ve worn.”
It felt nice to be joking with Jess again.
I swallowed over a lump in my throat. “Maria, Dex, and Jimmy come every Sunday night still.”
The coffee cup went down so fast and almost forcefully that I hesitated, thinking I’d pissed her off, but her head folded over, and I heard the sob.
She’d dropped the mug. She hadn’t put it down.
“Oh.” I moved in, putting my arm under hers, and I stood from the stool, pulling Jess into me again. This time, she leaned her entire weight into me. Her hand was covering her mouth, and she seemed to collapse. She was crying so hard.
One of her hands lifted, gripping onto my shirt.
Her whole body shuddered.
I was half cradling her head, my arms up in an awkward hold, but it was me. It felt like the most natural way to comfort a friend. It was a bit before she quieted.
She took a deep breath, leaning back a little.
She was blinking rapidly. I reached over to a Kleenex box and grabbed a bunch for her.
I eased back onto my stool, watching Jess the whole time.
Breaking down in front of someone? I had no idea she had it in her. I was honored it’d been with me. I reached over, touching her arm. “Sorry for that.”
She laughed, letting out a few more tears. “No. I’m—it’s me. You said that about Sunday night, and you know. Sunday nights were our night. They still go?”
I nodded. “Every Sunday night. Jimmy comes in, wins the first game, and he’s started to just walk out. His mom brings back his shoes and pays now.”
She laughed, wiping at the corners of her eyes. “No more mentions of pop and pizza parties?”
“Nope. He now mentions that he’s going to go to the next WrestleMania event with Kelly, and then the whole walking-out thing. Those are the new routines.”
“Maria and Dax stay after?”
I nodded, my throat swelling up because I remembered a time when they were acting, well, not sane. “They, uh, they pretended to bowl for Kelly and Justin one night.”
“What?”
“Jimmy had left. I noticed they were pretending to hand off the bowling balls to people who weren’t there, and then pretending someone had bowled. They put up fake scores too.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “I cried the whole time when I saw that. Kicked everyone else out, which was like Bob and Monica, some of the regulars. They knew that I knew what they’d done, so they sat, and all of us pretended to have a drink with Kelly and Justin.
” A few more tears slipped down my cheek.
“It was one of the best nights of my life, drinking with ghosts.”
“I wish I’d been there.”
I checked my phone, saw the time. “They’re probably arriving right now. We could get there in time to witness Jimmy’s victory walk off.”
“That sounds epic.” She quieted. “It is Sunday night.”
We shared a look.
She said, “Your life could be in danger. I mean, if you’re looking for the person who owns a bowling alley, there’s probably a good chance she’d be at the bowling alley.”
“Um.”
“I have a gun.”
“Um.” Oh, boy. I could already hear Ashton railing into me.
She added, “I know how to shoot a gun.”
“Uh ...”
“At this stage, you might be immune to gunfire. It might not faze you anymore.”
“Oh, boy.”
Her eyes danced. “I know we shouldn’t go. I know it’s stupid, but I want to go for two reasons. One, Kelly. She’d love it. She would already be changing and planning for the nightclub after.”
Kelly would so be doing that already. “She called me before they left.”
She went still. “What?”
“The night they left. Or before they were going to leave. She called me at the bowling alley. She said goodbye and asked me to watch over you because despite your stubbornness, you do need a friend to check in on you. She said it’s kinda like how you check in on your mother.”
She was blinking again. “I’m surprised she didn’t ask you to send pigeon videos to Sal.”
“She did that too.”
“No!”
I nodded. “She did.”
“That was her. Thinking about everyone else before they left.”
“That was her.”
We fell silent until Jess choked out, “I really miss her.”
I reached over and took her hand, and I held it while she cried some more.
“What was the second reason you want to go?”
She smiled, already standing from her seat. “To piss off Ashton. He deserves some payback.”
“Oh.”
She held her phone up. “How about this? I’ll call Trace. He’ll okay it, but he doesn’t need to tell Ashton?”
I sighed. “I’m going to get in so much trouble.”
But we went bowling, and I was hoping some ghosts would join.