Chapter 30 - Molly
Molly
Toby and Daisy are vibrating with excitement at the prospect of ‘a night out.’ Max and I have already agreed that we’ll have them home by seven-thirty, but as far as they’re concerned, it’s pitch black and therefore night time already.
We pull up in the Sorrel Farm carpark and unload the kids.
The air is thick with the scent of spices and firs and burning wood, thanks to the enormous fire pit in the centre of the main courtyard.
Max takes Daisy straight out of her car seat and deposits her on one hip, but she’s too excited to sit still and wriggles out of his grasp to the ground.
I lean in. ‘Give her half an hour. She’ll be knackered, or she’ll want a better view of the choir, and she’ll be on your shoulders. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts.’
He grins at me, his cute red beanie accentuating the sharp cut of his jaw.
He is so fucking sexy it’s actually ridiculous, and I don’t even want to think about the damage that seeing Daisy in his big arms does to my ovaries.
For someone who doesn’t want kids, he’s remarkably warm and fuzzy—oh, and tolerant—around my two.
‘I wish I could hold your hand,’ he says, and my ovaries twist a little more.
Because not only do I want to enjoy the delicious sense of security that having Max’s large gloved hand clasping mine would bring, but, similar to the morning of our Christmas tree purchase, I’m mentally playing an outrageously stalky mental game of Happy Families.
A game that I’m sure would horrify Max if he could read my mind.
But I can’t help it.
Even so. I’m not going to let a lack of handholding ruin my date with my hot manny.
Or whatever the hell he is. Because, presence of small and demanding humans notwithstanding, I’ve decided this is a real, live date.
It’s slightly horrifying how much more excited I am about this evening than I was about coming here with Paul.
The poor guy didn’t set a foot wrong, but I was all nerves and no thrill. And right now?
I’m positively skittish. I’m even more excited than the kids.
I seriously need to get a life.
I smile suggestively at Max. ‘You can hold any of my body parts you want with those hands when we get home.’
His jaw tenses. ‘This is going to be the quickest excursion in history.’
I hit him playfully on the arm. ‘You wouldn’t be that mean. Look at their little faces.’
He sighs, looking down at Daisy, who’s pulling on his arm, while Toby squints up at the festive signpost just in front of us.
‘Fine. I can show my people a good time. But you’re getting it later.’
It’s a testament to how much this man is fucking up my heart when his utterance of my people makes me body tingle more than his threats about what’s in store for me when we get home.
‘Thank you, handsome.’ I bat my eyelashes at him.
‘You look beautiful, by the way.’ He lowers his voice so the kids won’t hear him. ‘Feeding my Heidi kink.’
I laugh and roll my eyes. He’s ridiculous.
I’m in a fluffy white faux-fur jacket and white bobble hat, my hair in two long plaits.
Felix bought me the jacket last Christmas.
It came in a Selfridges box and I suspect was the fruit of a rushed request into their personal shopping team rather than any heartfelt gesture on his part.
But I don’t care. I love it, and now my hot houseguest with benefits digs me in it.
And I’m going to get well and truly seen to later.
So stuff that up your arse, Felix Stafford.
‘You’ve got to at least try it, mate.’ Max holds up a wooden fork laden with tartiflette while Toby blanches. ‘It’s seriously amazing.’
‘It looks weird,’ Toby says. ‘It’s gloopy.’
‘It’s like potato mac ’n’ cheese,’ Daisy tells her brother, which is pretty accurate. ‘Wiv bacon.’
Daisy, my little fireball, will ingest anything that’s put in front of her. Her attitude to all new food is preemptive FOMO, while her brother’s runs the spectrum from suspicion to outright horror.
Figures.
‘I don’t want to share it with you,’ Max tells him. ‘Madam here is already eating far too much of it for my liking.’ He stops to mock-glare at Daisy, who’s tucking in like nobody’s business. ‘I’m just being nice. I don’t want you to miss out.’
Toby sighs theatrically, like he’s agreeing to be a sacrificial lamb for the good of the family. ‘Okay. Fine. But that’s too much.’
Max agreeably tips a couple of potato slices off the fork before holding it aloft again. Toby squeezes his eyes shut and opens his mouth as if he’s being force to eat a frog or a slug. Max feeds him a sample of tartiflette so small, it can barely be called a forkful.
He pulls the fork out from between Toby’s lips. ‘Well?’
Toby looks dazed. ‘It’s really good,’ he says through his meagre mouthful.
‘Told you so!’ Daisy sing-songs.
Max throws his arms up. ‘Well, Hallelujah. It’s a Christmas miracle.’
‘Well done, Tobes,’ I tell him, holding back my laughter. ‘I’m proud of you for trying something new. Would you like some more?’
‘Yeah.’ He nods his head enthusiastically, and Max feigns weeping as I scoop a spoonful from the communal portion onto Toby’s paper plate.
‘It’s almost as if you haven’t just inhaled a super-sized pulled pork bap,’ I tell Max.
He punishes my sarcasm with a hard squeeze of my thigh as he slides his hand the whole way up under the table, his fingers dangerously close to the tops of my inner thighs through my skinny jeans.
‘I plan on working the whole thing off later,’ he says, leaning in to whisper in my ear. ‘I’ll be calorie-neutral by the end of the night, you mark my words.’
I purse my lips and shake my head in mock disapproval.
When Max has turned back to his tartiflette, I put my finger to my mouth in a warning to the kids, who are sitting opposite us at the wooden picnic table, to be quiet.
Then I sneakily pick up the end of my left plait and stick it into his right ear, tickling him with it.
Toby and Daisy shriek with delight as Max lets out a roar and catches my wrist easily, tugging the plait away from me and using the end of it to tickle my ear, my cheek, my throat. He clamps a hand around my waist and digs under my coat, finding my tickle spot on my stomach and going for it. Hard.
I flail around as an attack of the giggles gets me, hitting Max’s ridiculous bicep with my hand in an attempt to free myself.
There’s nothing remotely sexual about what we’re doing, and the kids are screaming with delight as Max attacks me with his terrible, ticklish hands, but I’m still gloriously, light-headedly, perfectly content as he taunts me, and my children cry out with delight, and we sit around this table, playing Happy Families.
Max lowers his mouth to my neck and blows a noisy raspberry, and again, there’s nothing necessarily sexy about that (except, you know, that it’s Max’s mouth.
On my bare skin). Daisy squeals in utter delight at the noise and at the resounding belly-laugh I emit.
My head is thrown back in surrender, my entire body is revelling in this gorgeous, intimate, slapstick moment, and for once, I’m actually present instead of obsessing about what Max’s motivations are, until I hear my name.
Molly? Hi there.
My chin snaps back down at the male voice that sounds like—and, yep, is indeed—Paul Lancaster.
Ohhh, fuckity fuckshire.
Max clocks him at the same time as I do and hurriedly extricates his hand from under my jacket while releasing my plait.
Paul is standing there, looking handsome and dashing and like he’s just stepped off an expensive menswear photo shoot.
Two beautiful little girls hold his hands, identically dressed in smart pale pink wool coats with velvet collars and buttons—the kind of coat Princess Charlotte favours.
The kind of coat my feral rug-rat would destroy before you could say hot chocolate.
I’m not sure why I feel so guilty. I’ve been straight with Paul.
My conscience wouldn’t have allowed me to do anything else after he was so lovely.
I replied to his sweet text the morning after our date, thanking him but not suggesting a further meet up.
I found myself texting him again the day after my scorching hot rug-fest with Max, because even if nothing came of it, I couldn’t see myself being able to bear going on a date with any other man, not even one as handsome and eligible as Paul Lancaster.
Not after the things Max did to my body and my heart that night.
Obviously, I didn’t mention that something had happened with Max, but I felt I was clear in drawing a line under me and Paul.
But he’s looking at me now with a mix of affection and wistfulness.
And, if I’m honest, he looks a little gutted.
And ugh, it’s the worst. Because if Max hadn’t come streaming back into my life and filling it with colour and joy—and explosive orgasms—I might be dating Paul by now.
Tentatively, slowly, but still. And while Max and I aren’t doing anything wrong or overtly sexy or even flirtatious, it’s clear we’re comfortable with each other.
Intimate, even, in the non-sexual sense of the word.
Paul’s not stupid. He knew something was up with Max the night of our date, despite my protestations, and he can read between the lines of our cosy little display. The way he’s looking from me to Max and back again tells me there’s no need for me to spell this situation out.
‘Hi, Paul!’ I say, breathless with panic. Said panic means I hit a squeaky note of false enthusiasm which makes me inwardly cringe even as I greet him.
Max, to his credit, doesn’t behave like a total arse.
Unlike last time, that is.
I assume he feels he can afford to be gracious, given it’s him and not Paul who’ll be getting me naked in, oooh, approximately ninety minutes. He stands up as straight as he can beneath the picnic table, which is not very far, and holds out his hand.