Chapter Three
Molly
The clubhouse is finally quiet behind me — just the lingering smell of beer and smoke and fryer grease, and the faint thrum of a motorcycle engine out on the highway like an echo that refuses to die. I flip the sign, set the alarm, and drag my ass to my car.
I fumble my keys, nearly drop them, mutter a curse, then sit myself in the driver’s seat. My fingers are so numb from reorganizing the walk-in fridge that the steering wheel feels weirdly soft. I crank the heat all the way up and blast punk rock just to keep my head above water for the drive home.
All I want is heat.
A long bath. A scalding shower. Steam that melts the day off my skin. Then bed. Then eight straight hours of nothing.
Ironwood Falls is a graveyard at this hour.
Just wet blacktop, blinking traffic lights, and the distant pulse of a single motorcycle engine stretching out across the mountains.
The sleepy calm is a lie, of course — if you know the right streets, the right backyards, you can always find a couple Devils on a bender or a young man with the foolish dreams of becoming a prospect huffing around the edge of town, looking for trouble.
But tonight the town plays dead, and I’m grateful for it.
Only a fool or a cop would be out now, and I’m neither.
My building is three blocks from the main drag, tucked behind a shuttered pizza place and the world’s saddest strip mall.
I’ve lived in this apartment for two years and still don’t know the names of half my neighbors.
The sign out front says RAINIER VIEW APARTMENTS, but the only thing I can see from my window is the dumpster and a cloud of smokers who gather on the loading dock when it rains.
The brick facade is pitted and chipped, the stairs creak, and the entryway buzzer has never worked.
The landlord sends out monthly emails about “planned improvements,” but mostly he just finds new ways to charge us for shit that didn’t need fixing in the first place.
I park, climb the stairs, and let myself in.
I drop my bag, kick off my boots, and pause in the dark to take a single, greedy breath of silence. This is the best moment of my day — just me, my empty apartment, and the knowledge that no one can ask me for anything, at least until sunrise.
But the second the door closes behind me, the smell hits. Not apartment smell — me smell.
Beer. Stale tequila. That rusty, sour tang of fryer oil stuck to my hands and wrists and scalp.
My hair’s been up in a bun all night, but I can feel the sweat clinging to the roots, like glue.
My palms are sticky from wiping down bar tops, my jeans have absorbed enough spilled liquor to get an underage kid buzzed, and my bra feels like a medieval torture device.
There’s only one solution to this kind of filth, and it’s not self-pity. It’s a shower. Now.
I strip fast — shirt, jeans, bra, underwear — everything hits the floor in a tired heap. I twist the knob all the way to hot and step under the spray without even testing it.
The water hits my face like a slap.
Ice.
I jerk back with a hiss. “What the fuck?”
I twist the knob again, like sheer violence can change physics. The pipes groan in compliance, but the water stays cold. Not “takes a minute to warm up” cold. Arctic. Hate-crime. Polar bear funeral cold.
No.
No, no, no.
“Fuck you!” I yell at the pipes, because that’s who I am — someone who talks back to inanimate objects when she’s too tired to do anything else.
Then I slam my palm against the tile. Once.
Twice. Like that will intimidate the plumbing into doing its damn job, and if it knew what was good for it, it would.
It doesn’t.
I stand there dripping, furious, naked, and exhausted enough to cry — which makes me even angrier because crying is what happens when you lose, and how the hell is it I could lose to my own shower?
I yank a towel off the rack and wrap it around myself, teeth clenched so hard my jaw aches.
Of course the hot water is out. Of course. It’s been limping along for months, ever since the last “upgrade.” The landlord’s solution to every maintenance request is to send a chain-smoking handyman who slaps duct tape over the problem and leaves a note that says “All Good!”
I stare at my reflection in the mirror — hair wild, limp, and wet, eyes bloodshot, shoulders slumped — and a laugh crawls up my throat, sharp and humorless.
I could heat a pot on the stove like it’s 1892. Wash myself with a rag and spite and pretend I’m some pioneer on the prairie.
Or…
I find myself looking at the wall that separates my unit from Evan’s.
Evan.
The new guy. My old almost-mistake from senior year, now relocated into the unit next to mine by the caprice of fate or some perverse cosmic joke.
He’s been here just a short while and in that time has made “quiet, polite, and hot as sin” look like a competitive sport.
The kind of guy who never raises his voice, never leaves his trash in the hallway, and never, ever fails to notice when you’re having a bad day.
The kind of guy who’s built like he should be in a firefighter calendar and yet somehow seems oblivious to it.
The guy who had the audacity to flirt with me in the building gym like I’m a normal woman who does normal things like go on dates and feel feelings and let men close.
I remember his confused face when I said I had homework.
Homework?
God.
My cheeks heat just thinking about it.
I don’t do “needing.” I don’t do “asking.” I don’t do “please.” I run my life the way I run my bar: tight control, sharp edges, no vulnerabilities.
But the alternative is going to bed with skin that feels like a napkin at a barbecue joint.
I close my eyes and count to three, just like my therapist said.
Nothing. No magic fix. No sudden flood of self-esteem or willingness to be seen.
Just the raw animal need to be clean and warm for one goddamn hour before I have to start the whole cycle over again.
Then I wrap the towel tighter around my chest and march to the front door like I’m going to war.
The hallway is quiet, dimly lit by flickering bulbs that make everything look slightly haunted. My bare feet slap against the old carpet. I stop in front of Evan’s door and raise my fist.
Hesitate.
Because this is ridiculous.
Because I’m Molly “Molotov” Rogers and I do not — do not — show up half-naked at a man’s door asking for favors.
My fist knocks anyway.
Once.
Twice.
Footsteps. Then a pause, like he’s giving himself a pep talk before facing whatever fresh hell is standing on the other side of his door.
The lock turns with a clunk. The door opens, and there’s Evan: hair a little mussed, sleeves pushed up, bare feet, neutral but not unfriendly. The inside of his apartment is warm, so much warmer than mine that the difference almost pushes tears into my eyes.
He stares. Not for long — a polite second — but enough to take in the wet hair, the towel, the fact that I’m standing in his hallway in the middle of the night with nothing between me and him but a layer of cotton.
“Hey,” he says, voice rougher than it was in the gym. “Uh… you okay?”
I glare at him like he personally murdered my plumbing.
“My hot water’s out,” I say flatly. I don’t even try to sound casual. I am not casual about this. I am not casual about anything.
He blinks, then smiles. Not a leer, not a smirk, just a real, honest-to-god smile, like he’s glad to see me even if I’m wrapped up like a burrito in crisis.
“That sucks.”
“It does.”
He leans against the doorframe. “Want me to call the landlord?” he says. “Or I could probably fix it. Not tonight, but…”
“No.” I say it too fast. Then softer, with what dignity I can salvage. “I just need a real shower. If that’s… I mean, if you don’t mind.”
His grin falters. Just for a second. Then it returns, slower, more careful.
“In my place,” he says, like he’s confirming he heard me right.
My face burns. I hate it. I hate him for making my body do this.
“Yes,” I snap. “In your place. I’m not—” I gesture helplessly at myself.
“I’m not doing a freezing shower tonight.
I’ve had a load of homework and a double shift and I smell like bar grease and regret.
” His mouth twitches as if he’s trying not to laugh.
I won’t let him. I lift my chin. “So if you’re going to be weird about it, say no now and I’ll go boil water like a pioneer. ”
Evan’s gaze holds mine for a beat. Not predatory. Not smug. Something else — steady, warm, a little amused. Then he steps back, opening the door wider.
“C’mon,” he says. “You can use mine. Towels are clean. I did laundry today. Got some spare clothes and stuff in the closet across from the bathroom. Help yourself.”
Relief hits me so hard it almost makes my knees weak, which is humiliating.
I shuffle into his place, using the towel as a kind of body armor.
His apartment actually smells nice — clean laundry, coffee, and the faintest ghost of cinnamon from the candle by his TV.
The living room is tidy and organized, with shelves full of books and a sports magazine open on the coffee table next to the TV remote.
I notice, with a pang of jealousy, that his heating works.
“Thank you,” I mutter, because manners were beaten into me somewhere along the way.
He closes the door behind me, and the click sounds loud in the quiet apartment.
I freeze for half a second.
Because the moment I’m inside, I’m aware of everything.
The warmth. The male scent. The fact that I’m alone with a man I barely know now, wrapped in nothing but a towel, in the middle of the night, in a town where monsters sometimes wear friendly faces.
Evan clears his throat softly. “Bathroom’s straight down the hall, first door on your left. There’s soap and shampoo and stuff; use whatever you want. Seriously.”
I glance at him. His hands are up like he’s surrendering. Like he knows I bite.
“Don’t expect this to become a thing,” I warn.
His smile is slow. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Molls.”
My stomach flips at the nickname he used to call me when we were in high school, and I turn on my heel before he can see it affect me and stalk toward the bathroom like I’m not walking into trouble.
Like my entire world doesn’t just shift — one knock, one open door, one line crossed wearing nothing but a towel.
I came here for hot water.
But the heat I feel right now?
That isn’t coming from the pipes.