Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gabe
“ H oly shit, Gabe,” Molly says, voice full of surprise and amusement. “What did you do?”
Walking through Redwood Grove, Molly’s eyes are glued to the setup in front of our favorite tree. Blankets and pillows are arranged at the tree’s base, and twinkle lights are draped around the lower part of the trunk since it’s fully dark already. There’s a picnic basket and a cooler and assorted other things hidden away I’ll get to later. It’s after eleven at night, but the twinkle lights cast the whole setup in a kind of ethereal glow.
Everything about today is already perfect. After we peeled ourselves out of bed, we went to our favorite Berkeley diner for chocolate chip pancakes. We geeked out at the Lawrence Hall of Science and then went to the Berkeley Art Museum where I got to see Molly’s passion for art and design in practice. We grabbed dinner at one of our favorite taquerias and then went back to the hotel and tumbled straight into bed. And now, we’re walking hand-in-hand through the woods as the Redwoods soar above us and seem to touch the starry sky.
I grin over at Molly. “You like it?”
“Do I like it? Literally everything with you is like something out of a movie. I guess I shouldn’t ask how you pulled this off.”
I let go of her hand and swing an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to me and dancing my fingers over her shoulder, left bare by her sleeveless calf-length dress covered in swirls of every color of the rainbow.
“You can ask me anything, Rory. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Molly shrugs her shoulders, but her eyes gleam. “I kind of like the mystery of it all. I like how you just make things happen. I’m a make things happen kind of girl, but it’s fun when someone makes things happen for me.”
I lean over and kiss the top of her head, thrilled with her and this night. “All I ever wanted was to take care of you. I know you can take care of yourself, but I’ve been waiting for ten years to have you back. I have a lot of wooing to make up for.”
“Wooing, huh?” she asks as we approach the tree.
“I’m a champion wooer, Rory.”
“Oh, I know how you are,” she says, but her voice is lower. A little thick. And when I look down at her, she’s not looking at me. Her eyes are fixed on the tree. I don’t have to follow her gaze to know what she’s looking at.
“Come on,” I say quietly, guiding her to the tree and onto the blanket. Instead of sitting, we crouch down, shoulder to shoulder, right in front of the heart on the base of the trunk. The one we carved our initials into at the end of freshman year when we were so in love and nervous about what a summer apart would look like.
“It’s still here,” Molly says, voice laced with emotion. She reaches out and runs a finger over the heart. The MJ + GS inside. The stack of bracelets on her wrist jingles with the movement, making me smile. “I thought maybe it would be gone. Or carved over or something. But it still looks the same. I don’t know why that’s so damn comforting.”
I lay my finger next to hers, so we trace the carvings together. “Because it was here all this time, even when we couldn’t be. I used to come here sometimes. Afterwards. Always late at night since that’s our time. I would sit here by myself and think of you. When my parents’ deaths were so new, and the grief was so intense, and I wasn’t sure how I would get through the day with my sisters to keep alive and a company to run. I felt better when I came here.”
Molly leans her head on my shoulder and laces her fingers with mine. Our other hands are still on the tree, both our gazes still trained on the carving. I don’t have to ask to know that her brain is also playing a montage of images of all the nights we spent here. Our secret place.
“I never came back,” Molly says quietly. “Afterwards. When I left you, I went home to L.A. I finished undergrad from there and spent the next year taking the LSATs and applying to law school. Trying to put myself back together. The next fall, I left for Pittsburgh, and that was that. I go to L.A. a few times a year to see my family, but I’ve never been back to Berkeley. Not until now. I’m glad, though, that I didn’t. I like that my first time back is now with you. It feels right.”
My chest tightens and I wonder if I’ll have this feeling every time I think about the years we spent apart. About all the years we lived without each other.
“It sure does. It also still doesn’t feel real. That I get to sit here with you. Hold you. Kiss you. I literally dreamed about you for years, and every time I woke up, it was like losing you all over again. I’ll never forgive myself for pushing you out of my life that way. For all the years we had to spend without each other. Without this.”
I sit back on the blanket, taking Molly with me. I pull her into my lap and kiss her like she is the reason I breathe. Because she is. When we break apart, she takes my hands and locks eyes with me.
“Gabe, I’m going to say a thing now, and I need you to really hear me. You know I’m always right, and I’m definitely right about this.”
She waits for me to nod and then continues. “You need to forgive yourself, and I’m going to forgive myself too. Let’s forgive each other. We were young and life happened. But we’re getting our second chance, and regret will eat you alive. Let’s not do regret anymore. There were so many reasons we had to be apart, but we get to be here now. So, let’s do that. Let’s be here now and start right from here and love each other hard. We’re really good at that part.”
I look into Molly’s every color eyes that are so perfectly her, and I know she’s right because I’m home. Molly is home, and nothing else matters.
“I fucking love you, Rory, and you are the smartest person I know.”
“Oh, I know,” she says airily, leaning forward to kiss me. It’s warm and sweet and exactly what I needed to seal this most perfect moment in our most sacred place.
“Now, do you want to show me what you brought? I hope it’s snacks because I’m feeling a late-night snack-fest coming on.”
I give her a what do you think look. “Um, when was the last time we came to the tree without snacks?” We both scoot back so we’re sitting cross-legged, and I reach behind me, flipping open the picnic basket.
“The picnic basket was a nice touch,” Molly says. “Definitely better than the backpacks we used to bring.”
I chuckle. “The good thing about a second chance is that we’re older and know how to put snacks in a more sophisticated receptacle.”
She laughs, shivering a little in the cool Northern California night air. I smile, because it’s comforting that so much of her is still so predictable to me. Just like I’ve done a million times before, the first thing I pull out is a sweatshirt I toss to her to pull over her dress.
She looks down at the navy blue Berkeley sweatshirt with the gold writing and then back up at me, her face full of humor. She remembers too. “You brought me one of your sweatshirts.”
I grin at her, loving life. “It’s almost midnight, and it’s northern California. I knew you would wear a dress, and I knew you would be cold. You always wore a dress, no matter how many times you froze your ass off out here.”
She tugs the sweatshirt over her head, pulling her mass of curls out of the neck, and something about the familiar motion, seeing her in my clothes, has possession humming in my blood.
Mine .
“You know I never brought sweatshirts on purpose, right?”
“Seriously?”
She gives me a look like I’m being ridiculous. “Gabe, come on. I’m chaotic a lot of the time and pretty disorganized, but I’m very smart, and I can definitely remember to bring a sweatshirt to sit outside in Northern California in the middle of the night. I never brought a sweatshirt because you always brought one for me, and I liked that you did that. They were cozy, and they smelled like you. You’re not getting this one back, by the way. It’s mine now.”
I laugh because god, I love her so much. “I love that even though we knew each other so well, I can still learn new things about you.”
Molly tosses her hair over her shoulder and leans back on her hands, stretching her legs out in front of her. I lift up her legs and put them in my lap, getting a flash of black lace under her dress and holy fucking shit. Her penchant for fancy underwear kills me every single time. I blow out a breath, and when I look up, she’s smirking at me. She points a toe like the former ballerina she is, grazing it over my now hard cock, and laughs when I groan. “You just saw my underwear, didn’t you?”
I run a hand up her leg, loving her little shiver. “You know it. As long as I’m still breathing, your underwear is going to make me hard. That’s just facts.”
“Well, keep it in your pants. You were inside me, like, two hours ago. Snacks first.”
“Rory baby, I could be inside you every minute of every day, and it would still never be enough, but snacks first.”
I reach back into the picnic basket and take out a couple of wrapped sandwiches, tossing one to her. She inspects it and snorts a laugh.
“Peanut butter and jelly? You really did go for nostalgia tonight.”
I shrug. “It was our favorite then, and it’s still my favorite now.”
Molly grins at me. “Mine too. I kind of forgot about them for a while, but they came back into my life full force at the end of last year when Maddy came to live with Emma.”
I toss Molly a bag of barbeque potato chips and pull out Reese’s Pieces and black licorice, Double Stuf Oreos with a jar of peanut butter for dipping, and a bag of popcorn.
“It’s nice how close you all are to Maddy.”
Molly looks down at all the snacks and laughs again. “I think full nostalgia was exactly right.” She bites into her sandwich and chews thoughtfully.
“Em applied to be a foster parent, and when Maddy came to live with her, we all pitched in. She and I have a special relationship though. I live next door, so I was around a lot in the early days. I did big stuff like taking her shopping and to the mall to get her ears pierced. We both love pink and sparkles, and Emma would rather be dead than set foot in a mall, so it worked out well.” Molly smiles, and her love for both Emma and Maddy just shines.
“I also did everyday things. Like go over in the morning and have coffee with Emma, help her with all the morning stuff that comes with a kid—getting dressed, fighting over brushing teeth, and waiting for the bus. I got to know Maddy and had a front row seat to watch Emma and Jeremy finally become Emma and Jeremy and then watch the three of them become a family. She’s our first kid, so it’s been special for all of us.”
I like the way she says our first kid . Maddy might be Emma and Jeremy’s, but where it really counts, she belongs to their whole group. I flip open the cooler and grab a can of Diet Pepsi, then reach back into the picnic basket for a thermos. I hand both to Molly. “There’s a peppermint mocha in the thermos.”
“Gabriel Sullivan, I am the heart eyes emoji personified right now. You’re perfect.” She opens the thermos and takes a sip of the hot drink, handing it back to me to share.
“Not perfect, but definitely perfect for you.” I toss her a wink.
“You definitely are that,” she says, tearing open the chips.
“Do you want kids of your own?” It was the one thing we never really talked about in college. We were so young, and things like marriage and kids seemed a million miles away. I study Molly to see if my abrupt question freaked her out, but she only looks thoughtful.
“Honestly, it wasn’t something I gave much thought to. When we were together, I always assumed we would get to all those things at some point. And then when we weren’t, I couldn’t imagine doing them with someone else. But now…” She trails off, studying me. “I think I would be a fun mom. An interesting one. A little unconventional, maybe, but never boring. So yeah, I think I would like to have kids. I think I would like to have kids with you. Only with you. I think I want everything with you.”
I want to grab her and kiss her until the world disappears around us. Make her understand how much her words mean to me, how much I want the same thing she does. But more than I want to do that, I want to keep talking. I want every thought in her head, and I want to give her all of mine. So, instead of laying my lips on hers, I squeeze her leg and say, “I want everything with you, too.”
She pulls the thermos back towards her and takes a sip before grabbing the licorice and tearing the box open. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about since last night that I wanted to tell you first before I tell anyone else.”
Her voice is so uncharacteristically serious that I sit up straighter. “You can tell me anything.”
She takes a deep breath and blows it out. “I think I want to try dancing again. Not like I did—I’m too old for that. But being in the studio last night made me realize that I stayed away for too long. Even if it’s just me in my living room, which, let’s be honest, it probably will be, I want to give it a try.”
I know what it cost her to tell me this, and my mind immediately starts racing. First of all, if she’s dancing in anyone’s living room, it’ll be mine because I already think of it as ours anyway. I just have to get her to think of it like that, too, and not as just a place she’s staying while her house is a disaster. But that’s a problem for another day. An idea starts to percolate in my brain, and the more I think about it, the more I like it. I make a mental note to make some calls tomorrow.
“Rory, I want whatever you want. If you want to start dancing again, I think that’s exactly what you should do. I know this is a big step and I’m proud of you for taking it. Even if you never tell anyone else but me, I’ll be your loudest cheer squad. Your number one hype guy, if you will.”
She laughs, and the tension in her shoulders seems to fall away. “So, enough about me. What’s your plan now that you sold one company you’re only kind of consulting for, and all you have to do is dial into some board meetings for the other? You spent so much of your life creating the phones and then releasing new versions every eighteen months. It must be weird to be so far removed from it now.”
I smirk at her. “You sure know a lot about my company for someone who doesn’t even have a Redwood.”
Molly waves that away. “It didn’t come in pink. Why would I get a phone that didn’t come in pink?”
I know that’s not the real reason, but it gives me the opening I’ve been waiting for. “Speaking of a pink phone…” I reach back into the basket for the last thing. I pull out the phone box and hand it to her. She studies it and looks back up at me, a confused expression on her face.
“Did you finally release a pink phone? I didn’t realize a new version came out. I can’t believe you caved to the masses who have been demanding one all these years. It’s super weird, by the way. Your phone comes in literally every color in the known universe, but not pink.”
“It’s not a new version. Or, not exactly. It’s more of a one-of-a-kind situation.”
She’s brilliant, so I know she’ll put it together. I see the minute she does. She narrows her eyes at me and furrows her brow, and it takes every ounce of restraint I have not to laugh at her disgruntled expression.
“Gabriel Sullivan. Are you telling me that for ten years, when the entire world was begging for a pink Redwood phone, you didn’t give the people what they wanted because of me?”
My grin spreads because the irritation in her tone is giving me life. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Rory. Pink is your signature color. No one gets to have a phone in your signature color unless it’s you.”
“You billionaire tech people are a weird breed,” she mutters, and I laugh so hard it takes me a minute to get ahold of myself. But she’s not finished yet.
“So, you’ve just had this pink phone sitting around waiting for me in case we got back together one day?”
I scoff. “Don’t be ridiculous. Like I would give you a phone with outdated technology. It’s like you don’t even know me. I had it made last week and sent to the hotel. It’s actually the newest model that hasn’t been released yet, so it’s one of a kind of more ways than one.”
“Okay, I just have one more question.” Molly grabs an Oreo and eats the whole thing at once, as if she has to fortify herself for whatever she’s about to ask me.
“Ask away, baby.”
“Now that you finally gave me the pink phone, are you releasing pink phones for everyone?”
This time I do tug her closer to me and lift her, leaning back against the tree and settling her on my lap so she’s straddling me.
“Literally never ever. I meant what I said. No one gets to have a pink phone unless it’s you. A one-of-a-kind phone for a one-of-a-kind girl.”
Molly’s eyes go soft, and I reach up, cupping her face and stroking my thumb along her cheekbone.
“There’s no one else like you, Rory. You are brilliant, funny, creative, and the most beautiful girl on the planet. You’ve been lighting up my world since the day I met you.”
Molly leans forward so we’re chest to chest, resting her forehead against mine. “Can you put that in writing so I can tattoo it on my body?”
I laugh, but suddenly, she sits straight up. “Oh, my god, the tattoo. I can’t believe I forgot.”
“Uh, what?” I think I know, but I’m going to play dumb until she tells me.
“Last night, after…” she trails off, and I grin wickedly.
“After I sucked my cum and yours right out of you and licked you clean until you came for the fifth time?”
She snorts out a laugh. “Yeah. After that. I was too tired to mention it, but I thought I saw a tattoo on your thigh. Then, this morning, I kept trying to get a look at it, and you kept distracting me. We were literally naked in the shower, and you managed to hide it from me. What’s that all about? Do you have, like, another woman’s name tattooed on your leg or something? It’s fine if you do. There’s always laser tattoo removal.”
Molly’s voice is full of humor, and I pull her back down to me and kiss her, pouring every ounce of love I feel into it. I suck her bottom lip into my mouth and run my hands up her ribs underneath the sweatshirt to graze the sides of her breasts. Our mouths move together, and my hands explore every inch of her. It’s Molly who breaks the kiss, giggling a little when I chase her mouth as she pulls away.
“No. No distractions. I need to see your tattoo, and I need to see it now.”
“Right here?” I gasp in mock horror.
Molly makes a show of looking around the dark woods. “It’s midnight, and we’re in the middle of the woods. No one is here, and besides, you wouldn’t care even if someone was.”
I laugh at her knowing look because she’s right. I would fuck her completely naked against this tree without giving a single shit who was around.
She looks at me with satisfaction, like she can read my mind, and then slides back onto the blanket, settling next to me.
“Strip it off, Gabe.”