Chapter 18
Molly
Why do all restaurant paper towels have the consistency of sandpaper?
I’m blotting under my eyes, trying to keep my mascara from smudging everywhere. Had I known dinner would make me so emotional, I’d have worn waterproof. Or brought some tissues in my purse.
Through the first part of the evening, I was overwhelmingly happy, allowing myself to pretend Collin and I are a real couple just like the others at the table. It was almost too easy and had me wishing for things I probably shouldn’t, all while feeling warm inside.
Collin kept me close with an arm around my shoulder or his hand brushing mine.
He even hooked his foot around mine under the table.
He touched me like he couldn’t stand any distance between us, as though he needed my touch.
It was the same with James and Winnie or Pat and Lindy.
Anyone looking at our table would have seen three happy couples, and I allowed myself to bask in the moment.
Then, somewhere in the midst of Winnie announcing their wedding, the warmth in my chest cooled, then froze.
I’m not sure if hearing about the wedding reminded me in a very real way that Collin and I aren’t a real couple, or if it was hearing that Tank is walking Winnie down the aisle.
Which caused me to think of my own parents, who won’t stop blowing up my phone, telling me I’m being foolish and should come home.
Even Winnie saying her family situation is a long story made my throat tight.
Then there was the sudden feeling of otherness that hit me like a sucker punch listening to them talk about Winnie’s wedding. I had nothing to contribute. I barely know Winnie and James. I’ve never met Val—who they referred to earlier as their third musketeer.
Now I can’t shake this raw, icky feeling of gloom and doom that’s spread like dark, poisonous ink in my chest.
“Stupid,” I tell the weepy girl in the mirror. “You can’t get so caught up in something that’s not real. They aren’t your family or your real friends.”
But it’s too late for the lecture. I’m a moth in a spider’s web, getting more caught up the harder I struggle. Not just with Collin, but also with the whole group of Grahams. I’m pretty sure the only way I’m getting free will involve pain.
“Molly-girl?” Collin’s voice comes through the door of the single-person bathroom.
“Are you in there?” I don’t answer, and after a moment, he continues.
“I’m assuming you are since the guy I just walked in on in the other bathroom was definitely not you and definitely not happy to see me while he was sitting on the toilet.
I guess that’s what he gets for not locking the door. ”
I laugh, though the end of it is more of a sob. I bite my lip until my breathing is even. “I’m in here.”
“Can I come in?”
“You want to come into the bathroom with me?”
“I mean, not if you’re using the bathroom. I know we didn’t talk about things like pooping in our list we made—”
I’m laughing again as I open the door and yank Collin inside. He lets me shove him up against the tiled wall by a flyer advertising a monthlong wine special.
I poke him in the chest. “How do you do that?” I ask.
“Do what?” he asks with a smirk.
Flattening my palm on his chest, I toy with one of the buttons on his shirt. “Make me laugh even when I’m feeling sad?”
His smile drops and immediately, he reaches out to cup my cheek. “Why are you sad, Molly?”
When I don’t say anything, he gently tugs me into his chest, wrapping me up in a hug I didn’t know I needed so badly.
I collapse into him with a shuddery exhale.
He’s warm and solid, the muscles of his chest flexing under my cheek.
His big hands stroke up and down my back, soothing but also making my skin whir and hum.
“You know you can talk to me?” Collin says, tilting his chin down so it rests on the top of my head. “I’m not just good for a laugh.”
“I know,” I whisper, wrapping one of my arms around his back.
The other is still on his chest, trapped between our bodies, my finger still on the smooth button of his shirt.
“You don’t just make me laugh. You make me feel safe.
You make me feel”—I search for a word, hesitating before using the one that best fits—“treasured.”
“Good,” Collin says.
“It just sometimes feels a little too … real.”
He says nothing to this, but his hands pause for a moment on my back. Then one moves up my neck into my hair, his long fingers gently combing through my hair.
I’m glad he can’t see my face, cheeks red from what I just confessed, and what I didn’t. Which is that I want it to be real. But I suspect Collin can hear it in my voice, probably saw it in my expression the moment he walked into the bathroom.
Right—we’re still in a bathroom. I should pull away, should check my face one more time and get out of here, hoping no one notices us leaving together.
“I know what you mean,” Collin says.
Though he doesn’t say anything more, like, perhaps that he also wants it to be real, I feel like it’s there in his words like it was in mine.
Or, I could just be reading into it what I want to.
“Thank you,” I say, tilting my head up to meet Collin’s gaze, which is heavy on mine. “For the hug. For being willing to listen. For coming into the bathroom to check on me.”
“Anytime.” He says the word easily, but also with weight, like he wants me to know he really means it.
And I almost start spilling secrets right here and now.
About how I barely have money in my account after paying off my student loans; about the brand endorsements I’ve been turning down because I just can’t bring myself to do it; about my dad’s micromanagement of my life, which the longer I’m away from it, the more it feels like it borders on coercive control; about the way I want so badly to find my own way, forge my own path, but can’t seem to settle on what that means or looks like or what I really want to do.
And, last but not least, I’d like to confess that there’s nothing fake in how I feel about or how I act around Collin.
While the words are building like water behind the dam of my closed mouth, I study Collin. Our prolonged eye contact starts to feel like a challenge—who will blink or look away first. Tension gathers, like billowing clouds before a storm.
“You know,” Collin says, as he finally breaks eye contact to look at my lips. “We never did get to practice the other night.”
“Practice?”
“Kissing.” The word pierces through me with an arrow of desire.
Suddenly, my lips are tingling, my throat tight, my breathing shallow.
“My family has been on good behavior tonight, but it wouldn’t shock me if Pat or someone else tries to goad us into kissing,” he says, his tone reasonable, but his eyes darkening with every word, his pupils drowning the blue irises with black.
“We wouldn’t want to look uncomfortable or like we’ve never kissed before. ”
“You really think they’d do that?” I’m stalling, because I want to kiss Collin so badly, which makes me feel like I absolutely should not kiss him.
“No,” he says. “But I kind of wish they would. And it sounded like a really good excuse to kiss you, Molly.”
Once again, I laugh, even though it does nothing to dull the thrum of want beating like a drum inside me.
“I appreciate your honesty,” I tell him, my laugh dying out as I lift my hand from his chest to trace the line of his jaw.
The tiniest growth of stubble has filled in now, and the rough tug of it feels good against my fingertips.
“And in the interest of being honest, you don’t need an excuse to kiss me, Collin. ”
“I don’t?” He swallows, and my fingers move to his Adam’s apple, then to the quickening beat of his pulse in his throat.
Shaking my head, I ignore the fears and doubts making a case for me to play it safe, warning me to step away and stop this moment from going any further. I ignore all of the naysaying and lift up on my toes to brush a kiss over Collin’s throat.
“You have my permission to kiss me anytime you want.”
“I do?” When he swallows again, I feel the movement in my mouth and smile against his skin.
“You do. Although …” I’m no longer kissing but dragging my barely parted lips down to his collarbone, only a little of which is reachable between the open buttons of his shirt. “Maybe our first real kiss shouldn’t be in a bathroom?”
“It’s not very romantic,” Collin agrees, though his breathily spoken words make it sound like he doesn’t care at all.
“No, it’s not.”
“Although …” He echoes the word I said moments ago as his hands fall to my waist and tighten there, like he thinks I’m about to run and he wants to hold me in place.
“I don’t think there’s any place I wouldn’t kiss you, Molly-girl.
I’m pretty sure what makes a place romantic is the people in it, not the location itself. ”
“Even if …” I let my words trail off as I press closer, my lips traveling up to his jaw. “The location has a toilet?”
This makes a laugh burst out of him. The tension between us almost immediately eases, which disappoints and also relieves me.
Because I’m so close to just shifting over and devouring his mouth or letting him devour mine.
I’m more than ready. And I think that Collin and I, even without saying the words about it, are on the same page about our feelings.
I can’t be certain without him actually telling me, but I’m as sure as one can be without the words.
I also really am serious about not wanting our first kiss to be in a bathroom. Especially not in a restaurant.
Someone tries the handle, then bangs on the door, as if proving my point. “Hello? Molly? Collin? If that’s you in there, a pregnant woman needs to use the bathroom, please!”
It’s Lindy, and Collin shakes his head with a sigh as I step back. He doesn’t look disappointed, but his still-dark eyes do hold a promise that he won’t forget what I said.
“Sorry, this one is occupied,” I say in my best British accent. Which, thanks to playing the part of Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest in college, is actually pretty good.
“Molly?” Lindy says, sounding unsure.
“No, I don’t know a Molly,” I continue, my accent growing more dramatic as Collin’s grin widens, egging me on. “This is Mary. Mary Poppins.”
Collin tries to stifle a laugh. Outside the door, Lindy makes a frustrated noise. “I hope you two know this is going to end up in a post on Neighborly.”
Her voice moves slightly away as she talks, and then I hear the sound of another door opening before she screams. The door slams. Collin’s eyes widen as Lindy shouts, “Dude! Lock the door next time!”