Chapter 8
Molly
I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm wearing tonight. Magnolia Grace is sitting on my bed, and watching as I go through most of the clothes I wear.
"Tell me again why it matters what you're wearing to go bowling with Dakota and his sister? She asked you to go, right?"
Magnolia is getting suspicious, if the squinted look she's giving me is any indication. "Yeah," I try to play it off. "I mean who knows who I might meet out there? Could the one I've been looking for my entire life."
"True," she laughs. "I mean I didn't realize I was going to end up with Levi, but here I am."
And end up with him she has. Those two are so happy that it's almost sickening. I want what they have, but I'm scared to admit it at the same time. "Maybe I'm ready to meet my Levi," I give her a grin, before shuddering. "You know what I mean."
She laughs, throwing her head back, and grabbing her stomach. "I know exactly what you meant. So what is it you're going to wear?"
I wish I knew. "It's still pretty cold outside, so I think it would be smart for me to wear a sweater, and those jeans that have a rip in the knee, but hug my ass just right."
"I would agree with all of that. Keep your hair curly and play up your eyes, and whoever it is you're looking to impress won't be able to say no."
There's a part of me that wants to argue with her, that I'm not looking to impress anyone, but the truth is I am.
This will be the first time Dakota and I are going out in public, even though no one knows that we've been dating in the background of life.
If they're going to see us, I'd prefer I looked good. "Thanks for coming over, Mags."
"You're welcome. But now that you're set, I'm gonna have to get out of here. I have a huge order to finish for tomorrow."
Walking over to where she sits, I wrap my arms around her neck and hug her tightly. "Thank you for taking time out of your day and coming to help me."
"What are best friends for? And to be honest, I feel like I've kind of been slacking in the best friend department since Levi and I got together." She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. "I'm sorry about that. It's just that everything with him is so..."
"All-encompassing?" I finish for her, because that's how it is with me and Dakota, even if I don't want to admit it to anyone other than myself. "You want to be around him all the time, and we're not with him, you want to know what he's doing?"
Her eyes flash in recognition. "Yes, exactly. Are you sure you're not seeing anybody?" She tilts her head to the side, examining me with a gaze that is almost too inquisitive.
I choke on my own spit. "I'm sure. It's just what I want," I play it off.
"Well I hope you get it, girl. You deserve it."
I hope I get it too.
Waiting for Dakota to come and pick me up is the most nerve-wracking thing I have ever done.
Even when I was a teenager waiting for my date to come get me and knowing they'd have to face my Dad and brother, wasn't this bad.
Lucy is one of the most observant people I know, and there's just something niggling at the back of my mind that tells me she's going to know.
She's going to see us together, and put two and two together.
When the headlights pull into my driveway, I hop up as if my ass is on fire, more nervous than I should be. Will he come to my front door? Do I meet him out by his truck? I'm trying to decide what I should do as I'm pulling my crossbody bag on and there's a knock. Guess that answers my question.
I close my eyes, lick my lips, and inhale deeply, before letting the breath out.
Then I open the door, and every single thought I just had evaporates, because Dakota is standing on my front porch with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, and he is looking at me the way that men in movies look at women.
Like I'm the only thing in his line of sight and everything else around me has gone soft and blurry.
His eyes start at the top and work their way down, slow enough that I feel it like a physical thing, and when they come back up to meet mine, the corner of his mouth pulls up. "Damn, Molly."
"Is that a good damn or a bad damn?"
"That is a you are so fucking hot that I'm genuinely annoyed about it right now kind of damn." He rocks back on his heels, that grin spreading wider. "You look good, Pretty Girl. Real good."
The heat that crawls up the back of my neck is embarrassing, given the fact that this man has seen me in considerably less than a sweater and jeans, but something about the way he looks at me when I'm fully dressed causes my pulse to spike.
Like he's cataloguing me. Like he's saving it somewhere to use later when he’s alone.
"Don't make it weird," I tell him, stepping out and pulling the door shut behind me.
"I'm not making it weird, I'm being honest." He doesn't move back when I step forward, so I end up closer to him than I intended, close enough that I can smell whatever soap he used and the cold January air that's still caught in the fabric of his jacket. "You curled your hair."
"I did."
"I like it."
"You like everything," I tell him, rolling my eyes.
"Only when it comes to you." He says it easy, like it's nothing, like it isn't the kind of thing that could absolutely unravel me if I let it, and then he steps back and nods toward the truck. "Come on, Lucy's waiting."
I follow him out to the driveway, and that's when I see that Lucy is not alone in the back seat.
There's a boy next to her, dark-haired and lanky like someone who hasn’t grown into himself.
He's got the expression on his face that tells me he is extremely aware that he is sitting next to a girl he likes and her older brother is the one driving.
I feel for him immediately, giggling under my breath.
Dakota opens the passenger door for me, which he does so casually that I almost miss it, and I climb in before glancing back at the two of them.
"Molly!" Lucy's face lights up the same way it always does when she sees me. It always makes me happy, because I’ve known this girl since she was small enough that I could carry her on my hip, and watching her turn into the person she is now is one of my favorite things.
"You look so good. I love your hair like that. "
"Thank you, girlie." I turn a little more in the seat so I can look at her properly. "Who's your friend?"
"This is Bryan." She says his name with the whimsy of a teenage girl who wants you to know this name is special. "Bryan, this is Molly. She's basically my older sister."
Bryan gives me a wave, his face red in the glow of the lights. "Hey."
"Hey, Bryan." I give him a smile that I hope reads as non-threatening, because the poor kid looks like he's being evaluated from all directions, which he of course is. "Nice to meet you."
Dakota gets in on his side and pulls out of the driveway, and for a minute the cab is quiet as we all kind of try to figure out our place here.
Then Lucy says, completely out of nowhere, "Molly, I just want you to know that I think you are so beautiful, and I think you and Dakota should date."
I stare straight ahead through the windshield.
Dakota makes a noise in his throat that sounds like it's caught somewhere between a laugh and a cough.
"Luce," he says.
"What? I'm just saying. You're both single, you're always around each other anyway, and she's the most beautiful woman in Laurel Springs who also actually likes you as a person.
" She says it with the complete confidence of someone who has not yet learned that there are things you simply do not say out loud in front of the subjects of the conversation.
"We're friends," Dakota says, and his voice is even, but I can see from the corner of my eye that his jaw has gone just slightly tight.
"Friends," Lucy repeats, in a tone that communicates exactly how much stock she is putting in that word. "Okay. I'm just saying that my friends don't look at me the way you look at her."
"Nobody asked you, Luce."
"You never do, and yet I keep offering my opinion for free." She doesn't sound the least bit sorry about it. "I'm just observant."
"You're something," he mutters.
Bryan has gone very still in the back seat, and I respect his survival instincts tremendously.
I keep my face neutral and my eyes forward, but I am fighting a smile so hard that my cheeks are starting to ache, because the thing is, Lucy isn't wrong.
She's a sixteen-year-old who sees things that most adults either miss or choose to ignore, and she landed on the truth without even trying.
I don't say that, though. I just reach over and flip through the radio stations until I find something that fills the silence, and after a minute or two, Lucy starts telling Bryan about the bowling alley which lets me release the tension with a deep breath.
But I can feel Dakota's awareness of me from across the center console the entire rest of the drive.
The Laurel Springs Pine Social is lit up against the darkness of the night when we pull into the parking lot, and I can hear the faint sound of pins cracking from somewhere inside even through the closed windows.
Dakota parks, and we all pile out, and before I've even zipped my jacket back up, Lucy has her hand looped through Bryan's arm and she is steering him toward the entrance with the single-minded focus of a girl who knows exactly where she wants to be and exactly who she wants to be there with.
Dakota and I stand in the parking lot and watch them go.
He's quiet for a moment, hands in his pockets, chin slightly dipped against the cold.
The light from the sign catches the side of his face and I let myself look at him the way I don't usually let myself, the way Lucy apparently does without even thinking about it.
I've known this man for so long that sometimes I forget to actually see him, and then moments like this one happen and it hits me all over again that there is something here that I have been dancing around for a very long time.
He turns his head and catches me looking, and instead of calling me out on it, he just leans in a little, close enough that his shoulder presses against mine.
"Someday," he says, his voice low enough that it's just for me, "that's gonna be the two of us. When we’re comfortable enough to tell everyone."
I watch Lucy tip her head back laughing at something Bryan just said, and the way his face goes soft when he looks at her.
"Yeah?" I ask, just as quietly.
He doesn't answer right away. He just looks at me with those steady dark eyes, the ones that have never once in all the years I've known him looked at me like I was anything less than exactly what he wanted.
"Yeah," he says, watching as a stream of people walk by us. "Come on, let's go before there aren’t enough lanes for us to use."
He doesn't take my hand, because we're still keeping this close to our chests, but he does put his hand on the small of my back as he opens the door for me, and I let myself lean into it just slightly, just enough that I know he can feel it.
And if Lucy happens to glance back from the front desk and catch the look on my face before I school it into something more neutral? Well. She's observant. And maybe that's not the worst thing in the world.