Chapter 14
Molly
"Why do you look so happy?"
The voice coming from my phone is the voice of my best friend.
We're on FaceTime while she's finishing up an order she's working on, and I'm working Rosemary oil into my hair to promote growth.
"Because I am. Plus I just took an everything shower.
My legs are smooth, my hair is washed, and it feels good.
I think the better question is why do you appear to be in such a bad mood? "
She frowns. "This order has been a pain in my ass. Nothing has gone right, and I'm irritated. Sorry I'm taking it out on you."
"That's what best friends are for. Sometimes we have bad days, and that's okay. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't my brother."
"No." She grins, a faraway look in her eyes. "He's as good to me as he always has been. Things with him are going great."
The jealousy that's been in my chest the last few times she's said something like that isn't there this time, and I have to believe that part of it is Dakota and I have decided not to continue hiding our relationship.
The weird thing is, I can't bring myself to say it out loud to Magnolia Grace, though.
It might take longer than I thought it would.
"I'm glad," I tell her, and I mean it. I’m not just saying it to be polite. My brother deserves someone who looks at him the way Magnolia does, and she deserves a man who shows up for her the way Levi does. "You two have been good for each other."
"We have," she agrees, glancing up from whatever she's doing with her hands just long enough to smile at the camera. "Now stop deflecting and tell me why you look like that."
"Like what?"
"Like someone who got really good news, or really good…"
"Magnolia Grace," I cut her off, but I'm laughing, and she knows me well enough to know what that means even when I'm not saying the words out loud.
We talk for a few more minutes about nothing in particular. It’s just nice to have a conversation that doesn’t involve hiding my relationship or dealing with someone about to have a baby.
That's when my phone buzzes against the bed beside me with a text notification, and I glance down, expecting it to be Dakota or Levi or someone from the hospital, but the name that comes up on my screen isn't any of those.
It's Lucy.
I stare at it for just a second, because Lucy and I text sometimes, but not often enough that a message from her at two in the afternoon on a day off feels entirely expected. I hold up a finger to Magnolia. "Give me one second."
I tap the message open.
Lucy: Hey Molly!! Mom and I are going to Polly's Pottery this afternoon and I told her I wanted to invite you. Please say yes, I need someone to talk to who isn't going to make me paint a coffee mug and call it a day.
I press my lips together to keep the smile from taking over my whole face, because Lucy Keller at sixteen years old has more personality than most adults I know, and the fact that she thought to text me at all to invite me feels like Dakota and I are moving into much more serious territory than either of us predicted.
My first instinct, if I'm being completely honest with myself, is to make an excuse.
I'm good at making excuses. I've had a lot of practice over the years when it comes to anything that feels like it's moving too fast or getting too real too quickly.
I could tell her I have laundry to do, or that I promised my parents I'd come by, or that I've got an early shift tomorrow and need to rest. All of those things are technically true in the way that things can be technically true without actually being the reason you're saying them.
But then I think about Dakota standing in that parking lot outside the bowling alley with his hands in his pockets, telling me in a voice low enough that it was only ever meant for me that someday that was going to be the two of us.
And I think about the fact that I believe him, which is the scariest and also the most settled I've felt about anything in a long time.
If I want to be a part of his life — really a part of it, not just the secret part that happens behind closed doors after dark — then his family comes with that.
Spending an afternoon at a pottery place with the two of them is not a big ask. It's actually a pretty nice afternoon, all things considered.
I type back before I can talk myself out of it.
M: I would love to. What time are y'all heading over?
Her response comes back in under thirty seconds.
L: WE ARE SO EXCITED. Like twenty minutes? Is that okay?
Twenty minutes. "Okay then," I say out loud, to no one.
M: I'll meet you there.
I set the phone down and look back at Magnolia, who has been watching me eyebrows raised.
"I have to go," I tell her. "I'm sorry, I know we were in the middle of talking."
"Where are you going?"
"Polly's Pottery." I'm already getting up, pulling my hair back where the oil is still sitting in it and making a mental note to wipe my hands before I touch anything that can stain. "Lucy just asked me to go with her and her mom."
Magnolia goes very still for a moment as her eyes widen, and then she sets down whatever is in her hands and looks directly at the camera. "Lucy Keller. Dakota's little sister."
"Yes."
"And their mom." The way she says it, is annoying as fuck because it's like she's implying that something much bigger is happening.
"That's what I said." The tone I use is bored so that she can't read more into it than she already has.
She blinks. Then she smiles, slow and bright and entirely too knowing for someone who isn't supposed to know anything yet. "Okay," she gives me a shit-eating grin.
"Don't," I tell her.
"I'm not doing anything," she argues, trying to seem way more innocent than what she is.
"You're doing the face."
"I don't have a face."
"Magnolia," I groan, pulling her name out with an exaggerated sigh.
"Go paint pottery with Dakota's mom and sister, Molly." She picks her project back up, the smile still sitting on her mouth. "I'll talk to you later."
I disconnect the FaceTime before she can say anything else.
Polly's Pottery is tucked downtown a few streets over from The Café . The windows are painted with little handprints and sunflowers, and there's a chalkboard sign out front that says Today's special: flower pots and good company. I've driven past it a hundred times and never actually gone in.
Lucy spots me the second I push through the door, and she does what she always does, which is light up like she's been waiting for me specifically. "You actually came," she says, like she was genuinely worried I wouldn't, which makes something in my throat go a little tight.
"I said I would." I pull her into a side hug and then look over her shoulder to where Mrs. Keller is standing at the display of unpainted pieces along the far wall, turning a tall vase over in her hands. "Hey, Mrs. Keller."
She sets the vase down and gives me a warm smile. "Molly, honey, it's Patty. We've known each other too long for anything else."
"Patty," I repeat, and it feels natural in a way I wasn't sure it would. This is my friends’ mother. I don’t call them by their first names. It feels sacrilegious.
The three of us spend a few minutes walking the shelves, and I end up with a wide, shallow bowl that I have some vague idea of doing something geometric with, though I don't fully commit to that until we've settled at one of the tables with our brushes and our palettes and small cups of water. Patty has chosen a tall mug, which tracks for her. Lucy has chosen a piece that is wildly ambitious for an afternoon project, a large oval platter that she has apparently decided she is going to cover entirely in a detailed wildflower pattern, and she is approaching it with the kind of confidence that says failure isn’t an option. She’s so much like Dakota, I can’t help but grin at her.
“How’s work going?” Patty asks. “I admire the fact you work in healthcare. I kind of always wondered what it would be like to be a nurse, but it intimidated me.”
“It intimidates me too,” I laugh as I start the painting process.
“Some days everything goes perfectly, there aren’t scary moments where a baby’s heartbeat dips, and the mother has trouble delivering the baby.
Other days it’s all scary, and stressful.
” I sigh with a lift of my shoulders. “But seeing these new lives enter the world? It’s totally worth it.
You always kind of wonder what those babies will end up being.
” I stop, a smile on my face. “It’s an honor to be a part of that. ”
Lucy is painting with her tongue pressed lightly between her teeth, the way people do when they're concentrating, and for a stretch of time the three of us are quiet as we all concentrate.
Then Lucy looks up from her platter, directly at me, with the expression of someone who has been sitting on something and has finally decided the time is right.
"You know," she starts, in a conversational tone that does not fool me for one single second, "Dakota can call it whatever he wants, and you two can take all the time you need to figure out what the label is.
" She dips her brush, considers the tip of it, and then looks back at me with those eyes that see absolutely everything.
"But I'm going to be calling you my sister-in-law sooner rather than later, and I just want you to know that I'm already happy about it. "
I open my mouth. I close it again.
Across the table, Patty doesn't say a word. She just keeps her eyes on her mug and the smile that comes across her face is a slow smirk. She glances up just long enough to meet my eyes, and what's in hers is not a question. It's something that looks a lot more like a welcome to the family.
I look back down at my bowl, and I drag my brush through a line of deep blue that bleeds softer at the edges than I intended, and I think that maybe soft edges are not always the worst outcome.
"You're something else, Lucy Keller," I finally say.
She grins. "I know," she says, entirely without apology, and goes back to her wildflowers.