Sweet Disposition
Molly
WEDNESDAY MORNING, I don’t go into school until after small break.
Lorraine stayed home for the rest of the day, too upset over saying goodbye to dad at the airport. I let Mom stay with her, who when I left was comforting her by offering ice-cream and a TV marathon.
I’ve been trying to be nicer to Mom for the last few days.
She was really cool about the whole getting caught kissing Niall in school thing, and I’m trying to see everything that happened a few years ago from her pov.
Her eldest daughter struggling with addiction, disappearing, and feeling like her world is crumbling.
I still don’t fully forgive her for leaving, but it wasn’t like Mom fully went no contact with me.
I just wouldn’t talk to her on the phone, or respond to her post-cards, or interact with her much when she visited.
I’m going to miss dad too, but I have plenty other things on my plate to distract me.
Niall, my friends, Finn Marshall’s birthday part on Friday (even though his real birthday was on Monday—so was Chloe’s.
What a coincidence that they share a seventeenth birthday?).
But even with all these distractions, I’m still feeling a little down by the time practice wraps up.
Niall’s waiting for me in the car, as per usual. I toss my duffel bag over the center console and into the backseat of his Escort, sinking gracefully into the passenger seat.
“No JJ?” I ask, noting the absence of our usual third-wheel. Sometimes Claire stays to watch practice and rides home with us, but all this week she’s just been getting a ride with Niamh and Marissa, from Marissa’s older brother in fifth year.
Niall puts the car into gear and pulls smoothly away from the curb, rolling his shoulders into a shrug. “No. Hey, do you think he’s avoiding you?”
My brows furrow. Niall and JJ were best friends, and I knew from the pictures around Niall’s house they’d been attached at the hip since JJ was born. “Why would you think that?”
“He’s been weird all week,” he says. “And he hasn’t come over since Saturday.”
Saturday. The night of our little dinner party with our families, that JJ had, of course, invited himself to.
Now that I think about it, even though he was his normal rambunctious self that night, he’s been a little off since.
Him and Claire haven’t been rambling during the morning car rides, and he’s been riding home with Niall and I, but he’s not been his full-self.
I’ve just been pretty caught up with my dad visiting.
“Have you talked to him?” I ask. Boy friendships have always been foreign to me.
In Girl World, if one of us was acting off, we confronted each other immediately.
Drama was dealt with quickly and brutally, and then we moved on.
Boys dragged their feet, letting tension fester and putting off confrontation.
Unless they were drunk—then they usually just punched each other, cried, and moved on.
“I asked if he was pissed at me,” Niall says. “He said he wasn’t.”
“Do you believe him?”
Niall drums his fingers on the steering wheel for a few moments before answering. “I dunno. I can't think of anything I would've done to piss him off. We never fight.”
I frown, looking out the window. “Hmm. Have you asked Claire to talk to him? I know they're close.”
Niall exhales sharply through his nose. “Yeah, but she's been weird too. It's like they're both avoiding me.”
“That's weird... Claire's seemed like her normal self to me. In school, at least.”
“Odd,” he hums, and I agree.
“Well,” he changes the subject (because I guess that’s what boys do). “Anyway. Since we were gonna be alone, and I figured you’d be down in the dumps about your dad leaving—”
“I never said that,” I interject.
“Didn’t have to. Anyway, I figured we could go do something.”
“Like together?”
“No, I thought I’d drop you off at Lidl and I’d head to the pub.” He rolls his eyes, and gives me a playful looking smile. “Yeah, together.”
I ignore his sarcastic reply. “What did you have in mind?”
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
BY THE TIME we pull up outside BLUEBIRD BAKERY, it’s raining. Well, sort of. It’s more of this misty stuff that isn’t quite rain and isn’t quite fog, yet it still manages to soak you straight through to the bone all the same.
Niall’s mother closes the bakery at seven on weekdays (those are just winter hours, he informed me happily, we go till eight the rest of the year), so he has to fish keys from his pocket and unlock the back door to let us in.
Despite the fact that we’re getting soaked, he holds the door open for me with a mocking bow. “After you, m’lady.”
I quickly rush inside, Niall following me. We’re in a back room that leads to the kitchen, and as soon as he gets the door shut he shakes out his hair like a wet dog.
“Ew! Niall!” I screech, shielding myself from the spray of water droplets.
He ignores my protests, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around my waist. He pulls me flush against his chest, damp shirt and all.
“Niall!” I shriek again, trying and failing to push him off of me.
“You’re already wet,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “And cold.”
“Because of you!”
“No,” he says, pulling back just enough to look at me. “I don't control the weather, Molly.”
“No, but you control how much you act like a wet Labrador.”
He laughs—not one of his usual snorts or chuckles, but a full-blown laugh that sends warmth bubbling up from my chest. He kisses the top of my head again, and I scrunch my nose.
That's twice now that he's done it. One of those strange things no one but him does—that I'm sure no other seventeen year old boy in the world does—but I'm starting to realize that I don't hate it.
“Come on,” he says, releasing me to take my hand instead. “Let's get you warmed up.”
Once our wet hoodies are pulled off and draped up to dry in the coat room, and Niall’s turned on all the bright lights in the industrial kitchen, he rubs his hand together briskly and turns to me. “Right. What d’ya wanna make then?”
“You’re the professional,” I point out, hopping up to sit on the edge of one of the stainless-steel prep counters. “What’s the easiest thing we can do? Mom said I have to be home by ten.”
He seems to think for a moment, silently weighing options in his mind. He crosses the room, opens a narrow supply closet and pulls out two aprons—one a dark navy blue, and the other one bubblegum pink. He tosses the pink one right at my face. “Put that on, then. We’ll make brownies.”
I catch the apron before it can hit me, glancing down at the fabric. It’s covered in little cartoon cupcakes, with the words kiss the baker embroidered across the chest in a looping cursive font.
“Mmm, this is cute,” I tease, sliding off the counter to tie it on. “You wear this often?”
He’s pulling the blue one over his own head—his also patterned with cupcakes and read Baker’s Man. He waits till he’s got it tied on properly and grabs a metal mixing bowl from under the counter before retorting. “Shut up.”
I laugh, leaning back against the cool metal of the counter and watch him work.
He moves around, pulling ingredients from the pantry shelves—flour, sugar, cocoa powder, eggs—and lining them up pristinely on the counter.
He looks just as intensely focused right now as he usually does organizing a play on the pitch.
When he’s got all the stuff out, he turns and catches me gazing at him fondly.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I shake my head. “Just—you really look like you know what you’re doing.”
He scoffs playfully. “Course I do. Been doing this since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Now. You gonna help or just stand there looking pretty.”
“Well, I dunno... I’m doing pretty good at the standing thing...”
“Get your pretty ass over here and help,” he says, and I push off the counter with a laugh.
I’ve gotten pretty used to Niall’s stubbornness (like with his knee pain and the alcohol thing, which I trust that he’s telling the truth to me about), and his mannerisms. I’m used to him.
I know that if we’re out in the cold, he’ll give me his jacket and won’t take no for an answer.
I know that he likes physically touching people.
That’s the hardest thing for me to get used to—the touching. Niall likes to hug me (which he does often), and other stuff. And though we weren’t technically “dating” yet, it was fair to assume he was going to try and kiss me again at some point or another.
Not that I don’t like these things about them—I love them—but it’s hard for me.
Like on Monday after practice, when he came up behind me and surprised me.
For a moment my mind wasn’t on the pitch, it was in the past, and I had locked up out of instinct.
I don’t think Niall noticed, but the point was that reflex always lived in the back of my mind.
I knew Niall well enough to know he wouldn’t intentionally hurt me. But it’s still hard for my body to remember that sometimes.
“You stir,” Niall says, holding the wooden spoon out for me handle-first.
I take it from him, beginning to fold the heavy batter and watching the chocolate chips disappear into the dark swirls. Behind me, Niall bangs around the kitchen, pulling out a square tin and spraying it down with baking oil.
“Ready, Mol?” he asks, setting the prepared pan down next to my mixing bowl. I carefully pour the thick batter into the tin, smoothing it out with the back of the spoon.
“Perfect.” He slides the pan into the massive industrial oven he started preheating when we walked in, and then sets a little football shaped baking timer. “Now we wait.”
“So what do we do while we wait, baker’s man?” I ask.
He reaches over, dragging the empty mixing bowl toward him. He swipes his index finger through the thick remnants of the batter and pops it into his mouth. “Clean up.”
I mirror him, scraping a line of chocolate from the side of the bowl. It’s rich and overwhelmingly sweet, the sugar hitting my tongue in a rush. Niall watches me, his gaze dropping to my mouth and lingering there.
Just when I think he’s going to kiss me, his hand shoots out and swipes a generous dollop of batter onto the tip of my nose.
“Hey!”
He laughs, dodging backward as I lunge for him, trying to retaliate. I manage to grab his wrist, twisting his arm just enough to smear my own chocolate-covered finger across his cheek.
He yelps in protest, and then we’re wrestling with each other, each trying to cover the other in chocolate. Somehow we end up tipping the bag of flour over, sending a white cloud up into the air.
Niall’s hands catch my hips, his grip firm and sure. With effortless strength, he lifts me entirely off my feet and sets me down on the edge of the island. The laughter squeezes out of my lungs as he steps securely between my knees, caging me against the counter.
Oh my god.
“Gotcha,” he murmurs, his head tilted slightly. His chest heaves, his breath hot and uneven against my face.
The sex scene of my life is about to happen in a bakery.
I can’t tell if what’s coursing through my veins and making my heart speed up is fear or desire.
I’m suddenly hyper-aware of everything. His fingers that curl around my waist; the visible beat of his pulse in his neck; the sweet smell of the chocolate mixing with his normal woodsy cologne.
My hands move with a mind of their own, clearly working on the side of desire, and my fingers tangle in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. I pull him closer and he doesn’t hesitate. He leans in until our lips finally meet.
He pulls me flush against his chest, his hands sliding round my back but remaining careful and respectful, not going any further up or down than that. I reach up, my thumb tracing his jawline to wipe away the smeared batter. I feel him smile into the kiss before pressing deeper.
Panic flares up for only a microscopic second—the familiar instinct to run, to push him away, to hide. But I stay grounded. I don’t pull away. I don’t freeze. I’m able to push all the bad thoughts out of my mind.
I want to be here. In this kitchen, in this moment. Nowhere else, with nobody else.