Chapter 25
MOLLY
Molly had given up on three things. One, winning the damn contest. Even though she’d risen to the top like the cream in a bowl of fresh milk, she immediately sank shortly thereafter. Firmly, again, in second place.
The gaggle of puppies—was that what it was called when you had a whole bunch of them? A group of squirrels was called a scurry. A group of crows a murder. Were puppies a gaggle?
No, probably a pack. A pack of puppies.
Didn’t matter what you called them, those puppies worked. Even makeup and Molly couldn’t compete. Even Gavin and his sausage jokes had nothing on that level of cuteness.
Peter and Chris’s couple on their next date? Visiting kittens. Because, of course they did.
Knitting could not compete with puppies and kittens.
That was just how it was.
The second thing Molly gave up on? That the price of that house she’d let herself fall in love with would ever fall within her budget.
Especially since her car was once again in the shop.
Because, of course it was. Suddenly her home buying budget was more like a down payment at a spot in the community garden.
She was trying really damn hard not to be too disappointed. But she was disappointed. Her bones seemed to creak with disappointment.
The third thing? The scarf she started in their knitting class with Charlie and Agnes.
She made a two-by-two-inch square before calling it quits.
Mostly because her square looked like she’d been in a car driving over an extremely bumpy road while she made the stitches.
They were lumpy and they were bumpy and not one of them was even.
Charlie didn’t even try. He sat back and talked to Agnes while she sorted her own stitches. Charlie dished out all the reasons knitting class was better than bingo. The key point being because, at the end, Agnes would have a sweater. Apparently, that was worth the price of admission.
Was it Molly or were the two of them being a little snippier with each other than usual? He hadn’t once put his hand on her knee and Agnes was definitely grumpy.
Maybe Charlie really was rubbing off on her?
“Bingo wasn’t that bad; you’re exaggerating,” Agnes said on a huff. “Like the salt in the pasta. Not too much.
Nothing you need to fuss about.”
“It was that bad. That’s why I’m not doing it again.” He harrumphed. “And the pasta was too salty. Somebody threw in a whole brick of the stuff.”
Meanwhile, Gavin took to knitting like he’d been doing it his entire adult life.
“What’s up with the two of them?” he asked. “Trouble in paradise, I guess?” Molly shrugged. “Shouldn’t you…you know. Fix it?” Gavin asked.
She let out a long sigh. Probably. That was probably in her wheelhouse.
There were only the four of them in the class. Really, it was just the four of them in the back yarn room where the saleslady came in and out sometimes to check on them. There were walls and walls of yarn. Four of them, actually. All four sides of the room were filled with various fiber types.
The lesson itself was brief. Oh, it was enough to get Gavin and Agnes going. But Molly? Not so much.
So she sat like a good little Molly in her folding chair and let Gavin do the knitting in their not-a-relationship.
“I can’t believe how even you got your rows.” Molly stared as Gavin tied another loop and then moved the knitting needles into place for the next row.
“Yeah, don’t tell anyone. I might lose my street cred.” He said this as he sat back with a good amount of man-spreading and a whole ball of yarn at his disposal.
“You don’t have any street cred, Gavin.” Molly giggled. “Also, don’t say street cred. You’re too…you to use that term.”
“Okay, then don’t tell my brothers because they’ll make
fun of me.” He gave her a knowing smile. The kind of smile that came from understanding a person on a level deeper than knitting together.
She shifted. Sometimes when Gavin looked at her like that, she got the feeling he saw way too much.
“That I would believe,” she said. His brothers probably would give him hell about his newfound ability, but that’s not because of the knitting.
They’d likely be jealous of his ability on that front.
They just liked to give their older brother crap whenever they could.
Apparently, that was a sibling thing. So Molly had observed.
Sometimes she liked to watch Kellan and Brady interact with Ollie because it was so foreign, the way they bonded as a team. Maybe it wasn’t blood that connected siblings. Probably more the shared years of experience that bonded people together. This was her theory, at least.
“Are you going to make fun of me?” Gavin asked, looping a small bit of yarn over the needle, pulling tight.
That’s probably where Molly went wrong. She didn’t keep her loops tight enough.
There was a life lesson in that thought, she was certain.
Probably best not to dig too far into it.
“Do I get to wear the scarf?” she asked, seeing as his scarf actually looked like the beginnings of a scarf and not a Kleenex. “At least once?”
“Uh, yeah. We’re on a date.” He looped a stretch of yarn over his needle and pulled again, his fingers moving deftly. She’d give him that—he was good with his hands.
“Would it really be a date if I didn’t knit you a scarf?” he continued.
“No, I don’t think it would be. You’re right.” She conceded that point. “And if I get to wear the beauty of that scarf, then I won’t make fun of you.” Especially since he’d sprung for the more expensive yarn. The super soft kind.
Also, they’d had some mommy and boyfriend alone time before they left for their date, and he did the curlicue thing with his tongue no less than three times. So she wasn’t feeling like she’d be making fun of him for anything ever again.
Except maybe his commitment to his brand of hair products and the specific order of their application. His insistence on that front was straight up adorably funny.
She kicked back in her chair to continue her observation of both Gavin and his savant ability to knit and Charlie and Agnes and whatever was going on with them. She flipped through her phone to the webpage for the radio contest and stilled.
“Holy crap,” she said, her lungs not pulling in air. “What?” Gavin asked.
“Peter and Chris’s couple just broke up.” Molly held up the phone. “Like, they’re done. I’m in first place.” She shook her head. “I mean we’re in first place. Charlie and Agnes are. With, you know, me. And you’re here, but not for cash. You know what I mean.”
Gavin said, “I’d like to say that’s fantastic…”
“But the other couple broke up.” She pulled a yeesh face. “Emotions are kind of complicated with things like this.”
Gavin nodded.
“You know what’s not complicated?” she asked. “What?”
“I could get my house!” She did a little it-could-maybe-
sort-of-happen dance with her feet.
“You keep celebrating. I’m going to see if they have any of those longer needles,” Gavin said, standing. “I think those might be better.”
“Longer is always better,” Molly agreed. Then she smiled. “Everything’s coming up Molly.”
He just shook his head and headed toward the door to the front of the shop. And then Cassidy walked right into him.
Literally, like they were in a romance movie on one of those cable channels. Latte in hand, kid in tow—a mini version of Cassidy.
Molly’s contentment fizzled straight away, replaced by the chilly hand of reality.
A reality of expiration dates and the end of side trips through the country.
“Oh my gosh,” Cassidy said, holding back the paper cup so it didn’t spill all over Gavin.
He reached to steady her, his hands perfectly meant for her shoulders.
Molly suddenly felt like she’d eaten a whole bowl full of dust bunny soup. The universe seemed to still. Heck, she could even see each individual dust mote in the sunshine beam as Gavin’s future collided with his present.
Literally collided. She gulped.
“Gavin, hi. Again.” Cassidy stepped out of his hands. But Molly didn’t miss the spark there between them. Hell, there may as well have been fireworks going off with big arrows pointing them together.
“Hi, Cass,” Gavin said, stepping back, looking to Molly.
“Molly,” he said. “You remember Cassidy.”
Molly didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Because she couldn’t do either. Couldn’t do anything but watch the car wreck in front of her.
“Don’t even think about it,” Gavin said, low, in her direction.
He said that to her; she was sure. And she wanted to make a joke about how she didn’t need to think about setting him up with the woman of his future, because that perfect woman kept finding her way right into his path. No Molly set-ups even needed.
She wanted to be funny. To be silly.
But she couldn’t even seem to form a syllable.
Thankfully, Agnes and Charlie were in their own little bubble, snipping about B-3 and why that wasn’t a winning letter-number combination.
In any case, Agnes didn’t catch the Molly vibe. How that vibration had suddenly changed. Not for the better, either.
She had to snap out of this. Move on and accept it for what it was.
“Hi, Cassidy,” she said, slipping into the fun Molly of her web show. The one everyone liked. The one it was much easier to be when things got hard.
Like, for example, now.
“Hi.” Cassidy stared a little too long at Gavin before moving her gaze back to Molly. “I see you guys everywhere, huh?”
“Yeah.” Molly really wished she had something to do with her hands. Maybe she’d given up too easily on the knitting. “Look, it’s Cassidy,” she said to Gavin. “Isn’t that great?”
Gavin’s expression did not imply that he thought it was great—which made sense. This was probably awkward for him. She didn’t need to make it more awkward.
“It’s good to see you again, Cass.” Gavin said the words, and he seemed genuinely happy to see her. He also set his hand on Molly’s shoulder and gave it a not-very-friendly squeeze because it was more of a like-a-lover squeeze.
“Did you knit that?” Cassidy asked, moving toward the scarf on his chair.