9. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Molly
“I can’t tell if you’re excited about something or freaking out,” Juliet said, eyeing me suspiciously as I ripped the lid off a pint of chocolate ice cream.
“Both.” I shoveled a spoonful into my mouth, and she watched me curiously.
She sank onto the couch, folding one leg under her. “Did Lucas’s team lose?”
I snorted. She wasn’t big on hockey. The fact she knew they were called teams was about as far as her sports knowledge extended. “No. They won.”
“So, you’re not drowning your sorrows in ice cream,” she mused, tapping her chin.
“No,” I said around my next bite. “When have I ever been that invested in a game?”
“True,” she said, grinning. “Do you need to talk about your meeting with Lynn?”
I’d already filled her in on how that went before I got to the arena. And talking about my failures was the last thing I needed. “No.”
“Do I get any clues?”
I shook my head, and her eyes widened.
“Did you kiss someone?”
Laughing, I put the lid back on the ice cream and walked over to the freezer.
Shivering from the frigid blast, I put the ice cream back in the door, my comfort food craving satisfied.
If I didn’t have the excitement of tomorrow to look forward to, that ice cream would have stayed in my hands until I was scraping the last dregs.
“No, I didn’t kiss someone. I did come as close as I have since that day, though,” I said, lowering my voice like that day was a reprehensible phrase to utter aloud.
“Preston?”
I crossed my arms. “How are you that good?”
She clapped her hands, bouncing up as she giggled. “You almost kissed Preston Ledger? The Edger?”
“How the heck do you know his nickname?” I narrowed my eyes
“I heard it once, and it’s kind of hard to forget.”
“That makes sense, since it rhymes.” That was why rhymes were so helpful when memorizing something.
She gave me a look that made my stomach tighten, like I said something wrong. “You know what edging is, right?”
“Getting really close to something, and then backing off? Or how he pushes away the competition.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s like basic vocabulary—”
“Sexually?”
My face heated and I wished I hadn’t put the ice cream away. “There’s sexual edging?”
Her grin grew wicked, and she leaned forward. “Yes, my sweet summer child.”
If anyone else called me that, I’d have their head, but Juliet was basically the only person I tolerated knowing about my virgin status, and her jokes didn’t hurt.
“Well?” I put my hand out, exasperated. She had information. I wanted to know it.
“So,” she said, leaning farther forward like this information was so illicit no one else could hear it.
“It’s where you get really close to coming and then whatever—or whoever—is getting you close, backs off.
And then you do that over and over until you’re trembling and can’t take it.
The orgasm that builds up from it is—” She groaned and fell back into the couch.
“Interesting,” I said, thinking my voice would work, but instead, it kind of came out like a strangled cat trying to meow.
“Yeah, it’s as good as you’re imagining.”
I had a vibrator and had put it inside me before, but all those sessions with myself lasted less than a minute. It was confusing to me that men were admonished for being fast in bed because I was pretty sure I could rival their top speeds.
Edging was a radically new concept.
“Do you think his nickname is Edger because—” I couldn’t say the words out loud.
I knew Preston slept with a lot of women, but I hadn’t let my imagination think about how any of that went. He obviously was good at it if he still had women lining up after every game and pulling his best friend’s little sister in to put in a good word for them.
I shuddered and Juliet laughed. “It’s good. I promise. Maybe after Preston kisses you, you can ask him to show you if he lives up to the nickname.”
“Juliet!” I threw a pillow at her and groaned. “I can’t think about him like that—”
“But you almost kissed him tonight. You know what kissing leads to.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and I looked for something else I could throw at her.
I found a stress ball in the shape of a hockey puck and raised it above my head. “No, I don’t know what kissing leads to, jerk.”
She folded her arms over her face, laughing harder. “You’ll know soon enough.”
“You’re terrible.”
She shrugged, sighing. “You won’t think it’s terrible when you experience it. So how did tonight go? If you almost kissed Preston, that means it either went terribly right or terribly wrong.”
I sucked in a breath, blowing it out through tight lips to steady my pulse. I wasn’t sure where to even begin.
Juliet scooted over and patted the couch. “Come here.”
I settled next to her and let her pull me into a hug. “I’m going to miss this.”
“Me too,” she whispered. “You can visit our new place anytime you want, and we can do this—”
“Romeo won’t mind?”
She smiled, her eyes lit up. “If he minded, I wouldn’t be marrying him.”
An ache grew in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t jealousy because I didn’t want exactly what they had. It was a sort of longing, though. A longing for something of my own. Something that made me smile like that.
“Alright, Molly, what happened tonight?”
Blowing out a stage-exhale, I poured out everything until the pizza arrived.
Her eyes widened with every twist of the story. Preston saying he’d kiss me, Emmett stopping us, my completely unexpected ability to tell both of them everything—something she stopped to point out when I said some of the parts of the meeting with Lynn I had accidentally left out when telling her.
“You had pizza, and then what? If you kissed either of them, I don’t think you would’ve come home and stalked to the freezer before saying hi.”
I rolled my lower lip between my teeth and groaned. “I got your text while we were eating, and a few minutes before that, Emmett had already suggested I move in with them. It came up that you were moving and with this contract precariously close to ending, I’m worried about what to do next—”
She opened her mouth, and I put my hand up. “Don’t even say anything. You’re living your dream. I was dumb to not start looking for a roommate the second you got engaged. Even dumber to keep putting it off when you started looking at places with Romeo.”
I didn’t tell her that I was convinced the relationship wouldn’t last long enough to worry about finding a new roommate. No relationship lasted forever, but I didn’t want her to think it was personal.
“Fine. But then what happened when you got my text?”
“They asked if I wanted to move in sooner. Or kind of told me? At least Emmett did.”
“And Preston?”
“He’s onboard. But Emmett is kind of demanding and—” My cheeks warmed, and I stared at my hands.
“And you like it,” Juliet said, slapping my arm. “Good for you, Molly. You almost kiss one hockey player, and then another starts telling you what to do—”
“I shouldn’t like that, though. Right?”
“Seriously? As long as he’s being respectful and hears your no, enjoy it.” She groaned and leaned her head back. “How sexy is that? Emmett Krause telling you what you’re going to do.” Another groan.
“Juliet—it’s—” I hesitated, not sure what argument I had. It was sexy. Just telling her about it had my body tingling like I had been when his green eyes were boring into my soul, waiting for my answer.
“So, when do you move in?” she asked, curling her other leg under her like we were gossiping at a sleepover.
“Tomorrow morning,” I squeaked, the excitement tightening my vocal cords.
“Tomorrow morning?” she yelled. “Molly. We need to pack. Like we needed to start the moment you walked in the door.”
I shook my head and stopped her from getting up. “That’s the other thing. Emmett told me not to start until they get here.”
She fanned herself and fell back again. “So fucking hot.”
“You don’t think it’s stupid to move in with them so soon?”
She laughed and then stopped herself when she saw my face. “No, Molly. It’s not stupid. In fact, I think it’s the most exciting thing you’ve ever done.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I don’t mean it bad, so quit looking at me like that.” She shoved me and I held firmly, shoving her back. “Seriously, you haven’t taken a lot of big risks, and this will be good for you.”
“Yeah, big risks always pay off for me.” I rolled my eyes.
“This isn’t even that crazy of a risk, though. You’ve known Preston for what? Your whole life?”
“Pretty much.”
“You trust him. Lucas trusts him. And Preston trusts Emmett or he wouldn’t live with him.” She draped her arm over my shoulder and squeezed me against her. “Molly, I think this is going to be one of the biggest, best adventures of your life.”
I couldn’t even tell her the biggest part. It still didn’t feel real to me, and speaking it aloud was terrifying. The thought of telling her about their offer to teach me all I needed to know had my stomach twisting into nauseating loops.
Her eyebrows rose. “You okay? You look pale.”
I wrung my hands, suddenly more nervous than I was with Preston and Emmett. “It’s a lot of big changes.”
“You’ve got this, Molly.” She grabbed my hand. “If I didn’t have Romeo, I would be so jealous of you right now.”
“Jealous?”
“Your first kiss is probably going to be from The Edger?” She put her hand to her forehead, swooning. “Yes, jealous.”
And she didn’t even know the whole story.
The loops in my stomach tensed, forming unbreakable knots.
What the heck was I getting myself into?