Chapter 26
Everything Molly wanted, so damn much it terrified her, was almost within her grasp. She and Karl were finally—finally—discussing what a future together might look like.
To be fair, it wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned wanting her to stay in Harlot’s Bay. Two weeks ago, after their steamy
bakery encounter, he’d raised the topic. Back then, though, she hadn’t been ready to throw her life into upheaval for him.
Hadn’t trusted either him or her own heart enough to make that leap.
Circumstances had changed. So had she.
At this moment, there was only one more thing she needed to know, needed to hear, before she let herself tumble heart-first into a commitment with a man she’d never forgotten, but had reunited with less
than one month ago. And his near-trembling intensity, the pleading shine in his intent brown eyes, finally gave her the courage
to address her last remaining uncertainty.
The single word took all her bravery. “Why?”
Before she dug out the fragile roots of her life in LA and transplanted herself into fresh soil a continent away, she needed
to know she’d be safe. Sheltered from inevitable droughts by his love, not simply left to wither in the unforgiving sun on
her own. Because she could do that in Los Angeles quite easily, no move required.
“W—” He drew back a fraction of an inch. “Why?”
How in the world could he sound so startled, when it was the most obvious question imaginable?
“Yes. Why.” Her fingers felt numb against his, and her blood pressure was probably through the freaking roof. “Why should I stay?”
He shifted his weight. Started to say something. Hesitated. Then—after one last, convulsive squeeze—loosened his grip on her
damp-palmed hand.
In that moment, the balance of her emotions tilted away from hope. So she was braced, fortunately enough, when the words he
finally dredged up weren’t anything like what she so desperately needed from him.
“You’ve been lonely in LA. Got friends here.” His throat bobbed in a swallow. “Lise. Athena. Uh . . . Janel, maybe?”
Lise, her closest friend, did in fact live here. But— “Are you under the impression I don’t have any casual friendships in Los Angeles? Not a single connection I could cultivate, if I wanted to?”
And what about Karl himself? Did she not have a friend in him?
For that matter, hadn’t the two of them built something far beyond friendship? But if they had, why wasn’t he telling her
so, or listing their relationship as a reason for her to stay?
“Don’t need to cultivate anything with Lise,” he pointed out. “Work from home too. Nothing for your job keeping you out there.”
Okay, yeah. Being an audiobook narrator didn’t require a specific location, and she could transport and reassemble her studio
with relative ease. Being physically near Lise, her most prolific author, might even make certain things less complicated,
professionally speaking. In general, though, there were way more entertainment-industry opportunities in Los Angeles. He knew
that, right?
She withdrew her hand completely. Let it drop to her side, empty. “If I ever decided to pursue voice-over work, living in semi-rural Maryland wouldn’t serve me well.”
Voice-over work didn’t particularly interest her at the moment, but whatever. That might change.
Besides, did he expect her to haul her entire life across an entire fucking continent just because her job allowed for that? Like she was a restless kid in her early twenties with a futon and a bean bag chair, rather than a nearly forty-year-old
woman with a king-size bed and a freaking dinette set, whose stress levels already had her doctor worried?
His hand reached for hers again. Fell.
“Yeah, but—” He rocked back on his heels, deep lines carved across his forehead. “Housing’s way damn cheaper in Harlot’s Bay.
Could buy something new. No renos needed.”
Because she wouldn’t be living with him, apparently.
Just what the hell did he think they were doing here?
Suddenly, her remaining store of patience vanished, and she laid it out for him as bluntly as she could. “So I’d have friends.
Work. Cheap housing.” She stared at him meaningfully, begging him with her eyes to give her what she needed. “What about you?”
“I’d—” He paused then, chest expanding, and a flicker of hope reignited in her own chest. Then he deflated again. His voice
barely audible in the still, moonlit classroom, he muttered, “I’d be here too.”
For once, he’d managed something quieter than a shout. Unfortunately, though, the content of his answer—the emotion it expressed—was
as faded and threadbare as its sound.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, gathering herself.
What he was offering? It wasn’t enough.
Only an utter fool would move cross-country for a man who’d never said he loved her or even that he wanted a future together. And she’d already been a fool for two men in her life.
How did the saying go? First time, shame on him. Second time, shame on her.
Her mental addendum?
Third time, not fucking happening.
“I—” Her heart wasn’t literally at her feet, broken. But it sure felt like it. “I appreciate the invitation. But I can’t say.”
To her credit, her voice didn’t shake. She wasn’t crying. She even conjured up a slight smile of thanks. Gratitude for his
kindness in asking her to remain in Harlot’s Bay, even though she hadn’t wanted kindness from him in this moment. Only love.
The sort of love she could rely upon for a lifetime. The sort of love she’d never had from a man, and probably never would.
“Yeah. Okay.” Karl’s chin dropped, and he scowled at the floor like it owed him money. Hands clenched into fists, all jutting
knuckles and bulging veins, he remained silent for a few seconds. “Figured. No big deal.”
It was no big deal to him whether she stayed or left?
All the raging emotion she was seeing in him must only be damaged pride, then. Lovely.
“No big deal,” she echoed, and turned for the door. “Shall we get back to the party?”
“Why the fuck not?” His voice was gravel-rough, and he rounded her to unlock the door and enter the hall first. “No goddamn
reason to linger, right?”
She kept a careful distance as they walked. Held herself slightly too far away to touch. Studied the passing lockers and swallowed
back the emotion blurring her gaze.
“Right,” she said finally, her tone unperturbed, as they neared the gym.
And when the crowd swept them in two separate directions, she didn’t fight the tide. She simply let herself be carried far,
far away.
Due to Molly’s extraordinary efforts at avoidance, tracking her down took Lise an entire hour. At long last, however, Molly’s
best friend managed to find her in the bathroom farthest from the actual reunion, where she’d hoped to erase any sign of tears
in absolute privacy.
Lise let the door swing shut behind her, propped her butt against a white porcelain sink, and passed Molly a clean tissue.
“Want a hug?”
“Not right now.” An embrace would break her, and she needed to get through the rest of the evening with believable aplomb.
The acting job of a freaking lifetime. “Thanks, though.”
Lise didn’t look offended.
“What’s going on, Mol?” When her head tipped in inquiry, strands of her wavy brown hair brushed her half-bared shoulder. “Karl’s
slapping hors d’oeuvres down on plates like they personally insulted his mother’s virtue, and his vocabulary currently contains
two—and only two—categories: various forms of the word fuck and curt descriptions of quiches. And here you are, putting on your brave face in your sexy suit all by yourself, on the
other side of the damn school, even though you’re leaving that man’s very fine ass in two days. Something’s clearly amiss,
so you might as well tell me about it.”
Molly couldn’t remember the last time she’d worked through a problem by talking it over with someone. But her old way of doing things had only given her insomnia and high blood pressure, so maybe it was time to proceed a little differently.
“I, uh . . .” Using the side of a knuckle, she brushed away another disobedient tear. “I’m going to warn you now: This is
the most late-nineties-teen-movie crap ever, which serves me right. I should’ve never agreed to Karl’s cockamamie plan.”
“I’ve hereby been warned. Bring it on.” Lise waggled her brows and held up her hand for a high-five. “Get it? Bring It On?”
“That came out in 2000,” Molly told her, reluctantly amused, but high-fived her friend anyway. “Okay. So . . .”
Over the course of the next ten minutes, she spilled everything in a way she hadn’t done since before her dad left. About
halfway through, Lise ushered them both into a dark classroom so they could sit, but she brought a bundle of paper towels
with her, because she was a very forward-thinking individual. And once the tale had been told, Molly blew her nose on one
of the paper towels while she mopped her eyes with another.
Single-ply. Way too rough for these purposes. There’d be no hiding her distress after this, unless she fled from the classroom
directly into the dark night. Which would also be very teen movie of her, but more the horror iterations than the romcom ones.
Because, come on: a fat, haughty female character crying and running from a school dance after having engaged in recent sexual
escapades? She’d be freaking doomed.
Kind of how she felt already, to be honest.
“This is purely a pragmatic question.” Lise stacked her forearms on the back of the orange plastic chair she was straddling, then plonked her chin on top. “Why haven’t you just . . . left the party? Taken the limo and gone home to the Spite House, then sent the driver back for Karl?”
The question sounded casual. Lise’s eyes on Molly, though, were as sharp as the tacks securing various announcements to the
classroom bulletin board.
“I guess . . .” With a sigh, Molly mirrored her friend’s pose. “I guess I thought maybe he’d come after me, and we’d talk