Chapter 29 #2
much like sweet, gentle Charlotte told him to shut the hell up and stop ruining the moment.
Karl snorted. “Then my last vacation? Not long ago. When I had the flu.”
“And Sylvia thought you’d died.” As if on cue, the journalist’s flash left Molly blinking away more spots. “I think we can
do better than that.”
His small smile got bigger and bigger, until his joy was as brilliant and blinding as Sylvia’s flash. “Sure as hell can.”
Rob ostentatiously cleared his throat, and they reluctantly looked over at him. “If and when you come to your senses, Molly,
I’ll accept your apology, and we can talk about—”
Karl groaned so loudly, her ex-husband jumped.
“Quit dicking around, fuckface,” he told Rob, “and just go.”
“Please do.” Sylvia held up her camera. “You’re blocking my view, young man.”
“Make like Walt Whitman’s grass,” Lise said, “and leave.”
“Do what the lit nerd says, asshat!” a random spectator—was that Ned?—called out.
After a final long-suffering sigh, Rob did in fact turn to go. Only to get tangled with Karl’s foot somehow. Her ex-husband staggered, half falling to the floor. And as Karl reached out to assist—
After a collective gasp, utter silence blanketed the gym.
Then Rob raised his cake-covered face, and a dollop of eel slime dripped from his nose. At which point Molly had to look away
before she totally lost her shit, like the rest of the crowd.
“Oh, no.” Karl wiped his hands on a napkin, sounding unutterably bored. “Such a fucking shame. My apologies, dude.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Rob puff up like a rooster and snatch at the pile of neatly folded napkins too. “You did
that on purpose, you dick.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Karl patted at the most unconvincing yawn in the history of theater, all while eyeing
the other man like a cockroach. “Must suck to get a cake in the goddamn face when you didn’t want that, though.”
They both knew she’d never have done it herself, because—even now, in her petty era—she’d be too concerned about reasonableness
and maturity. So he’d done it for her, where she could watch and appreciate every frosting-caked bit of glory.
Truly, Molly had never loved anyone more. Which he didn’t yet realize, because he’d interrupted her declaration of affections
several minutes ago.
She should probably get back on that.
Ignoring Rob’s various complaints and inadequate attempts to clean himself, she stretched out her hand to Karl. “Hey, Dean?
I have something you should probably look at.”
“Jesus H. Christ.” Without even a flicker of hesitation, he put down the cake plate, dismissed her ex-husband from his attention,
and rounded the table to claim her hand and intertwine their fingers. “What now?”
“Nothing bad.” With her free hand, she showed him her phone display. “See?”
He squinted down at the screen. “The hell am I looking at, Dearborn?”
“A social media update. Which, as you’ll notice, I posted at least five or ten minutes before you said you loved me.” A tap
of her fingernail against the phone’s screen directed him where to look. “While Rob was still lecturing me, I shared my upcoming
move with my Facebook fan group. Announced I was pulling up stakes and heading to Maryland sooner rather than later.”
“Really?” He bent closer to the text. “You did that before I told you how I felt?”
“As my post’s timestamp clearly indicates.”
“I don’t get it.” His back made a cracking noise as he straightened, and he stared at her with a creased brow. “Why would
you—”
“Because you said you wanted me to move here. That’s not something you’d ask a casual lover to do, or anyone you weren’t absolutely
sure about.” She tucked the phone back into her clutch. “And I’ve never met a more steadfast person in my life. When it comes
to loyalty, you’re basically the Rock of Gibraltar—”
“Home to a shit-ton of macaques?”
“—which means you won’t change your mind or find someone you want more than me. Not soon. Not ever.” She stepped into him,
close enough to bask in his unfaltering heat. “Your declaration of undying love was merely the icing on a delicious eel-shaped
cake. I’d already made my call.”
His hands lifted to cradle her face. “You know I won’t be an asshole and take advantage of you, right?”
“Yep.” When he swept his work-roughened thumbs over her cheekbones, the slight friction set her nerves alight. “I know.”
“Good.” His lips brushed her temple. “And you know I’d rather rip off my own dick than leave you?”
“That’s . . .” She eased back and blinked at him for a moment. “That’s very graphic, Dean. But yes. I know that too.”
His entire body stilled. Tensed.
He sucked in a harsh breath, then found the courage to ask. “You trust me?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. Not a flicker of doubt. “Completely.”
His eyes searched hers. “You love me?”
“With every un-sledgehammered atom in my body.”
Exhaling slowly, he grinned down at her. “We gonna fuck in that limo outside?”
“Like those aforementioned macaques.”
He laughed, the sound earsplittingly loud and incandescently happy, then gathered her in his arms and bowed his head to kiss
her with insistent passion and the sort of heedless devotion she’d never imagined could be hers.
Even behind her closed lids, rapid flash-bursts created fireworks in her vision. They were clearly the work of Harlot’s Bay’s
finest journalist, Sylvia, and her trusty Nikon, or maybe even the crowd of nosy spectators and their cell-phone cameras,
but . . .
Nitpicky pedantry be damned.
Molly would have sworn those joyful pinwheels of light came straight from her heart.
Roughly an hour later, Molly tugged her pants back in place and tipped her head toward a discreet package of wet wipes. “Should
we . . .”
“Yeah.” Karl sighed, then buttoned his own pants and heaved himself up from the back seat. “Be assholes if we didn’t.”
In theory—and in movies—banging in a limo was hot.
In reality . . .
Actually, yeah, it was still really damn hot. But also kind of painful to middle-aged joints. Not to mention questionable
in terms of hygiene, for both them and the limo driver.
For the poor man’s sake, the least they could do was clean up after themselves.
As she hummed a few bars from “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” they both went to town on the wet wipes and made absolutely sure they hit every relevant interior surface in the limo.
After a minute, she glanced over to where he was scrubbing at her footprint on a window. “Anyone in sight out there?”
By the time they’d finished making out in the gym, Rob had already left the premises, and so had most other reunion attendees,
including Sylvia. Even so, Molly and Karl had hustled to the limo and instructed the driver to take them to Karl’s home using
both a circuitous route and the maximum legal speed limit, in hopes no one would follow them and take candid photos—or worse,
videos—of what they intended to do next.
The windows might be tinted, but the limo’s shocks would never be the same.
“Nope. All clear.” Grumbling to himself, Karl stretched his back, then grabbed another wipe. “Y’know, teen movies never show
this sort of shit.”
“To be fair, most teen movies don’t contain the sort of explicit sex we just had, and neither one of us has been a teenager for a very, very long time.
” Flopping down on the newly cleaned seat, she took a moment’s break.
“Also, teenagers typically have curfews and very little money. We, on the other hand, had all the cash necessary to pay off the limo driver and keep him away for an hour, even though it’s almost two in the morning. ”
“Can’t argue with that.” He flashed her a grin and flopped beside her. “Our forties? Gonna fucking rule, Dearborn.”
Just the thought of it—ten entire years spent side by side—had her almost giddy with joy. And that was just the beginning.
She laced their fingers together on the damp leather upholstery. “Also our fifties. And sixties. And every other decade we
get to spend together.”
He leaned over to give her a brief, hard, very enthusiastic kiss. “Fuckin’ A.”
“Fuckin’ A,” she agreed.