Chapter 6 #3
“There was no way that Molly was going to ever find a Woodsmen player to fund her lifestyle,” she told him, “but I get why she was trying. They’re obviously wealthy, with their cars and their houses.
We get to see them when they come to the restaurant during their summer practices, so it’s right in our faces.
It was a dumb idea but she’s not a dumb person, although I think that stupidity runs in our family.
My great-grandfather started his restaurant in the worst place imaginable.
The absolute worst!” she lamented. “There was literally nothing around there at the time because the Woodsmen practice facility didn’t get built until the nineteen-sixties.
What was he thinking? Poor decisions flow through our bloodline, like your blue eyes.
I bet someone in your family has those and they’re beautiful.
Unfortunately, I’m not interested in you, either. ”
“My loss,” he answered.
“Morgan,” I said again. “Please!”
She started telling him about her online boyfriend, who may or may not have been real.
Sure, some nice, attentive, handsome guy just dropped into her lap?
When had that ever happened in real life?
I looked behind me at the bars where we hadn’t found any Woodsmen and then tried to do more damage control regarding the crap that my sister had spewed from her mouth.
“My dad does gamble and he did get a loan from the wrong people, but that was because we were trying to keep the restaurant going,” I said.
“My mom messed up our accounting pretty badly and I told you about the flood there a few years ago. My brother really does have bad business ideas, as you heard, but it’s not like he’s a terrible person.
He’s selfish and a backpack-whatever, that German thing, and he does squander all the money we’ve given him.
He does refuse to listen when anyone suggests a more productive path, like trade school or working more at Walter’s where we really need him…
” I wasn’t doing a good job with damage control but I kept trying.
“I’m not unattracted to you, if you get what I mean.
I think you’re so good looking that it’s hard to believe you’re not taken. ”
“Thank you, I think,” he said. “Morgan, keep walking or I will have to pick up you, and I’m afraid that you’ll puke if I put you over my shoulder.”
“I may do that anyway,” she admitted.
“Can we just forget everything that happened tonight?” I suggested. I sounded slightly desperate.
“Your sister may not remember much.”
“I meant you,” I told him. “It’s not like you’re so poor! You have a job with a major football organization and you may not make a lot now, but it seems like you’re a hard worker so you’ll probably get promoted and do better for yourself in the future. You earn enough to afford a nice house.”
“It’s a rental, and it’s half of a house,” he said. “A duplex. There’s your car.”
“I’ll give you a ride home,” I said. “Can I do that for you?”
“Uh, sure,” he answered. He was preoccupied with putting my sister into the back seat because she was loudly insisting that she had to lie down and sleep, right at the moment. “Can you get some kind of belt on her?”
I crawled over Morgan to secure her with seat belts and then joined him in the front. “I’m very sorry. I’m sorry that my sister told you all that and I really don’t feel the way she said.”
“It doesn’t bother me if you do.”
Somehow, that was worse. “I’m sorry,” I said again.
We made it to his house and then back to ours with my sister holding down her stomach contents.
There wasn’t much talking, since she was groaning loudly and also since I didn’t have much else to say.
I had apologized for everything but it was hard to think that he accepted it and that his feelings hadn’t been hurt.
Mine would have been, if some guy had told me that I wasn’t good enough for him.
My feelings had been obliterated when Corbin the frat guy had said it with his actions, how he’d made me an object of ridicule.
And then I’d cried about that to Shane. He’d listened and offered advice, and then he’d given me his T-shirt so I could blow my nose. I still had that shirt, too, but he hadn’t demanded it back. I had washed it and put it in my drawer, and it made me happy to see it there.
I shoved Morgan into her bed and stayed up very late, busy in the kitchen.
I also checked the Woodsmen fan social media accounts and saw that the players’ party had been really fun but at a different bar, far away from the main downtown strip.
We had been totally in the wrong place and all we had to show for it were hurt feelings and lighter wallets.
I didn’t sleep very much and before it really counted as morning, I was back in the car and then I was back at Shane’s house, his half of the duplex. I waited as the sun slowly rose and finally, his front door opened.
“Hi.”
He spun around and threw up his hands. I saw a sliver flash as his key ring flew through the air and heard a clink as it landed somewhere. “Molly?” he asked, squinting. “Is that you?”
“It’s me,” I agreed.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to apologize and I brought you muffins. They were supposed to be blueberry muffins but we didn’t have any berries and we didn’t have any other fruit, either, and I was making them after midnight so there wasn’t anything open…
they’re just naked muffins.” I stepped forward and held out the tin but when he reached for it, he hit my wrist by mistake.
The naked muffins went flying, just like the keys had, and arced through the air. They scattered across the driveway.
“Good golly,” he said, staring around at the baked goods fiasco. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I am. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the mess and I’m sorry about how things went last night. I didn’t mean to make you take care of my sister and I didn’t mean for you to hear all those things about my family. I really, really didn’t mean for your feelings to get hurt.”
“They’re not.” He picked up a few muffins and returned them to the pan, then peered around. “Did you see where my keys went? I have to get to the airport.”
It was getting a lot lighter so it should have been easy to find them. I couldn’t believe that he could have thrown them very far, either.
“I’m going to miss my flight,” he said after we’d searched for much, much too long. “That’s my house key, too. I can’t lock my door.”
“There aren’t a lot of residential burglaries around here,” I said, and hoped that was true. “I have an idea. I’ll drop you off for your flight and then I’ll come back to find them. I’ll set up a grid search like an archaeologist and I’ll crawl on my hands and knees.”
He took another fleeting glance at the driveway. “You’ll find them?”
“I promise,” I said and kissed my two fingertips, a gesture I had never made before and whose meaning was unknown to me. I just wanted him to know that I was serious.
Shane was reluctant but he did agree, and we drove to the airport. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“Chicago. Will you lock my door? I just got a new TV.”
“Yes, I absolutely will. I don’t really think that people steal those anymore, anyway. But I will! I promise.” He turned to look back at his unsecured house. “The muffins might be ok,” I suggested. He had put the tin on his lap but hadn’t yet tasted them. “I didn’t use refined sugar.”
“I’m sure they’re good. You didn’t have to bring them over this morning.” He paused. “And wait in the dark.”
I had considered texting him but had further considered that a surprise would have been better. “I was thinking that you might not want to talk, but if I ambushed you, you might have to.”
At first, he didn’t speak, but then he started to chuckle. “Then it turned into a cluster.”
It definitely had. We weren’t that far away from the airport and I wanted to make sure that everything was ok before I dropped him off. It was very important to me that I made it ok. “What do I need to do?” I asked.
“What do you mean? Find the keys and—”
“I mean, what I need to do to make it all up to you? My sister said rude things that weren’t accurate and I’d like to, um, recompense you in some way.”
“You did give me muffins,” he pointed out. “Molly, I wasn’t offended by anything your sister said. I’m not offended by anything that you think, either.”
“I don’t think that you—” No, it was better not to repeat anything about attraction.
“I hope not,” I concluded. But a ride to the airport and dirty, bare muffins weren’t enough recompense.
I noticed that when he got out of the car and grabbed his bag from the back seat, he left those behind in the tin.
“Thanks for driving me,” he said. “Let me know if you find the keys.”
“I will find them. Absolutely,” I promised. I planned to skip class so I could look. “I’ll hold them for you and I’ll pick you up when you get back.”
“That’s not necessary.” He suggested a few hiding spots at his house instead and told me to text their location, so we wouldn’t have to see each other at all.
“Oh. Ok, good idea,” I said. “Shane—ok,” I repeated, because he was walking away. Ok.