Chapter 25
Molly
The winery patio is exactly what Az described: string lights draped overhead like a canopy of small stars, tables spaced far enough apart for actual privacy, and a view of the Ojai Valley that makes everything feel softer.
The air smells like sage and late-summer jasmine, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I'm wearing an evening dress. With actual shoes that aren't sneakers.
"The menu won't read itself," I tell him. "And I intend to order a dish with a sauce I didn't have to wipe off a baby."
Taz sets his down. "Give me a minute. I haven't seen you in that dress since—"
"Since the Hendersons' anniversary party," I finish for him. "Two years ago. I kept it at the back of the wardrobe. I wasn't sure I'd want to wear it with you again."
He smiles, that crooked smile that used to make me stupid.
Still makes me a little stupid, if I'm being honest, but I'm trying not to let him know that yet.
"I remember everything, Mol. The dress. The way you laughed when Ed Henderson tried to do a toast and knocked over his wine glass.
The drive home where you fell asleep with your shoes in your lap. "
"I was exhausted," I say.
"You were perfect," he says simply.
The waiter arrives, saving me from having to figure out what to say to that. We order: he gets a steak, I get the salmon, we split a bottle of the winery's reserve red, and then we're alone again with all this space between us that used to be so easy to fill.
"This is weird," I say finally.
"A little bit," he agrees.
"We've been married seven years," I say. "We shouldn't be nervous."
"We were separated for two months," he says carefully, testing each word before he puts his weight on it. "And before that, things were... not good. For a long time. So maybe nervous is okay."
"When did you get insightful?" I ask.
"Therapy Tuesdays with Dr. Rosenthal," he says. "She makes me journal."
"Does she have to translate your handwriting?" I ask.
"Three pages a day," he says. "I suspect the challenge keeps her interested."
"I hope you stopped writing on your forearm," I tell him.
He holds up both clean arms. "Paper has proved more reliable. Less sweating."
I smile into my glass. "Do you write about things you want too? Or is it all a daily account of your crimes?"
"She asks what I actually did that day," he says. "Apparently wanting to be different isn't a very useful entry by itself."
"Annoyingly practical woman," I say.
"You'd like her," he says, a rueful half-smile tugging at his mouth. "She doesn't let me answer a question with a plan for next month."
"I might send flowers," I tell him.
He laughs, then looks at me across the candle. "I wrote about the festival. Watching you explain the blend without stopping to see whether I was bored."
"Were you?" I ask.
"I liked hearing you correct that man who thought all honey tasted the same," he says. "You didn't raise your voice. You just handed him two spoons and waited."
I tip my glass at him. "One of the few arguments improved by giving somebody cutlery."
"I missed that," he says quietly. "Seeing you certain of what you know."
I turn my glass slowly between my fingers. "I was still that person in LA. Just with fewer people interested in hearing her."
"That's on me," he says, and rubs the back of his neck. "I should have been interested."
"You can ask now," I tell him. "Ask me a question you actually want the answer to."
He thinks before he speaks. "When you reopen, what's the first thing you want to do yourself?"
"Work a whole morning without apologizing for the time," I tell him. "Put the jars where I like them. Argue with a label that refuses to lie straight. Ordinary things."
"I'll take Clem for that morning," he says. "If you want."
"I'd like that," I say. "And I'd like to tell you about it afterward without feeling I have to make honey processing sound like a hostage crisis to hold your attention."
"You can include the label argument in full," he says. "I'll want to know who won."
I take a sip of wine to buy myself time.
His knee is bouncing under the table the way it did on our first date, and he's cut his steak into neat pieces he hasn't touched.
There's a smear of Clem's milk on his cuff that he missed this morning, because he did the six a.m. feed without waking me.
Again. I want to trust that smear more than any apology he's ever made, and it scares me how badly I want to.
"You're staring," I tell him.
"You're worth staring at." He says it so simply, like it's just a fact. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Molly is worth staring at.
"Smooth."
"I'm a smooth guy."
"You laminated a rain plan for a geological expedition."
"That was preparation. This is smoothness. Different skill sets."
Under the table, his knee presses against mine. Not an accident—he doesn't move away. Neither do I.
"So," he says, leaning closer. "Another date. What do you think?"
"I think you haven't earned it yet."
"No?" His hand finds my knee now, warm and deliberate. "What would it take?"
My breath catches. "You could start by being more interesting."
"I'm extremely interesting. I know everything about cattle futures and soil pH levels."
"Riveting."
"I also know," he says, his voice dropping low, "that you blush right here—" his thumb traces my jaw "—when you're thinking about kissing me."
"I'm not—"
"You are."
He's close enough that I can smell cedar and wine. Close enough that if I leaned forward two inches—
"Tell me a secret," I say. "One you haven't told me yet."
He thinks about it. The candle on our table flickers in a breath of evening breeze.
"I've been talking to my mom a lot," he says. "About my dad. About how he ran things, how he made decisions. She said a line last week that kind of wrecked me."
"What?" I ask.
"She said she loved him," he says, "but she wasn't always sure he knew how to love her back.
Like, he had the feeling, but he didn't know how to put it into action.
And she spent thirty years accepting that because she thought that's just how he was, and maybe if she loved him enough, it would make up the difference. "
His voice cracks slightly on the last part, and I watch him take a breath, steadying himself.
"And I realized I've been doing the same thing to you.
Having the feeling but not knowing how to put it into action.
Expecting you to accept less than you deserve because that's just how I am, how I was raised.
But that's—" He shakes his head. "That's not good enough.
You shouldn't have to love me enough for both of us. "
Neither of us touches our food.
"Taz," I start, but his phone buzzes against the table. He ignores it. It buzzes again, and again, and again.
"That's a lot of buzzes," I say.
He doesn't even glance down. "I'm on a date with my wife. It can wait."
"Check it," I tell him.
He sighs and picks up the phone. His face changes. It isn't anger, exactly, but it's harder than that. He taps the screen, and I watch him block a number. Then he sets the phone down.
It immediately starts buzzing again.
"Kendall," he says flatly.
"I figured." I set down my wine glass. "How many times has she tried this week?"
"Twice this week from other numbers," he says. "Her regular number has been blocked for weeks. Borrowed phones, maybe. Or new burner SIMs."
The phone buzzes again. And again.
"Taz," I say.
His jaw sets like poured concrete. "I'm not answering."
"Pick it up," I tell him.
He looks at me like I've suggested he juggle knives. "Why?"
"Because she's clearly spiraling, and ignoring her isn't making her stop. Maybe if she actually hears you say it's over, she'll—" I don't actually know how to finish that sentence. I don't know what Kendall will do. I don't think anyone does.
"Put it on speaker," I say. "I want to hear."
He hesitates, then answers. "What do you want, Kendall?"
The voice that comes through is ragged, raw, nothing like the polished woman who cornered me at the barbecue two months ago. "You need to fix this."
"There's nothing to fix," Taz says. "I already told you—"
"No, you don't understand." She's crying. Actually crying. "He took Hudson. Jensen took him. The court put Hudson with his parents because I wasn't—they said I wasn't—" She breaks off into a sob.
Taz and I lock eyes across the table.
"What do you mean he took Hudson?" Taz asks carefully.
"I mean he went to court!" she wails. "He went to court with all this evidence about how I was unstable, how I was fixated on you, how I neglected the baby while I was trying to get you back.
And the judge put Hudson with Jensen's parents while they assess both of us.
Jensen gets supervised time with him. Like that makes him better than me. "
The wine in my stomach turns sour. I don't like Kendall. I have every reason to hate Kendall. But Hudson still needs people who put his care first. Whatever Kendall and Jensen have done, he did not choose either of them.
"How did Jensen get evidence about any of that?" I ask.
Silence. Then: "Who is that?"
"Molly," Taz says. "You're on speaker. We're at dinner."
"Oh my God." A laugh that sounds more like a scream. "Of course. Of course you're at dinner together. Playing happy family while I lose everything."
"Kendall, I'm sorry about Hudson—" I start.
"No you're not!" she screams. "You don't care! All you had to do was believe me, Taz. That's all I ever asked. One night together and you couldn't even—"
"That night never happened," Taz cuts in, his voice harder now. "I was drugged. I woke up in a hotel room with no memory of how I got there. You manufactured a night that doesn't exist."
"Because I love you!" she sobs. "Because we were supposed to be together!"
I put my hand on Taz's arm. He's shaking slightly.
"Kendall," I say, keeping my voice as level as I can manage, "whatever's happening with custody, that is NOT our fault. You made choices. Jensen made choices. Those choices have consequences."
"Consequences?" Her voice goes ice cold. "You want to talk about consequences? You took my life from me. My husband left me. My baby was taken. I have nothing because you couldn't accept that Taz wanted me instead of you."
"That's not—" I start.
Her voice drops, suddenly calm. "I know where you are. I followed his truck."
The air leaves my lungs.
"What?" Taz is already looking toward the parking lot, his body shifting like he's ready to stand, to run, to do anything.
"You think I don't know the roads you take? You think I haven't watched you for months?" Kendall's voice is getting louder. "I'm outside right now. And I'm going to walk in there, and everyone in that restaurant is going to hear every word of it."
"Kendall, don't—" Taz says.
The call ends.
We have maybe thirty seconds before she comes through that door. Taz stands, moving around the table to my side, positioning himself next to me rather than in front of me, like a barrier that still respects my space.
"I'm going to ask the manager to call the sheriff," he says quietly. "Stay here."
"Taz—" I say.
"Please," he says.
He heads toward the hostess stand just as the patio's side entrance opens and Kendall appears.
She's in heels and a white blouse that's wrinkled, like she's been sitting in a car for hours, and her mascara has tracked down her face in dark rivulets.
She looks like a ghost of the woman who wore silk scarves and diamond earrings at the barbecue.
"THERE!" She points at Taz, her voice cutting across the entire patio. Every table turns. Forks freeze mid-air. "That's him! That's Tazio Williams! Tell them, Taz. Tell them what you did to me."
Taz doesn't engage. He's speaking quietly to the manager, who nods and reaches for a phone.
She takes a step toward me, and Taz is there suddenly, not grabbing her, not touching her, just stepping up beside me, close enough that she'd have to go through him to reach me, in a way that makes his intentions clear. "Get out of my way," she hisses.
"Ma'am." The manager appears with two servers flanking him. "You need to come with us."
"Don't touch me," Kendall snarls. "Don't you dare touch me."
"No one's touching you," the manager says. "But you're disturbing our guests, and the authorities have been contacted. If you leave now, voluntarily—"
Kendall laughs, that broken-glass sound that makes my skin crawl. "The authorities. Right. Because they've been so helpful." She looks at me over Taz's shoulder. "This isn't over. Whatever you think you have with him? It's built on lies. And eventually it's all going to collapse."
The servers escort her toward the exit. She doesn't fight them, but she doesn't go quietly either: more predictions, more threats, more accusations that echo across the patio until she's finally, mercifully, gone.
Taz turns to me. "Mol—"
"Don't ask me to be reasonable yet," I tell him.
"I wasn't going to," he says. "Here. Take my hand."
I look down. My fingers are trembling, and I let him hold them until I can breathe properly.
"Let's go home," I say.
He hesitates, torn, glancing toward the parking lot. "We should wait for the deputy to arrive. Give a statement."
"After we give the statement," I say. "Then straight home."
While we wait for the deputy, Taz drops cash on the table, way too much, probably, but I don't argue. We gather our things, and I'm reaching for my bag when I hear it.
Kendall's voice carries from the parking lot as her car pulls away:
"You'll both pay for this," she screams.