Chapter 1 #2
Molly had a knack for getting people—everyone—to bend to her will. Sometimes she used the brute force of her personality and sometimes, like now, she used a gentle touch. Molly was diverse in her manipulation techniques like that.
She’d make an excellent mother-in-law someday.
Rachel warred with herself and the decision at hand. If she answered the call, she’d be late, but her client would be happy. If she didn’t answer the call, she’d be only a little late and Molly would be happy.
“My clients hire me because they know I’ll always go above and beyond.” Her heartbeat increased even as she glanced at her friend. The above and beyond thing was right on her business cards. In bold italics.
“True.” Molly continued nibbling the cookie but kept one eye on Rachel and one eye on the phone. She also started toward the door.
“Not answering is not going above and beyond,” Rachel declared.
“Don’t make the boys wait,” Molly said quietly, turning to her friend. Her understanding of the battle going on inside Rachel was abundantly apparent.
And that’s what did it. The boys.
Her boys.
Rachel wouldn’t let her boys wait.
“I’ll just catch up with Cassie in the car on the way.” Still, Rachel had to force herself not to return the call.
Her phone immediately rang again, as it did regularly throughout the day and often during the night, too. Since she was a virtual personal assistant, she had three large clients. In three very different time zones.
This was her job. Her business. The thing that, aside from her children, brought her the most joy.
Most days.
This time, however, it was her ex calling. The father of her eight-year-old twins and the supposed-to-be one-night stand that turned into way more than either of them had bargained for.
Mouthing, I’m sorry, she immediately pressed the phone to her ear. “Gavin?”
Molly rolled her eyes, shaking her head, while making gagging noises unbefitting the cookie she still worked on.
“Rach.” He did not sound like he was anywhere near the baseball field, or in a car on the way to the baseball field. No, he sounded like he was in an airport.
A slight feeling of vertigo pulled at Rachel, like the gravitational field of the earth seemed to get stronger.
No. He needed to be at the game. The boys were so excited.
She gripped the phone in her hand and closed her eyes.
Gavin’s a good guy. Gavin’s a good guy. Gavin’s a good guy.
“What’s up?” she asked, hoping her perky tone betrayed the inner turmoil swirl, willing him to say he was on his way to the game to see their boys even though she knew deep down he wasn’t and she’d work her magic and all would be well. The only one who would pay the price was her.
“Dakota has a last-minute installation in Boston,”
Gavin said, obviously distracted because he was Gavin. Distracted. “We’re heading there for the weekend. I’ll be back in time to help set up for the boys’ party, but we’re going to miss tonight.”
Yes, gravity. Her legs felt heavier by the second. “Gavin, they want you there.”
They need you there.
“If I could be there, I would, you know that.”
She did. Sort of.
He sounded genuine. Then again, he always sounded genuine. Genuine was Gavin’s thing. If Gavin had a thing.
Dakota and Gavin had been engaged for a while. He worked tons of hours, in an office. Dakota, meanwhile, had carved out a name for herself as an artist who painted, and sculpted, a variety of animals in bathtubs.
Yes, this was a thing.
Dakota worked tons of hours with this gig and was, as Gavin had explained, kind of a big deal. Rachel didn’t mind her. She was nice to Rachel’s kids, and that’s what mattered.
Meanwhile, Rachel also worked tons of hours…from her home office, so custody and the majority of childcare had been delegated to her.
Which was fine because, as she’d insisted and they’d agreed, the boys needed her stability.
“Rachel?” Dakota had apparently confiscated the phone from Gavin.
“Hey, Dakota.” Rachel struggled to hold her phone and pull on her shoes simultaneously.
Dakota? Molly mouthed rolling her eyes dramatically with more gagging sounds.
Rachel nodded, ignoring her friend to focus on the conversation. Molly hated Dakota.
“Gavin and I sent the boys a surprise for their birthday. It’ll be there tomorrow. I hate to ask, but would you mind—”
“I’ll grab a video for you.” Rachel hopped to stand, mentally rehearsing what she would say to the kids so they wouldn’t feel the entire sting of this disappointment. Your dad wanted to make it tonight, but he had to go to Boston.
Don’t worry, he has a big surprise for you both.
“You’re the best.” Dakota’s muffled voice sounded as though she’d covered the speaker before she spoke.
“Not a problem.” A birthday surprise was an excellent distraction. A birthday surprise was something for the boys to look forward to. A birthday surprise was the perfect redirection for their disappointment.
This wasn’t the first time she’d helped Dakota and Gavin co-parent virtually. It wouldn’t be the last, she was certain of that. Gavin was not a hands-on kind of father. Then again, he hadn’t really signed up to be a dad, so she did her best not to make it miserable for him.
“Bye, Rach.” Gavin’s voice sounded like an echo, since Dakota still had the phone.
“Bye,” Rachel said, thumbing the off button.
Rachel liked Dakota. She liked Gavin, too. It wasn’t his fault they’d based their marriage on one night of mediocre passion that led to their boys.
It wasn’t hers, either. It just…was.
Molly was still making gagging faces in between cookie bites. She didn’t understand this part of things.
Gavin and Rachel had tried. Tried-ish.
But, despite his mother’s proclivity to shoving them together, guilting them together, and offering to pay Rachel
to ensure they stayed together, their marriage was as dull as their kitchen knives.
Let’s just say, if their marriage were an entrée, it had no seasoning at all.
No one really understood what had happened on that one night eight years ago that had changed their lives. The night she hand-selected Gavin from a group of guys for her first ever supposed-to-be one-night stand.
The evening had resulted in one of them climaxing. (Spoiler alert, it wasn’t Rachel.) He’d called her a few times after, but she hadn’t returned his calls because that would’ve totally ruined the point of having a one-night-only curtain call.
Then—and oh boy, was it a big then—were the words, “Congrats, it’s twins.”
That part did not suck, because Rachel loved the hell out of her boys.
Besides the children, she and Gavin had shared a marriage that lasted a few months before they both came to their senses and recognized they made much better co-parenting friends and partners than co-parenting spouses who slept across the hall, because he snored like a freaking freight train on fire and she, so he told her, hogged all the blankets.
They were excellent…friends. Friends who had two kids together and eventually lived separate lives because it was just more comfortable for everyone.
“What did they want?” Molly asked, the dislike of Gavin apparent in her tone.
“Long story.” Rachel grabbed the keys on her way to the door. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
Where Rachel and Gavin got along fine, he and Molly despised each other. Which Rachel didn’t understand.
“He’s not coming to the game,” Molly correctly guessed.
Phone stuffed into her pocket, Rachel flicked on the slow cooker so dinner would be ready when they arrived home.
She tossed the extra cookie in a zip-top bag so it would be safe in her purse—once her boys discovered she kept tampons in the interior pocket, they avoided the thing at all costs.
“I guess that means Travis will attend instead,” Molly mused.
She had been working to convince Rachel to practice her flirting skills with Travis Frank for the past four months.
The idea was so far beyond ridiculous, so off the beaten path that it didn’t even show up on Google Maps.
But flirting was Molly’s job, so she looked for opportunities everywhere.
Rachel didn’t blame her because Molly literally taught the basics of dating and had to keep her skills sharp for her clients.
She used her inability to take no for an answer and her YouTube channel to teach others the intricacies.
“Dane might come,” Rachel said, hoping it was Dane who would attend. Gavin had two brothers. She got along fabulously with Dane. Not so much with Travis.
For a lengthy list of reasons substantially longer than Molly’s meddling.
“It’ll be Travis,” Molly said, a small, knowing smile teasing the edges of her hot-pink-painted lips.
“Probably.” It usually was Travis who filled in when Gavin couldn’t make it. Rachel started the mental prep work for dealing with him. “Do not start up about him again.”
Molly bit at her bottom lip, apparently refusing to respond.
Rachel could literally feel her matchmaking friend brewing an idea to push Rachel and Travis together.
Last time he’d been to a game, Molly manipulated them into sitting thigh-to-thigh on the bleachers.
The time before that? Her car broke down and she asked Travis to drive them home.
Then Molly caught a ride with the umpire’s wife instead.
Oh, to be sure, Molly didn’t believe Rachel and Travis had any business being together. She just wanted to piss off Gavin.
It was her way.
“I like Travis.” Molly bit at her bottom lip, saying the words with the caution of one merging onto a road littered with construction. “I like it when he comes to the games.”
When Gavin couldn’t make a game, one of his immediate family members always showed up to—and she was quoting him here—“represent the family.”
Like they were mafiosos or something. They weren’t.
They were, however, loaded beyond belief because Great-Meemaw Frank had created the first Puffle Yum and sold the shit out of the toaster tarts.
Rachel paused, setting the purse strap onto her shoulder. “Travis is a fantastic uncle.”
She made it a point to enunciate that last word. Because any idea of flirting with Travis or doing anything beyond friendly chatter with him was an absolute nopers.
“Is that new?” Molly gestured to Rachel’s bag. She may have been a black belt in flirting, but her distraction techniques could use some work.
Rachel knew how Molly operated and, in her mind, as long as she didn’t verbally commit, she would weasel her way out of an implied agreement later.
“I grabbed it at the Coach outlet in Loveland last week,” Rachel said. The rose-colored over-the-shoulder bag was the last on the shelf, and Rachel had fallen in deep lust with it on first sight.
“I think I need at least two of these,” Molly mumbled, examining the stitching.
“Too bad, I got the last one.” Rachel grinned, nabbing the bag away with a smirk.
Molly shook her head. “There are always more online.”
“Dinner’s cooking, I have my keys, shoes, purse, go bag, sunglasses, boys are going straight to the field after school.”
Rachel inventoried everything she needed for the game.
“You ready now?” Molly asked.
“Let’s go.” Rachel dropped her sunglasses into her bag and held the front door for her friend.
This week was Molly’s turn to drive.
Which meant Molly would be busy driving the vehicle and Rachel would spend the thirty-minute drive to the baseball field calling Cassie back and then chatting about everything but her least favorite Frank brother. So perhaps, just perhaps, Molly would leave it alone.
Maybe.