Chapter 27
STAND UP AND TAKE NOTICE
“Wow, look at you. If I didn’t know better I’d think you’d lost another bet.”
Molly kept her smile in place just like Dean suggested she do when Tonya made that comment as she walked past Tonya’s desk later than normal. She’d purposely decided to come in closer to starting work so that she could get it out of the way.
He’d also reminded her that most are being nice, not negative. Just maybe a little surprised is all.
“Do you like it?” she asked. “I guess I decided it was time for a change.”
The lilac-colored fitted pants stopped at her ankles showing how skinny she was.
Not scrawny, which she feared, but thin and toned as Dean called her.
Her white sweater dipped into a V, but wasn’t revealing either.
She had little flats on her feet, not penny loafers, but a cute silver and white print shoe that would go with a lot.
She might alter her wardrobe, but she still wanted her money’s worth and items that could be interchangeable.
“A great change. That pant color is stand up and take notice on you too with your red hair.”
She wrinkled her nose, not sure if that was good or bad. “You didn’t like this color in my shirt,” she said of the shirt she wore last year. One that she’d tossed before Dean showed up on Saturday.
“It wasn’t so much the color but the style. That shirt might have been something my mother would have worn in elementary school. It even had a collar on it that could have passed as a bib. I’ll never forget it.”
She was trying to forget it herself also.
Which begged the question of why she wore it when she didn’t even care for it when she looked in the mirror.
She was going to ask Tonya why she had said nothing before but then realized that Tonya had always made little comments about Molly needing to spruce up her wardrobe. She just wasn’t as nasty about it as Molly might have imagined.
Guess with a new wardrobe and man in her life, she was also growing some thick skin!
And why wouldn’t she?
She’d had the time of her life on Saturday with not only Dean but Jonah.
And when they woke up on Sunday morning, she was with Dean in the kitchen making breakfast.
Jonah came down and saw her there, smiled, said he loved the muffins she’d baked and asked what they were doing for the day.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Man, did it feel that way.
And when it was time to leave for home that afternoon, she hadn’t wanted to go.
Dean didn’t appear he wanted her to either, giving her a long, lingering kiss while sitting in his SUV, her leaning through the open window. Jonah was in the back giggling and pointing out that his father was kissing someone.
Not in a bad way, more like a four-year-old who found something new to talk about.
“Well, it’s in the trash now.”
“Woohoo. Good for you. Do you have more to go along with today’s outfit?”
“I do,” she said, walking past and trying to go to her office.
Tonya followed right along. “So now that you aren’t avoiding me, do you want to tell me who the hunky man was that came here last week looking to talk to you? I know you’ve been hiding from me, admit it.”
She had been and refused to acknowledge it. “That’s Dean,” she said.
“And does Dean have a last name or a relation to you?”
“Easton.” She reached her office, walked in, and set her purse down, then turned to watch Tonya’s reaction when she said, “And he’s my boyfriend.” There was just dead silence. “What’s the matter? Does the cat in lab four have your tongue?”
“You’re joking, right? That hot, muscle-bound man is your boyfriend?”
“He is. We’ve been dating for well over a month.”
“And you’re just telling me now?! I thought we were friends.”
“Friends don’t stick friends with douches on a blind date. But in this case I should thank you. I met Dean that night after I ditched Dwayne.”
“Seriously? Where?”
“He was bartending at Pulse. I went in there to have a drink and we talked.”
“He took one look at you in the killer dress and probably needed the paddles from the wall to resuscitate himself,” Tonya said.
“You’ve been in there before?” she asked.
“I have. It was last year with a bunch of friends. I never went to the bar though. Now I wish I had. I might need to go back. I heard that is the place to be to meet single men. I wonder how often he gets hit on.”
She should have figured Tonya would point that out. As if she didn’t feel self-conscious enough on her own that this sexy, good-looking guy wanted her, she was going to hear a comment about his profession and the amount of time he was around women hitting on him.
“Most likely a lot. I’ve seen it myself, but it is what it is,” she said.
“I like this side of you,” Tonya said.
“You do?” she asked, slightly surprised.
“Yes. Your shoulders are straighter, your smile is a bit brighter, and you’ve got an I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude talking to me. Not in a mean way, but in a good way.”
“Maybe Dean brings the best out of me.”
“Oh, I’m sure he brings out a lot of you,” Tonya said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“I think the phone is ringing up front,” she pointed out.
“Crap. We need to catch up.”
“Maybe,” she said as she prepared to get ready for work.
An hour later, she got a text, pulled her phone out to see it was from Dean. How did it go?
Talk about super sweet. As expected.
The phone rang in her hand, so she answered. “Hey. Cleaning the house with Jonah at Pre-K for the day?”
“I worked out and did some paperwork.”
“Do you ever get a break? It seems like you do it all. Does the owner do anything? I never even asked who owned it.”
There was silence on the other line. “It’s a holding company. But I pretty much run the show.”
“Ahh, got it. The owner probably isn’t even around much. We just never talk about it much and I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t interested in your career. I am.”
“We don’t talk about it much because our mouths are put to other uses,” he said, laughing.
“Good point,” she said smiling. “They must think highly of you.”
“What can I say?” he said. “I’m good at what I do.”
She laughed. “You are very good at what you do. In more ways than one.”
“Now you are just pumping up my ego. I’ll let you get to work. Dinner tonight at my place, right?”
“I’ll be there right after work and then you can see what I wore today.”
“I’m more interested in what’s under your clothes,” he said.
“That’s a surprise,” she said. She was staying the night again, and shocked that he’d asked her to, but since it was his day off and their normal date night, he wanted to take advantage of it. And honestly, she was looking forward to another night with her boys.
Which is how she was beginning to think of them.
But her good mood didn’t last long when her phone rang later that afternoon.
She reached over to grab it without looking and wished that wasn’t the case. “Molly Clarke.”
“Molly,” her mother said. “I haven’t talked to you lately. You’ve been later than normal replying to my texts.”
She wasn’t any later than she normally was.
Or she didn’t think so.
She stopped being at everyone's beck and call years ago.
“I’ve been busy,” she said. “Sorry. Is everything okay?”
Her mother would have told her otherwise if there was something wrong.
Or Erika would.
Not Matt.
They didn’t talk much at all. Might even have been months at this point. Easter? Christmas? Did she see him at Easter? Nope, she didn’t. He went away with his family.
But Christmas they were all at her mother’s and exchanged gifts. Christmas Eve, her and Erika and Erika’s family went to Ruby’s. Matt declined.
She found that funny since he was the one who tried to talk Ruby into helping their father and then later decided it was a betrayal to get close to her.
Oh well, her brother’s loss.
“Everything is fine. I haven’t wanted to bother you but had a minute and thought I’d reach out.”
“You’re calling right now when I’m at work,” she pointed out. She didn’t want to be rude and point out that calling her at work was bothering her.
“I know. I just wanted to know if things ended with Dean or not. You know, if you’re okay.”
She frowned. “Why would you ask like that? They are going great. I met his son and we get along so well.”
“Really, Molly. You’ve got so much potential and you’re dating a guy who works in a bar?” There was that condescending tone she just loved so much. That voice that always judged. That always said whatever choices she made in her life weren’t good enough.
Her mother had been excited she was dating at all. Then when she found out what Dean did, had gotten quieter. Add in being a single father.
But now that it seems more serious, looks as if her mother was going to be even more painfully truthful.
“It seems that I am,” she said, her back straightening. “And you know what? I’m damn happy with Dean too. Shouldn’t my happiness mean more than what he does for a living?”
“Not if you get sucked into his drama. Erika hasn’t met him yet, but she said he’s very handsome and nice to you and that you’re happy. But if he’s that handsome and friendly, aren’t you worried that he’d have a wandering eye at work?”
“That’s tacky even for you. On top of being rude. You don’t know him to make that assumption,” she snapped.
“I just know how these things tend to work out. Come on, Molly, he doesn’t sound anything at all your type.”
“What do you know of my type? I’ve never brought a guy home to be introduced to you.”
There was silence telling her she’d aimed and landed that arrow right.
“Then let me meet Dean now. Erika hasn’t, so maybe he doesn’t exist.”
She rolled her eyes. “Ruby has met him. Ruby sold him his house over four years ago. He lives not that far from her in Paradise Place in a large, beautiful house. He even has a nanny suite off the back of his garage for Carly.”
“A nanny suite. In the new part of the development there? And he manages a bar? Come on, Molly. Open your eyes. Something isn’t adding up. Does he sell drugs or run money or something under the table. Anything off the books?”
She snarled. “Mom. I’m done with this conversation.”
She hung up because she couldn’t handle another second of the words her mother was saying.
But she had noticed Dean’s place might be a bit higher end than a bartender could afford. Well, he was a manager and the place was popular, so who was she to say?
Or he could have won the lotto at some point in his life.
There were a lot of reasons people had more money than their jobs might dictate.
Maybe he was crazy in debt.
Ugh, she didn’t want to think that.
Nope, not going there.
It’s just things they didn’t talk about.
But Ruby would have said if he had bad credit. If he wouldn’t have been able to afford the house.
It all went quickly, Ruby had said.
Then he built that addition for a nanny.
No, he wasn’t in debt.
But was there something more that she wasn’t seeing?
She picked her phone up to call Dean and tell him she’d just told her mother off. She’d stood up to the woman who’d never backed her in life.
But then she put it back down. In order to do that she’d have to tell Dean the things her mother said about him. The man her mother never met and was judging. There was no reason for it.
She knew what it was like to be put down in life and she wasn’t going to do that to someone else.
But she also had a few doubts put in her head and didn’t want to project them onto him either.
That would teach her to look at her phone before she answered.