He didn’t exactly have an answer he was willing to share. Sorry I sucked, but your legs and butt distracted me?
He thought about what his mother said, teasing him about Molly, and then his brain went further back to the day before when she’d told him that maybe something he didn’t even know he was missing was right there in front of him.
That had his mind turning, thinking of Las Vegas and that night when Molly had come to his room. When she’d practically begged him to make love to her, when she’d told him she loved him. She didn’t remember any of that shit, and he’d never told her because he figured it was a booze-fueled admission that meant nothing more than her being horny. But the thing was? At the time, in that moment, he’d wanted Molly. In his bed. Him inside her. It had freaked him out so much that for a long time, whenever he thought of her, it made him uncomfortable. As if he’d crossed a line he shouldn’t have. He’d told himself that he could never act on it because her friendship meant more than sex, and sex was something he could get whenever he wanted from whomever he felt like having it with.
And that got him thinking about something he’d never thought of before, not in those terms, anyway. Him and Molly. Together. In every way. Without Vegas or tequila or whatever the hell it was she’d had that night between them.
“Come with me,” he said, reaching for her.
“Where?”
He grabbed her arm and looked around. The Malone fish fry was hopping, so he pulled Molly along behind him, sidestepping her parents and their group of pals as he headed inside the house, and didn’t stop walking until they were in her old bedroom with the door closed behind them.
The room looked exactly as he remembered, deep navy-blue paint and crisp white trim. There were posters on the wall of Gretzky (his idol had been Bobby Orr) as well as Johnny Cash, who happened to be her favorite singer.
“What the hell, Nate?” Her color was high, and she yanked her hand from his.
“Sorry, I…” The words dried up in his throat when he spied a bunch of frames grouped together on her dresser. He crossed the room and stood in front of them, gazing down at their past. A group shot of all of them dressed in road hockey gear, they looked to be about seven years of age. Her and Zach blowing out the candles on their fifth birthday, with half of Nate’s face peeking over her shoulder. The first hockey championship they’d won. She was the only girl in the group. And then…
He reached down and picked up the last frame. Prom. It was a lifetime ago.
“Nate, what’s going on?” She stood beside him now, and he turned to her.
It wasn’t the photo they’d been forced to pose for at the event. It was a casual shot from the front room of the Malone house, taken just before they’d left. He remembered it clear as day. Zach cracked a joke no one thought was funny, and then Molly whispered something into Nate’s ear that nearly doubled him over. In the photo, they were both smiling widely and looking at each other as if there was no one else in the room.
“You were beautiful,” he said quietly, putting the photo back on the dresser. He’d never seen her that way and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
“What?” She was nervous now. He could tell because of the small tic at the corner of her mouth. “You’re drunk.”
“No, Moll. Not even close.”
“Then tell me what’s going on, because I have no idea why you dragged me in here.”
He took his time because he didn’t want to spook her, and because he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to say, and maybe that was because he had no idea what the hell he was doing.
“I didn’t remember the color of your dress.”
This wasn’t the best opening line he’d ever used, but this was new territory for him, and, at the moment, it was all he had.
Molly ran her hands through her hair, untangling a few pieces that waved across her shoulder. “If you’re not drunk, then high? Is that it?”
He shook his head. Normally, Nate had no problem conversing with the opposite sex. So why in hell was it such a problem with Molly?
“My mom asked me what color your dress was at prom, and I couldn’t remember. She said you would.”
She looked confused, and then a weird sort of expression crossed her face. She licked her lips again, which made him notice the tic, and that little thing was going off like a rocket. She was more than nervous.
“Oh. I still don’t understand.”
“Then she said something that made me think about some things I’ve never considered before.”
Her chest rose and fell rapidly, the color high on her cheeks. “Nate, I—”
He slowly shook his head and took a step toward her. “The thing is, Molly, I think maybe you’ve thought about these things too. Maybe for a while now. And maybe I’m late to the game or just plain stupid.”
Another step and he was inches from her. The air around them thickened, making it hard to breathe. He was hot. And cold. And he felt about as far away from a grown-ass man as he was from his fourteen-year-old self. The kid who practically lost it when Daisy Brookfield had lifted her top and shown him her boobs.
He needed to take a moment so that he made sense.