She opened the car door and paused.
“How long do you think we have before they send out the search party?” she asked.
Nicholas grinned. “I'd say we can be ten minutes late before anyone really starts to worry.”
“Good.” Molly shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it on the front passenger seat. “I've been wondering what the back seat of a Jag feels like.”
Nicholas spent no time climbing in and joining her for ten minutes in make-out heaven in the backseat of his car.
Chapter 23
Molly
“YOU KISSED NICHOLAS KERSTMAN?” Hannah was screaming on the other end of the phone. “Holy cow! Molly! HOLY COW!”
“Hannah, shhh! The whole point of me hiding out in the bathroom was so no one could hear you,” Molly hissed into the phone as she leaned against the bathroom sink of the Kerstmans’ home. “But yeah. He kissed me. Well. I kissed him? Whatever, we both kissed each other.”
“Where were you when it happened?” Hannah asked.
“I took him out to Johnston's field,” Molly said with a grin. “There's a meteor shower tonight and there's no light out there.”
“THAT IS SO SUPER ROMANTIC!” Hannah continued to squeal into the phone. “Oh my gosh! That’s way too perfect! Wait, the bathroom? Molly, why are you calling me from a bathroom?”
“Because we’re at his parents’ house for Christmas-Eve-Eve dinner,” Molly reminded her friend. “And I had to fix my hair. It got a little messed up.”
Molly grinned at the mirror and smoothed down her hair. That ten minutes in the car had been hard to stop. She could still feel his fingertips on her skin and the heat of his kisses. It was all she could do not to go out to the dining room table, grab him by that red silk tie, and drag him back into that backseat for more of what he started.
Ten minutes was not nearly enough.
“Oh, right. The-Night-Before-The-Night-Before-Christmas. Aw, man. I wish I could’ve gone to that. I love Mrs. Kerstman’s cooking,” Hannah said with a longing sigh. “BakeTown strikes again.”
“BakeTown strikes again,” Molly repeated Hannah’s phrase, except with a spooky accent, as if she were a vampire on TV.
Hannah laughed after Molly’s vampire impersonation and Molly was happy to have made Hannah laugh, even in the middle of her friend’s stressful night.
“So what happens now? Are you two going to walk off into the sunset or what?” Hannah kept her volume lower this time.
“I don’t know,” Molly answered, looking around the bathroom. “It’s all so new, Hannah. But it’s so weird, because when I kissed him, it didn’t feel like it was new. It felt like he’s the one I should’ve been kissing all along, and it’s like I just remembered.”
Molly winced as Hannah screamed yet again into the phone’s speaker.
“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” Hannah apologized over and over. “It’s just so amazing! Oh, Molly! You’ve never said something like that about anyone before! Not even about you-know-who.”
“I know. I’ve never felt anything like this before,” Molly admitted, bringing her voice down a few notches, not wanting anyone to hear her on the other side of the door. “It’s kind of freaking me out.”
“Nope. You’re not allowed to freak out.” Hannah’s words were steady. “You’re going to go back into that dining room, and have an amazing dinner with Nicholas and both of your families. Then you're going to make me a plate of leftovers that I can warm up in my oven, drop off that plate off at the bakery at the end of the night and then voila! The night ends on a perfect note.”
Molly frowned. That was definitely not a perfect night. A perfect night was getting back in that car and kissing Nicholas some more.
“Yeah, it sounds like the night will end on a perfect note for you,” Molly replied, rolling her eyes.
“See? Now, you’re getting it.” Hannah chuckled, before letting out a sigh. “But seriously, Molly. You’ve got this, okay? And if you need anything, just text me or send a carrier pigeon or something.”
“Carrier pigeon. I’m definitely going to send over a carrier pigeon. Probably in the next five minutes.” Molly bit her lip. “What if he asks me back to his place? Should I go?”
“Yes. But right after you drop my plate off,” Hannah told her. “Okay, I have to go, I can smell the bread finishing up in the oven. Byeeeee!” Hannah abruptly hung up the phone.
Molly set her own phone down on the sink so she could fidget with the ends of her sweater, smoothing down its fabric time and again. She looked at the mirror at her pink cheeks and kiss-swollen lips. She found herself wanting to kiss him again and yet incredibly nervous about it at the same time.