I consider walking around the bed, but the glint in her eyes has me crawling over her to get to the other side.
She laughs and turns off the light, and we lie side by side, facing each other and waiting for our vision to adjust to the dim light.
I rest my hand on her upper arm and begin to absently trace her soft skin with my fingertip. She lifts her hand to my cheek, her thumb brushing over the stubble on my jawline. A wave of peace washes through me, and for the first time in over three years, the unease in my soul quiets.
Molly gives me this.
I lean in and kiss her gently, wanting to give her the same sense of belonging and acceptance she’s shown me, but too afraid to try to explain what I’m feeling in words, because what if she laughs them off? We’ve both been betrayed, which makes us skittish to trust, yet deep down I know I can trust her because of her betrayal. Just like she can trust me because of mine.
I’m the one person who uniquely understands what she’s gone through.
I ache to tell her, to unburden my soul, but it’s not the right time. So instead, I kiss her and run my hands over her body, worshipping her.
She moans, and then her hands search my body too. While our previous sexual encounters have been wild and often frantic, this is slow and deliberate, and much more intimate than anything I’ve experienced in a long time. I can’t help thinking the darkness has helped. That it’s made us feel safe enough to be vulnerable with each other.
When we finish, she laughs and says, “So maybe we are bed-fucking people.”
“Don’t worry,” I say as I pull her into the crook of my arm. “We’ll fuck on the back porch tomorrow to get our groove back. Or maybe down in the basement to really grunge things up.”
She curls into my side. “On top of the washing machine could be interesting,” she says, sounding sleepy. “It’s really unbalanced.”
I smile in the darkness and kiss the top of her head. “I know how to fix that.”
“Don’t you dare,” she protests, lifting her head a little, but then she lays it back on my shoulder as though it’s too heavy to hold up. “At least not until we get our groove back.”
Her breathing slows and evens moments later. I’m exhausted too, but part of me doesn’t want to go to sleep. I want this moment to last. I struggle to name this overwhelming feeling taking over my heart and mind. As I drift off to sleep, one word whispers in my head.
Contentment.
The next morning we get up and Molly and I make breakfast together. She’s surprised I’m capable of making fluffy waffles. The dogs are hopeful, and even Ein seems fonder of me now that he knows I can cook.
“I am my father’s son,” I say as I retrieve a waffle from the iron. I waggle my brows at her. “My dad has started his own baking business.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope. And get this, he’s calling it Bear’s Buns.”
“No way!” She beams, sounding delighted.
“Yes, and he wouldn’t be talked out of it. But he’s good at it. Mom used to bake a lot, and it was another tradition we picked up after she died. We’d spend every Sunday afternoon baking. We made simple things—he’d literally never baked before she died—so there were a lot of baking casualties that ended up in the garbage. But he got better. I’ve noticed that he bakes most when he’s anxious, so I guess I’ve made him pretty anxious over the past three years.”
I say it in a self-deprecating way, but she hugs me from behind, catching me by surprise.
I could get used to this.
But it’s too soon to think ahead. I still need to tell her about the night Alice died. It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I need to share something serious, but she drops her arms and sidles up next to me, resting her back against the counter.
“So do you bake?” she asks.
“Of course,” I snort.
“Can you make cookies?”
I roll my eyes in mock disgust. “Please.”
“Macarons?”
I pause. “It’s been a while, but I could probably whip some up.”
She looks impressed yet slightly disbelieving.
I laugh.
“Cheesecake?”
“Yep.”
“Crème brûlée?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Can’t stand it. Never made it.”
“Who doesn’t like crème brûlée?” she chides.
I hold my hand up slightly. “Guilty as charged.”
A smile spreads across her face. “Yeah, I can’t stand it either.”
Laughing, I dip my finger into the waffle batter, then smear a streak on her nose. She makes a half-hearted attempt to tackle me but simply ends up wrapped in my arms, so I call that a win for both of us.
“Let’s bake something,” she says, her eyes twinkling.
“We’re making waffles,” I remind her. Ein issues a bark as if to remind me he’d like one too.
“The iron does all the work. Let’s do some real baking.” She backs out of my arms and looks at me in challenge. “Or are you afraid?”
I laugh. “Of what? That I’ll be a better baker than you?”
“Oh, you’re on.”
We discuss what to make over breakfast. Each of the dogs has been gifted half a waffle, with the stern admonition that they’re not to tell Maisie.
Molly has officially challenged me to a bake-off. I suggest we each make a fruit tart and take them to the Bad Luck Club to let the members decide which one is the best.
“No soggy bottoms,” she says seriously. “You know what happens when one of the contestants has a soggy bottom.” I recognize the reference to The Great British Bake Off, but this opportunity is too good to pass up.
I tilt my head and mime ogling her butt. “Nope, not a worry for you.”
Her mouth falls open. “You’ve never seen The Great British Bake Off?”
I shrug.
“Philistine!” Then the expression in her eyes shifts, turning serious. “You know, I was worried you’d change your mind about the club. You’re serious about bringing me?”
“As a heart attack.” And I mean it.
There’s a reason the first two rules of Bad Luck Club are not to talk about it. Confidentiality breeds trust. Allowing Molly to come puts that at risk, especially since I know she plans to write about it. But as my dad might say, there’s no putting this horse back in the barn. People know about the club anyway. They just have a skewed vision of it. Molly can help even the scales.
I’m no longer concerned she’ll make the people in the club look like losers. She might have made those guys from her dating posts look like fools, but only because they were. Sure, some of the club members see themselves that way, but Molly won’t. She’ll see the good in them, because as tough as she portrays herself to be, she has a marshmallow heart.
Using our phones, we each find a recipe and work up our shopping lists from the ingredients. When we finish eating, we abandon the dirty dishes and head to the store. We do our shopping together, and my mouth drops open when I see her put a box of premade piecrust in the cart.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say a little too smugly.