The truth is, I’ve been miserable the last two weeks. Part of that was my guilt, but mostly I’ve missed her. I’ve missed her laugh and her jokes and the way she smells and the feel of her body pressed next to mine. I was starting to fall in love with Molly O’Shea before everything went to hell, and I need to take Willow’s advice and not squander my chance to be happy.
I set my glass on the table and dig out my phone.
“What are you doing?” Harry asks. “Are you calling Molly?”
“No,” I say, looking up a travel site.
“Are you texting her?” Nicole asks.
“Nope.”
They all start to talk at once, trying to convince me to contact Molly and work things out.
Ignoring them, I select a flight and enter my information.
“What the hell are you doing, Cal?” Nicole asks, then glances at my phone and gasps.
“What?” Harry asks, looking terrified. I suppose he thinks it must be pretty bad if Nicole is shocked.
I press the purchase button, then look up. “Which one of you has Molly’s address, because it would be better to know where I’m going instead of walking up and down the streets of Seattle calling her name.”
Harry and Blue shriek in excitement, and they all resume talking at the same time.
“I can get her address,” Harry says. “When are you going?”
“In a few hours. I’m taking the red-eye.”
More shrieks.
“You’re not wasting any time,” Nicole muses as she pours herself another glass, and it briefly occurs to me that she seems pretty sober for someone who drank several margaritas.
“No,” I say, giving Blue a warm smile. “I think it’s time I start taking advice from my friends.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Molly
Cal and Bear Reynolds believe in the goodness of people helping each other, and it’s hard not to be charmed by their vision, or by the reality of the people they united from so many different walks of life to ensure this story was told and that justice was done.
—Molly O’Shea, “The Long Con,” Rogue Word
After I threw Fred in the trash, I kind of, sort of forgot to throw the trash out. So when I open the door to my apartment on Friday night, it smells like someone literally died in there.
Which, hell, I guess he did.
I lift a toast to Fred with some champagne I had in the fridge—flat, too dry—and it feels like a strangely appropriate homecoming.
Because Seattle isn’t home, and maybe it never was. It’s an exciting city, full of nooks and crannies to explore, bookstores, restaurants, and views. But for me, it was purgatory. The kind of place where there’s flat champagne and strange smells and a feeling of not right.
The next morning, I start to pack my things. It’s a bit weird that my life in Seattle fits into a couple—okay, several—suitcases. I came here seeking escape, and I found it for a while. But it never felt like enough.
I’m ready for something real.
Speaking of—
I check the comments on the article for what has to be the fiftieth time.
SO, is it just me or do you guys think Cal is hot? There are no photos of him, but he SEEMS hot, and hell, Augusta literally crashed her car into him to meet him. 9 or a 10, def.
My mouth twitches up at the corners, because God, Cal is going to hate the attention. Still, I’m proud of him for deciding to put it all out there. Sure, it was Bear who played our go-between, but he never would have done it if Cal wasn’t ready to share the truth.
Just like I did with Maisie.
She was completely blindsided by my story, but she instantly believed me, and it wasn’t until that moment that I understood how much I’d needed to know she would. Part of me had thought she would blame me, that she’d reject me for being the bearer of heartbreaking news, but it hadn’t gone down like that. We’d cried together, then called Mary on video chat and cried again, all three of us.
That night, I found myself wavering in my decision not to reach out to Cal again. But I didn’t break, because if we’re ever going to have a chance, he needs to come to me.
I feel a familiar pulse of longing. I’m still mad at him for turning on me because I doubted him, but the thing is…I get it. He thought he was living a calm, orderly life, and suddenly I came along, stirring up the past like a nest of pissed-off hornets.
I’m the woman who unleashed his worst nightmare—and even if that’s what needed to happen for him to be free of it, I’m still the woman who did it. I can’t blame him for not being able to get past that.
The buzzer sounds, and I perk up, thinking maybe it’s Beth, who said she’d stop by later with gossip about the Beyond the Sheets merger. Apparently there are going to be some big changes. The first memo that went out was about changing the voice to be less “snarky.”
A man’s voice announces he’s here with a delivery, so I buzz him up and peer through the peephole as he comes down the hall with a frankly grotesque arrangement of flowers. It’s so large, the man who’s carrying it can barely see over it. It had to cost a fortune, but it’s ugly.
When I open the door, my visitor recoils from the smell, which suggests it’s absolutely as bad as it was last night, and I’ve only become immune to it.
I consider what it’s like for him—blinded by flowers, nose assaulted by the smell—and I start laughing hysterically.
The delivery man’s eyes widen, which only makes me laugh harder. He sets down the flower arrangement, as tall as my hips, and turns and runs—smacking right into a tall man with gold-flecked brown hair and dark coffee eyes.
“Run,” the delivery man says to him. “That woman’s crazy.”
Cal looks up at me—the sight of him cutting off my laughter like a knife through hot butter—and says, “You get used to it. It’s part of her charm.”
The delivery man glances back and forth between us, but he must have given up on Cal as a lost cause, because he keeps running.
I can’t expend much attention on the man I’ve unintentionally horrified because Cal is walking toward me with purpose.
He’s here. It’s as if someone plucked him from my thoughts, and he’s looking at me like he feels the same way. No, he’s looking at me the way he did that day with our tree. Like he can’t believe he’s lucky enough that I exist. Like he plans on sweeping me up into his arms and walking back into the apartment. And part of me wants him to do exactly that, because I’ve missed his touch, his smell, his feel. I’ve missed talking to him and hearing his voice. I’ve missed him, this infuriating man who knows so much and, when it comes to himself, sees so little.
Not that I can talk.
His eyes drop to the ridiculous flower arrangement, and his steps slow.
It’s at that exact moment the smell hits him. I can tell because his eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything because uncertainty has punctured whatever grand gesture he had planned. Whatever he had in mind, I’ll bet it wasn’t this: a stench and a huge bouquet of flowers from someone else.
That almost makes me laugh again. Almost.