Not Pretending Anymore by Ward, Penelope (big ebook reader .TXT) 📕

on her lip. “I guess only time will tell.”

Yeah, but I’d bet my last dime it was going to come sooner rather than later. There was no way that guy wasn’t going to try to lock her down. He felt threatened.

I sucked back the remnants of my drink in one gulp, feeling like I needed a few more to take the edge off. “You want another wine?”

“I usually limit myself to two when I go out. But since you’re here with me, and I won’t be traveling home in the dark by myself, sure. Why not?”

After I got us another round, Emma came back from the ladies’ room. Molly introduced me to a few more of her friends, and we had some laughs. But throughout the evening, I caught Dr. Dick with his eyes on Molly at least a dozen times. At one point, he was talking to her co-worker Daisy. The woman was blatantly flirting with him, making as much body contact as she could and tossing her blond hair around. Molly looked over and saw it, too, and my heart clenched at the disappointment on her face. So I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. Apparently, Mr. Casual didn’t like that too much, because within a few minutes he was again by our side.

“I’m going to head out,” he said. “Do you have a minute, Molly?”

I had to give him credit; the guy had balls walking up and asking her to talk in private when I had my arm around her shoulder.

Molly looked over at me. I had the strongest urge to squeeze her closer and tell the jerk to take a hike, but instead I let her decide how to handle things.

“Umm…sure. Excuse me for a minute, will you, Declan?”

My heart sank. “Yeah…of course.” Reluctantly, I let go of her.

The two of them spent about fifteen minutes talking in the corner alone. During that time, I had two more drinks. Even though I talked with some of her co-workers, my eyes never wandered too far from Molly.

When she came back, she had a smile on her face. My smile wilted.

“So that was an interesting turn of events…” she said.

“What happened?”

“Will admitted that he was jealous seeing us together. He asked me to have dinner tomorrow night to talk.”

What a dick.

Yes, the plan had been to use jealousy to make our crushes notice that they might lose their chance. But something about this guy made me think it was less about losing his chance with Molly and more about winning a competition. But Molly seemed happy, so I didn’t want to piss on her parade.

“That’s great.” I looked around and didn’t see Dr. Dick. “Is he gone?”

“Yeah. He has an early morning tomorrow, so he left.”

“You don’t have to work tomorrow, right?”

“Nope. I’m off for three glorious days.”

I’d had a fair amount of drinks already, but I suddenly had the urge to get shitfaced. “What do you say we have a celebratory shot?”

“Oh boy… I’m sort of a lightweight.”

I winked. “That’s okay. I’m strong. I can carry your ass.”

***

“Do you have any rattoos?”

I dropped the key to our apartment on the floor a second time as we stood in front of the door. “Rattoos?”

Molly drunk snorted. “You said rattoos!”

I laughed. “I’m just repeating what you said. You said rattoos.”

“I didn’t say rattoos. I said rattoos.” She hiccupped. “Oh my God! I did say rattoos. Why can’t I say rattoos?”

I scooped the key off the floor and squinted as I tried for the third time to get it in the lock. “Got it!” I pushed the door open to let Molly walk inside ahead of me.

In the doorway, she turned to face me. Her mouth overexaggerated every syllable as she slowly formed each sound. “Tat-tooo. Do you have any tat-toos?”

“Ah. Tattoos. Yes, I do. But I don’t have any rattoos yet.”

Molly kicked off her shoes just inside the front door and went straight to the kitchen. “What do you have in here today? I’m starving.”

“I think there’s some leftover penne alla vodka.”

She ripped open the refrigerator door and grabbed the Tupperware. “Let’s eat it cold.”

I chuckled and plucked the container from her hands. “How about I heat it up for us. It’ll only take five minutes.”

Molly pouted. “That’s four-and-a-half minutes too long.”

I dumped the pasta into a small pot and turned on the stove. We’d both had way too much to drink, but Molly was leaning on the kitchen counter, and it looked like she might need it to keep herself upright.

“Why don’t you go get comfy in the living room?”

“I want to watch you cook. It’s sexy having a man make me food.”

“Oh yeah?”

I turned to look at her just as her elbow on the counter slipped and she almost toppled over. “Whoa there. Be careful.” I caught her waist and lifted her up onto the counter. “How about you sit up here then?”

Molly grabbed the glass jar of pink M&Ms next to her. She pulled out a handful and popped some into her mouth before holding out her hand to me. “Want some?”

“No, thanks. I can handle the five-minute wait.”

She stuck her tongue out, which made me smile.

“So, where is it?” she asked with her mouth full.

“Where’s what?”

“Your tat-too.”

“Ah. It’s a secret. If you want to know, I’ll need to know something personal about you. A secret for a secret.”

“Okay!” Her face lit up. “You go first.”

“Alright. I actually have two tattoos: one on my left shoulder blade and the other on my side, on my rib cage.”

“Oh wow. What are they?”

I wagged a finger at her. “Not so fast, Miss Nosypants. That’s a second secret. You have to share a secret first.”

Molly tapped her pointer finger to her lip. “Oh! I know! I have a tattoo, too!”

My brows jumped. “You do?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“Where is it?”

She grinned. “Not so fast, Mr. Nosypants. That’s a second secret. You’ll have to share a second secret first.”

I smiled. “Nice. Okay. The tattoo on