Page 34 of The Vegas Rerun
Molly doesn’t flee when I release her wrist. She doesn’t walk away at all, but her fingers clutch the edge of her blouse, and her eyes dart away from me, and I feel an unfamiliar tightness in my chest. I hate that she can’t even look at me. I wish I had kept my mouth shut. Hell, I wish I had kept the stupid tattoo. I didn’t want to push Molly, but I can’t stand this. I have to at least try to make things right between us. I take a breath and step closer to her, keeping my voice low, careful not to appear menacing.
"I didn’t mean to upset you Molly," I say.
“You haven’t,” she says.
“Right,” I reply. “Because you always look like this when you’re happy.”
I cringe inside as soon as the words leave my mouth. I’ve done it again. Spoken without thinking and now she will most definitely hate me. I look at her, expecting her to be glaring at me, but she’s not. She’s laughing. I dare to smile back at her.
“You always did have a way with words,” she says softly.
I don’t know what to say to that and I’m still on rocky ground, so I keep quiet and let her carry on when she’s ready.
"I’m not bothered by what you said about the tattoo. Honestly, I get why you removed yours and I get why you were surprised I didn’t,” she says. “That’s not why I was upset.”
“So, what was it?” I ask.
“When I first started working here, I thought you didn’t recognize me. I was upset about it at first, but I figured I couldn’t hold it against you. We had a one-night stand three years ago and I figured that if you do that a lot, maybe after a while they all fade into one," she says. Her voice is quiet, but there’s something firm underneath the whisper, something that carries weight. “But then the way you blurted that out tonight, it told me that you did remember me. And the fact you knew me and didn’t acknowledge it is what hurt me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I thought that was the way you wanted it, because you didn’t show any sign of recognizing me either.”
"I thought you didn’t know who I was. There was no way I was going to embarrass myself by explaining to you who I am,” she says.
“Yeah, I get that,” I say. “Honestly Molly, I would have spoken up, but I remembered the way you sneaked away from me the morning after our night together and I figured that you regretted it and the last thing I wanted to do was remind you of something you regretted.”
“I never regretted it,” she says quietly.
“Me neither,” I say. “And I’ll be honest, I have had my fair share of one-night stands when I was younger, and sometimes I guess they do all blur into one. But not you, because I never thought of you as a one-night stand. The only reason you were one is because of geography and circumstances.”
Her eyes fill with tears, and I curse myself for upsetting her further. I swallow, running my fingers through my hair. "Molly, I …"
She shakes her head and cuts me off.
"It’s fine, Joshua. Really." I love how my name sounds when she says it, but I don’t focus on that right now. She obviously isn’t fine, and I go to speak, but she smiles and blinks away the tears, and she looks more like her usual self again, her smile reaching her eyes now. “I was just being a bit sentimental.”
The tears in her eyes weren’t because I had upset her. They were, maybe not tears of joy exactly, but tears carrying an emotion too big for her to hold inside of herself.
I feel like the danger of her bolting has passed now and I take another step toward her. I’m not only shocked that she kept her tattoo, but now I’ve had time to process it, I’m glad she has kept it, glad she wanted to remember me, and I feel like the world’s biggest asshole for removing mine. But in my defense, it’s not like I need a tattoo or anything else to remember Molly by. I could never forget that girl, and believe me, for a long time after Vegas, I tried to.
"You kept it," I say.
Her eyes flick back to mine. She looks wary but she holds my gaze.
"Yeah, I did."
A slow smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth, a desperate attempt to bring us back to something lighter.
"That must mean that you’re in love with me," I say.
Molly lets out a short laugh, shaking her head. Just the reaction I was hoping for.
"Not even close,” she tells me.
I put one hand on my heart and shake my head.
“I’m hurt,” I tell her, and she laughs some more.
“Suck it up, buttercup,” she says.
