Page 43 of October
She hadn’t exactly planned on asking her out today and definitely hadn’t planned on doing it right after talking to her ex, but she’d been having such a good time just walking down the street with Molly. The last time she had had fun like that with India had been over a year ago, at least, and that would be a guess because Finley couldn’t actually remember it. She wanted to have fun again. She wanted sex to happen because two people wanted and needed it, not because they’d been in a fight or broken up. She wanted to go on a date with someone whowantedto be there with her, wherever they were. India had rarely been in the moment with her, and Finley had always noticed. Molly was different, just like she’d said earlier, but, in Finley’s mind, that was a good thing; maybe the best thing.
Arriving in front of Molly’s front door, she took a deep breath. This was it. Well, it wasn’tit, exactly, but it was close to it. This was the major reason she had ended things with India for good. She liked Molly. She was ready to move on. She wanted to be happy again. So, she knocked and waited. Only a few secondslater, Molly opened the door, and Finley smiled widely when she saw her.
“You listened,” she noted.
“To what?” Molly asked. “Also, hi.”
“Hi,” Finley said with a laugh. “And you dressed casually.”
“You told me to. Should I not have?” Molly looked a little worried.
“No, you should have. It’s perfect. You’re perfect,” she said.
Molly smiled widely and replied, “Not even close. But thank you.”
Finley held out a flower she didn’t know the name of. She hadn’t had time to go to the store to buy something for her, so she’d picked one outside of her own apartment building.
“For you.”
Molly took it and said, “Thank you.”
“You look nice.”
“I’m wearing jeans and a T-shirt.”
“Yeah, you look nice,” Finley repeated.
“I just have to grab my sweater, and we can go, but let me put this in water first. Come in.”
Finley walked inside and closed the door behind her, watching Molly carry the silly flower into her kitchen, which was closed off from the rest of the wide-open room. There was a small dining room table on the faux tile next to the kitchen, and the living room was just beyond. Molly had a cream-colored sofa there that looked comfortable, a modest TV on the other side of a dark wood coffee table, and bookshelves filled to the brim on either side of the TV.
“You’re a big reader, huh?” Finley noted.
“Yeah, one of my favorite things,” Molly replied from the kitchen. “That’s not even all of them. I have more in my bedroom, and I donate to the library every year to get rid of some and buy new ones. It’s a real problem.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, taking a few steps into the room, but seeing something in black and gold, she headed toward it. “Um… Molls?”
“Yeah?” Molly walked up behind her. “Oh, shit. Yeah.”
“Oh, shit?” Finley turned toward her.
“So… I hope you’re not mad, but I sort of lied to you once.”
“Once?”
“Just once,” Molly said. “It was an accident, honestly. You asked about football and the Saints, and I said I wasn’t a fan and didn’t know anything.”
“Why?”
“Because you made me nervous,” Molly replied. “You still do, but we’re about to go on a date, so I guess that means I don’t have to confess that I liked you. Well,likeyou. I got nervous and tongue-tied, and then I didn’t know how to fix it, so I just kept going with it.”
“So, this weekend, when you knew stuff, it wasn’t because Juliet gave you a crash course?”
Molly shook her head and replied, “I grew up a fan. My dad and mom both were. That was my first game in the stadium, though. That’s why I got a little choked up at the beginning. He would’ve been really happy that I got to go.”
“Why didn’t you ever go with him?” Finley asked, picking up the photo off the bookshelf of Molly and her dad in their matching Saints’ T-shirts, with a cheesy football frame around it.
“He had some social stuff. I can tell you about it later, but he couldn’t go, and we never wanted to go without him.”
