Seeing Straight

“Shit happens in threes, man. That’s just the way it is.”

I pause with my towelled hand still stuck in the beer mug I’m drying, and shoot Geoff a narrowed glare. “What the fuck, dude? I only told you two things, now something else is going to happen.”

My boss’ eyebrows twitch but he doesn’t look down the length of the bar toward me, he just carries on wiping the glass bowl he’s been wiping for the past three minutes.

I slide the mug onto the shelf behind me then lay both palms flat on the edge of the wooden bar, leaning forward and hoisting off my feet to give them a moment of rest. “Bartenders are supposed to ease people’s troubles, not make the worse.”

A shrug lifts Geoff’s shoulders as he scoffs. “Must’ve missed that class.”

“You must’ve missed a lot of classes, dude.”

I lower back onto my feet with a wince of regret. Just an hour more until my shift is over and I can get out of here.

“You got big plans tonight?” Geoff asks when he notices me checking the clock above the door again. This last hour always takes the longest to tick by.

“Nothing, except maybe digging out my jock and cup to wear tomorrow.”

Geoff’s brow creases but he doesn’t ask. He’s got a point. Sometimes you just don’t want to know why another dude needs protective gear.

“I’ve got to spend tomorrow with that chick, Molly.”

“Justin’s girl?” He sounds surprised by this, and should be. Molly and I don’t spend time together.

“Yeah.”

“Ball-buster?”

“The worst fucking kind, man.”

Geoff thinks about this for a moment as he sets the glass bowl down and grabs another. “She doesn’t seem so bad.”

Now it’s my turn to scoff. “That’s because you don’t really know her.” I lean a hip on the counter and prop my weight with an elbow on the bar top. “She’s had Justin by the balls since we were kids.”

Another shrug raises one of Geoff’s shoulders. “Seems to me that Justin likes it.”

I push off the bar and roll my eyes; Geoff hardly knows Justin.

“I’m just calling it like I see it,” he says as I walk off.

“You can’t see shit, dude,” I say under my breath but loud enough that I’m sure he hears me.

I’ve known Justin since second grade and if anyone knows what he likes, it’s me. And okay, so he does like the death grip Molly has on his gonads, but that doesn’t make it right. This chick, she’s the devil in a hot, little body and has been leading Justin on since they were five years old. The poor guy hasn’t even gotten a piece of ass out of it.

I don’t know what the deal is with them. He’s a fucking lost cause around her – always worrying about what she’s doing and what she’s thinking. Even when she’s fucking someone else he’s still all up in her shit, doing anything she asks him to do. It’s pathetic.

And now I have to spend the whole damn day with her. This is only because I love Justin and he knows I’ll do anything for him but goddamn it - what a way to ruin a Tuesday.

My cell-phone chirps at me as I’m walking to my apartment from the bar an hour later. Fishing it out of the inner pocket in my winter coat is no easy task, but I flip it open just before it would have skipped over to the machine.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Xan?”

Shit. It’s my half-sister Kitty. I’ve been avoiding her calls for weeks. For a second I consider just hanging up.

“Don’t hang up,” she says which forces a smile from me. It’s always a surprise how well she knows me.

“Do you even know what time it is here?” I demand, trying to sound half asleep.

“It’s ten here so that’s what? One a.m. for you?”

“Yeah, some people sleep, you know.”

Her voice is dry and humourless when she replies. “You’re a bartender, Xan. Give me a break.”

“Fine, you got me. So what’s up? Is he dead yet?”

“You’re an asshole,” she says, clearly dismayed by my asshole-ness. And yes, my question was below the belt, but shit, she’s been a pain in the ass about this for months now and I can’t get her off my case.

“I know. Now, what’s going on?” I ask with a sigh, ducking into the warmth of a hotel lobby. I can’t escape this and my hand is starting to freeze around my cell.

“He’s still asking for you. I told him you won’t come but he won’t let up. You have to come visit.”

I lower myself onto a sofa meant for hotel guests, but no one comes over to chase me away. “I’m not coming out to L.A., Kitty. We’ve already had this conversation. He has you and your mother there with him, he doesn’t need me around.”

“But he’s your father too.”

I prop my elbows on my knees, leaning forward with the phone clasped against my ear. “Catherine, I haven’t talked to the man in ten years. I don’t care if he’s dying. I have nothing to say to him.”

“But --,”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Xan --,”

And I flip the phone shut. So there’s bad-thing number one: my father has cancer. I’m not quite convinced it’s a bad thing – the world is full of dying people. But if I’m keeping a tally, I guess it counts.



“You’re late,” Molly barks as I pull into her driveway. She’s standing on the drive, huddled in her white wool coat, arms folded, bitch-mode set to ‘High’. I wonder if she’s been standing out in the cold this entire time, or if she’s been running inside to warm up, then back out, just for the pleasure of catching me as I pull up.

I lower the car window. “Babe, I’m never late.”

She hikes her purse onto her shoulder and crosses in front of the car. For pure amusement, I watch her try the locked passenger door handle a couple times before she raises her angry green eyes up to meet mine through the window.

“Oops, sorry,” I mouth with an innocent smile as I lean over to raise the knob.

She slides into the passenger seat then pulls the door shut but it doesn’t close properly.

“That door sticks,” I tell her. “You have to throw all your weight into it.”

She looks at me from the corner of her eyes and I can tell this isn’t the kind of car she’s used to but she opens the door anyway and bracing her foot on the floor, her hip pressed against the shifter, she yanks with a small grunt and it shuts perfectly.

I thought she would make me go around and close it for her. I’m impressed.

“I wanted to get there early,” Molly says after several minutes of driving in silence.

“What for? Afraid you won’t get good seats to see the action?”

Her head swivels toward me. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.” She’s silent for a moment but I don’t respond. “I wanted to be there in case Justin needs anything.”

Her quiet statement takes me a down a notch and she’s right, of course. Now I feel like shit – first because we could have been there early but I wanted to piss her off and make her wait, and second because she thought of it and I didn’t.

As I’m about to apologize, her phone buzzes and she digs around in her purse to find it.

“Hello?” She pauses for a moment, listening. “Hi, how are you holding up?”

“It’s Justin,” she mouths over to me silently when I glance at her.

I listen to her one-sided conversation, driving a little faster. Maybe we can still make it there early.

“Yep, I’m with Xan now, we’re in his car... No, don’t worry about us, we’re fine. Okay, I’ll let him know. We’ll be there soon.”

When I look over at her, there’s genuine concern on her face. I’m not sure what I expected, but this surprises me. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s saving us seats.” She turns away to look out the window and doesn’t say anything for the rest of the ride to the funeral home.

Bad-thing number two: Justin’s father died of a heart attack four days ago. It’s been a blur of hospital rooms and funeral plans for Justin and I don’t know that he’s processed what’s happened. He hasn’t had much of a reaction – not that he’s had time to react, having to keep his mother afloat. That woman’s always been a little short on coping skills.

“With time to spare,” I say when I pull into a parking spot.

Molly smiles and wraps her olive-green scarf up around her neck before opening the door. I find myself smiling in return and quickly wipe it from my face before she sees. This bit of pleasure I feel at making her smile – total anomaly. Molly and I are not on smiling terms.

The square, featureless room is beige and smells of Carnations. Rows of white, slip-covered chairs are arranged on three sides of the closed casket. I haven’t been to many funerals but as far as turnout goes, Justin’s dad seems to be getting a good send-off. Molly is on the other side of the room, a hand pressed gently to Justin’s arm as they talk.

“You didn’t have to come,” I hear him whisper as I walk up behind them.

“I’m here for you, not him.” Molly’s eyes dart to meet mine over Justin’s shoulder as she kisses him on the cheek and squeezes his arm. “I’m going to find the seats you saved us.” She looks at me as though she’s accusing me of something, like she’s daring me to speak, but I really have no idea what her deal is.

Maybe sensing they were no longer alone, Justin turns with a worried frown but it’s immediately replaced by his ever-present smile. Today it’s understandably a bit forced.

“Justin, buddy.” We shake and I pull him into a quick hug. “If you need anything -”

“I know.” He looks to our right, where Molly is removing her coat and arranging it on a chair in the front row next to the casket. “Thanks for hanging out with her. I owe you big time, I know.”

“It’s all good, dude. I’ll survive one day with the devil.” I chuckle, but he doesn’t smile like he usually does when I express my distaste in his choice of obsession.

Instead he glances at me with an anxious frown then turns back to look at her. “Just make sure she’s all right, okay? If I could do it myself I would, but ...,” he trails off, completely absorbed in watching her.

See, this is what I don’t get. It’s his father’s fucking funeral and he’s concerned that Molly has the kind of Perrier she likes. “I’ve got her, buddy. You just do what you have to do.”

The part of the service with all the praying goes by relatively quickly. We’re sitting on one side of the casket, directly opposite Justin and his mother who are on the other side. The chairs aren’t the most comfortable and my legs are long enough that every now and then, when I shift in my seat, my foot hits the rungs of the cart the casket is on and the whole thing jiggles a little. No one seems to have noticed except Molly. I saw her twitch the first time I accidentally kicked it.

Justin’s older sister, who flew in from her teaching job in Korea, climbs the small stage and takes position at the pulpit to give the eulogy. Her voice is steady and strong as she talks about their father. “He was an honest man,” she begins.

I see Molly twitch again from the corner of my eye, but my feet are nowhere near the casket this time.

“Caring and kind, he only wanted what was best for everyone around him.”

I glance over the casket to see how Justin and his mother are holding up and not surprisingly, his mother looks as if she’s drowning, struggling to catch a breath between a steady stream of quiet tears. Justin, also not surprisingly, is staring right back over the casket, his eyes on Molly and with a slight shift of my head I can see that Molly’s eyes are locked to his.

One of these days, I’m going to make Justin explain why he and Molly are so attached at the hip. Especially since I know she’s not giving it up to him. Or maybe she is and he’s been keeping it a secret.

Nah, that’s impossible.

But looking at them stare at each other, I’m beginning to think there’s more to this than I know. I always assumed Justin’s feelings were one-sided.

“He was a loving man,” Justin’s sister’s voice drones on through the most boring eulogy I’ve ever heard. “He gave his love freely to everyone who wanted it.”

Molly mumbles something under her breath just as Justin’s eyes shift to catch mine. His wide-eyed expression is of quiet panic. A very slight lift of his chin combined with the darting of his eyes toward my left makes me turn to look at Molly. Her head is lowered now; one hand pressed to her mouth, her body shaking with quiet sobs.

Shit. I never expected her to break down like this. I knew she was close to Justin’s family but I didn’t know she was this emotionally attached to them. I’m not equipped to deal with things like this. I don’t have tissue and no one in this century carries handkerchiefs.

I shift in my seat so I can maybe get an arm around her to comfort her, but in my effort to be quick about it, I kick the casket stand again, setting it to a good wobble. Gasps interrupt the eulogy as people in the front row put hands out to steady the shaking box. Somewhere in the chaos I swear I hear Molly laugh. Justin has jumped to his feet, his eyes never straying from Molly but his mother’s hand is holding him back. I don’t know if the pained look on his face is because his father is wobbling in a casket in front of him or because he can’t get to Molly to hold her hand.

“Sorry, sorry.” My whisper is directed to Justin’s sister, urging her to carry on despite my disruption except she looks anything but pleased and the dirty look on her face is directed to both me and Molly.

“He gave his love freely to anyone who wanted it,” she repeats, trying to find her place on the pages of notes in her hands.

Under my arm, which is now wrapped around Molly’s shoulders, I feel her shake with renewed sobbing. A snort escapes her as she turns to press her face into my chest. I look down at her shaking head, my eyes narrowing with suspicion. I don’t think Molly is crying.

I lean away from her, prying her face from my shirt and she looks up at me, desperation written in her wide eyes as she clamps her lips together, holding in another laugh. I see it all over her face. She’s about to blow.

Before it can happen, I grab her hand in mine and pull her up from our seats. Justin, at this point, looks like he’s about to have a seizure, but his mother’s hand on his arm is holding him in his seat.

In the hall, Molly drops our coats on the floor and doubles over. For a moment I don’t know what’s going on, her body is just shaking with what I think is laughter. A loud honk, somewhere between truck horn and goose escapes her as she takes a deep, gasping breath and begins a calmer, less hysteric sort of giggling.

“I can’t…,” she gasps, shaking her head. “And the rocking casket…”

Her laughter is infectious and I find myself grinning after a minute.

“And that horrendous speech…”

Yes, there was that. I chuckle along with her as her laughter subsides. A strained look crosses her face, appearing for a second to turn into the beginnings of a sob but she clears her throat and straightens the jacket of her pantsuit, setting herself right.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says, suddenly completely serious.

I don’t argue. I just do as I’m told.



Molly and I don’t say a word to each other all the way back to her house in the suburbs and when we pull into her drive we both sit for another moment. My mind skips over to what my father’s funeral is going to be like. I doubt there will be half as many people there to see him off.

“Do you want to come in?” Molly asks as she buttons her coat.

I laugh a little at that. “We’re not friends, Molly. You don’t need to be polite.”

Her jaw sets firm. I think she’s actually offended by my statement. “I’d like it if you came in.”

This makes me laugh again because it’s obvious now she’s saying it to prove a point.

“Fine,” I say, calling her bluff.

The inside of her house is almost exactly as I imagined it would be: wholesome, Plain Jane – like her. Everything from the mahogany floors to the antique sideboard; the beige walls and buttery yellow sofas. Even the framed photos look torn from the pages of a designer magazine.

“What?” Molly asks, taking my coat and hanging it in her tidy hall closet.

I continue my visual inspection of her living room. “Your house looks like you.”

“Which means what?”

I shrug. “Well put together. Fancy. I bet you even have a country kitchen.”

She snickers. “I do and I’ll take that as a compliment. Do you want a drink?”

“What do you have?”

She pops open the latch on the sideboard and ducks to peek inside. “Wine. And some really old rum.” She looks up with an apologetic smile. “I don’t have men over to drink very often.”

If I was trying to get her into bed, I would have made some sly, off-colour comment about skipping the drinks and getting straight to the good stuff, but this is Molly - uptight, pickle-up-her-ass Molly who I’ve known since grade school.

Justin’s girl.

“I’ll just have a glass of wine, whatever you’re opening.” I sit on the edge of her sofa, careful not to move anything out of place.

“So if I’m to understand your theory,” she calls from the kitchen, “then I should be able to predict what your home looks like too.”

She returns with two glasses and holds one out to me. “Thanks,” I say, taking it from her hands and sipping at the red wine.

Before I have time to respond, she’s already emptied half her glass and is refilling it.

“Probably,” I say. “What’s your prediction?”

Her head tilts to the side for a moment before a blush starts rising from her neck.

I narrow my eyes at her but she looks away. “Just say what you’re thinking.”

She sips her wine again then glances back at me, somewhat more composed. “It would be messy.”

I choke on a mouthful of wine, forcing it down so I won’t dribble onto her spotless carpets. “Messy?”

A shrug is her immediate response but I stare at her, eyebrows raised, waiting.

“Your appearance isn’t messy, you’re a very clean, neat guy but.”

She stops mid sentence but I don’t let her off the hook. “But what?”

“But,” she hesitates. “Well, you’ve always been a bit of a mess, Xan.”

And here I was trying to soften the blow by saying her house was ‘well put together’ when what I meant was ‘boring’.

“You never really applied yourself in high-school,” she says. “Did you even finish? And then you move to Boston with Justin and Seb, but were you even enrolled in a college out there or just hosting the frat parties?

“And now. What are you doing with your life now? Working in bars, chasing every skirt that shuffles past you. You haven’t grown up, Xan.

“You’re messy.”

I look over her perfectly pressed, navy pantsuit – the crease down the front of the pant lines up exactly with a faint pinstripe. Just the tiniest hint of a ruffle peeks from between the securely buttoned jacket. Her hair is pulled back into a tight twist at the back of her head. She’s come to sit at the other end of the sofa; her feet tucked primly beneath her as she rolls the stem of the crystal wine glass between her fingers.

She is the complete opposite of messy.

“And your house is boring.”

She ducks her head, but I swear there’s a smile on her lips.

“Look,” I say, “my apartment is a bit of a disaster at the moment and it’s not like I don’t recognize that.” She had hit a couple nails on the head with her speech. “But I’m happy with it.”

She nods. “I didn’t mean to go on about it.”

And then there’s silence. We sit, sipping our drinks for a few minutes, Molly finishing her glass and pouring another. Her face is a bit flushed as she sets the almost empty bottle back on the coffee table. The silence is killing me. I don’t even know why I’m still sitting here with this woman, but I shift on the sofa, trying to get a little more comfortable.

“So what was the laughter really about?” I ask, finally.

She looks up at me, confusion and maybe a tiny bit of fear in her eyes. “It was because you kicked the casket.”

I set my glass onto the table and angle my body to face her. “I don’t think so. You started laughing before that. I kicked it was because I thought you were crying.”

She contemplates that for a moment, her fingers sliding along the rim of the glass, making it hum lightly. “Did you spend much time with Justin’s family when you were growing up?”

The change in topic is fast enough to give me whiplash but I go with it. “Not with his parents, no.”

She nods. “Right, your grandmothers were friends, right? I remember Justin telling me this.”

“Yeah. When he and Sebastian were both down on the Shore for the summer we spent all our time together, but during the year, my grandmother never wanted to drive me out to the suburbs, so I’d only see Justin when he was visiting.”

“And what about your parents? Did they live in Atlantic City as well?”

So this is definitely not a conversation I want to be having. “No.”

She looks at me, waiting, but I’m not adding anything more. When she finally realizes it, her eyes wander off to something across the room. “I didn’t have a father.”

Neither did I, I want to say, but I resist the urge.

“Well, I did, obviously,” her hand flaps dismissively, “but my mother left him before I was born so I don’t know who he is.”

“She’s never told you?”

“Says it’s better for me if I don’t know him.” Her brow is furrowed when she looks up at me. “Do you think that’s possible? To be better off not knowing who your parents are?”

I chuckle; thinking of all the times I wished my father was dead instead of just absent. “Yeah, I think it’s possible.”

“Huh.” She lets this sit for a moment, her lips pursed as she studies the mouth of her wine glass. “I spent a lot of time at Justin’s house as a kid. He has the perfect family doesn’t he?” She looks about ready to cry when she says this.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to sit here while she bawls; I’m not good with that kind of thing. “If you think perfect is a house in the burbs with two parents, two kids and two dogs.” She’s nodding as I talk, “Father goes to work everyday while Mother stays home to raise the kids?” I put my feet up on her coffee table, relaxing back into the sofa. “I don’t know about you, babe, but I don’t believe in that Leave it to Beaver shit. There’s always more going on under the covers.”

Her eyebrows rise as she takes a long swallow of her wine. She’s going to be drunk in no time if she keeps knocking it back like she is.

Green eyes fall to my feet propped on the table but instead of the admonishing comment I expect, she slips her feet out from where they were primly tucked beneath her thighs and slides them along the sofa toward me, finally relaxing a bit.

I try to hold in the smile on my lips – at least enough so she doesn’t think I’m laughing at her and clench back up. She reminds me of those anemones I’ve seen on Discovery Channel. You know, the ones that just look like an ugly piece of rock until their pretty, wavy little arms poke out to flutter around in the water. And then at the slightest sign of movement, poof, they’re gone again – all tucked inside themselves.

Molly is like that; skittish but hard as stone.

“So what’s your mother like?” I ask. “Does she make up for not having a father?”

A soft smile lands on all her features catching me a bit of guard. I’ve never noticed her long eyelashes until now as they rest on her flushed cheeks, and the fullness of her bottom lip as she does that pouty thing when she can’t decide if she’s frowning or smiling.

Shake it off, Xan.

“…worked more than one job,” I tune back in halfway through her sentence, “but she’s always been amazing. She doesn’t live very far away so I spend time with her when I can.”

“That sounds pretty perfect to me,” I say with a smile which draws out a flush of pleasure from her.

Okay, so maybe Molly’s not the devil per se. I’ve never spent any time with her so now that I have I can appreciate Justin’s tastes a little more. She’s like a good wine; smooth, delicate. I’m more of a gin and tonic guy myself, but I can see the appeal.

My arm is stretched out along the back of the sofa which is surprisingly quite comfortable and I’m feeling the relaxing effects of the wine making its way through me. It’s quite obvious Molly is too as she fans her face with a hand. I watch her fingers work the two large buttons of her jacket from their hole, spreading the front wide to reveal a frilly top underneath. I don’t know if she realizes how sheer the shirt is – I can see the blue lace of her bra underneath.

I look away, grabbing my glass to drain the wine still in there. This is just messed up. I shouldn’t be looking at her like this.

“What’s your grandmother like?” she asks.

I look up, surprised that she’s picked up on my desire not to talk about my parents. “Much like your mother. Made up for missing parents, worked hard, gave me everything she could afford to give.”

Molly nods thoughtfully, pouring the last of the wine into her half empty glass. “She must be pretty amazing too, then. To raise you when your parents couldn’t?”

I exhale slowly, not sure why I’m telling her all of this. I don’t talk about this shit with anyone, but she’s drunk and she’s nostalgic about family, I get it. Justin’s pain hit close to home. So fine, I can compare war wounds if that’s what she wants.

“My mother died in an accident when I was about six. I don’t really remember anything about her, just little things here and there.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shake my head, not looking up but instead concentrating hard on the pinstripes of her pants. “I have some memories – but I’m not sure if I actually remember those things, or if I’ve just painted them out of stories my grandmother told me over the years.”

“What kinds of things do you remember?”

I lay my head on the arm I’ve draped across the back of the sofa and look at Molly. One corner of her bottom lip is pulled in between her teeth, eyes round with curiosity. But there’s no judgement in them, I don’t get the feeling she’s prying, she’s just interested.

“A day on the beach with her and my father,” I say on an exhaled breath. “I just remember the feeling of the sun and the colour of the sky. There’s a photo of us on the beach that day, smiling. And there’s another photo of her in this yellow dress. I can almost feel the texture of it; I’ve looked at that photo so often.”

Molly’s eyes are shining as she watches me talk about the small things I remember about my mother. There isn’t much to tell, but I tell her all of it, every single remembered detail and by the end we’re both smiling and she’s telling me more about her mother and what it was like to have only a mother, something I know nothing about.

And I’m completely enthralled by her, by the stories and the way she sits up taller when I ask her to tell me more. And the way she waves her hand about to emphasize points in her narrative, stopping to laugh at her own jokes and to ask me questions about my life when she realizes she’s monopolizing the conversation.

She’s wine, and ballet and gourmet meals while I’m beer and strip clubs and cold pizza but the contrast is … interesting.

“What about your father?” she asks. “What’s it like to have only a father?”

See, this is a trick question. I have a father, but he was never really mine. “He left after my mother died, moved out to L.A. and started a new life without me.”

“Oh,” her smile falters. “He didn’t come back?”

I shift so that I’m facing her. “Not of his own accord, no.” I flex the muscles in my back that have started to cramp. “He came back to visit because my grandmother would have castrated him otherwise but after a while I just wished he wouldn’t come at all. It was a chore to see him and pretend I was happy about it. I really didn’t give a shit if he showed up or not.”

“But having a father is better than not, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” I ask. I know she’s looking for confirmation that not knowing her father is the better deal, and I can give it to her. “Would it be better if you knew your father and knew he chose to leave you behind? That he chose to have another kid and didn’t want you to be a part of that?”

“Kitty,” she says under her breath, looking away across the room.

“Yeah, Kitty.”

Molly’s met my sister several times while we were growing up and I see the understanding on her face as she works out the complexity of my family relationships; why Kitty and I have never lived in the same place or only see each other a couple times a year.

“Sometimes it’s better not to know your parents,” I conclude, “and what they’re not capable of.”

Molly shakes her head. “I don’t know, Xan. I think you’re still better of for having him there if you need him.”

I laugh; a short breathy burst. “Well, he won’t be there for much longer.”

“Meaning?” Somehow her toes have become wedged underneath my thigh. I only notice this because she wiggles them, making me flinch at the contact.

“Meaning he’s dying apparently.”

“Oh, Xan.” Her voice is sympathetic but I don’t want her sympathy.

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Molly. It’s wasted effort. He means nothing to me.”

“You can’t actually mean that.”

“I haven’t spoken to him in a decade, babe. I mean it.”

Her head is shaking, her face is flushed and she looks about ready to cry again. “But death changes everything.”

“Why? It doesn’t change who he was.”

“No, but maybe it’s time to forgive him for all the mistakes he made. Before he’s gone and you don’t have another chance.”

I laugh at this. Forgive him. Right. “He doesn’t deserve forgiveness.”

She digs her toes deeper beneath my thigh as she scoots closer, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. “A lot of people don’t deserve forgiveness, but you deserve to be free of what he did to you, don’t you? To let the anger and the hurt go?”

Our faces are so close I can feel her breath on me as she talks. “Maybe seeing him will give you closure.”

I consider this for a moment. Seeing Justin and his family today made me think of the old man. Made me think of what it would be like to have a life without him in it, hovering at the back of my mind like the buzz of an insistent insect. Closure. Molly makes a good case, maybe I do need to go see the old man one more time to hear what he has to say. Maybe hearing him apologize for abandoning me is what I need to be free of him.

“Xan?” Her voice is whisper soft and her breath is warm on my face. My eyes skim over her brow, down her nose and lands squarely on her slightly parted lips.

“I have to pee.” I shoot off the sofa so quickly that Molly rears back to avoid being barrelled over. I practically run down the hallway with no idea where the bathroom is, I just know that I need to not be sitting so close to her with her skin all flushed and glowing from the wine and our conversation.

This is insane. I splash water on my face and take a long chug from the tap. Maybe I’ve had too much wine. One glass. One glass and I’m having irrational thoughts and crazy, mixed-up feelings. Fuck. It’s not the wine.

It’s the funeral. It’s being in the presence of death. It’s making me want to reaffirm life, to … shit. This is bullshit. This is fucking Molly. Molly! I hate her; she’s a bitch, a cock-tease to Justin, my buddy, my best friend who loves her more than his own life. She’s Justin’s girl.

Fuck.

“So what’s the deal with you and Justin?” I ask after gathering myself and returning to the living room.

She’s sitting on the floor between the sofa and the coffee table, the phonebook and phone on the table in front of her. While I was gone she’s unpinned her dark hair from the tight knot it was in and re-pinned it so it’s more casual, softer. Prettier. God damn it.

“What deal?” she asks, closing the phone book. “I ordered pizza, I’m starving. Hope you like pepperoni.”

I close my eyes and nod. “Yeah, I like pepperoni. I usually order double.”

“Great. I order triple.”

“Triple? Are you kidding? Is that even possible?” She’s throwing me off my game, here. I had a plan when I came out of the bathroom and it’s going to hell, I can feel it slipping away. Maybe she’s not all gourmet? Maybe there’s a bit of cold pizza in her yet.

“Of course,” she says, “and it’s exponentially better than double.”

I blow a disbelieving breath out between my lips. “Exponentially? We’ll see about that.”

I push the coffee table over and slide down to sit on the floor beside her, facing her. “You and Justin. I need to know what that’s about.”

She doesn’t look at me. “You know all about me and Justin. You’ve been there for most of it.”

“Before today I thought I knew all of it but I obviously don’t. Were you guys a couple at some point? Has Justin been hiding that all this time?”

She shakes her head. “We’re just friends, Xan. You know that.”

My scoffing laugh makes it obvious I think she’s lying. “Justin seems to think you’re more than just friends.”

“He doesn’t.”

“So why the hell is he so caught up in you?”

Now she looks at me and her eyes are defiant, the set of her jaw is serious, uncompromising. “That’s between Justin and me and is none of your business. I don’t owe you an explanation and neither does he.”

“I want to know, Molly. He’s my best friend.”

She turns to face me completely, anger blazing in her eyes. “Then get the answers from him!”

“So you’re telling me the two of you are just friends?”

She throws her hands out in exasperation, her voice getting louder each time she responds to my prying. “Why does it matter?”

“All this time? In high school, college? Now? There’s never been anything between you two?”

“What the fuck, Xan? No! No, there’s nothing between us. Justin and I will never be anything more than friends and he knows that.” She sighs and all the breath goes out of her. “I know you’ve hated me because of that, because I can’t love him like that.” I watch her deflate, curling in on herself and it upsets me to know I’ve done that to her. “But Justin and I aren’t … we’re just not.”

I experience a moment of relief, but I’m not exactly sure what I’m relived about because my next move is going to cause someone - everyone - vast amounts of pain but I do it anyway.

And later, if anyone asks me what I was thinking – what selfish need drove me to do this – remind me to explain how soft and sweet her hair was when I twisted my fingers into it, pulled it from the pins and buried my face in the cool curls. How her momentary hesitation made my stomach plummet but the taste of her mouth when she finally offered it was well worth every moment of suffering I’ve had to endure because of it. Remind me, because the fallout from this it going to fucking hurt.

“Xan.”

My tongue inches along the curve of her collarbone, a hand clasped around the back of her neck as I explore her mouth and throat and the V of exposed skin above her blouse. Her fingers are in my hair too, holding me close. Shit. Gin and tonic might be good for a quick fix, but there’s nothing like the slow relaxing burn of good, quality wine.

Somewhere across the room the phone rings but Molly makes no move to escape being pinned to the floor beneath me and eventually, it stops. Her hands have worked their way beneath my shirt and her cool fingers trailing up and down my back is turning me on in a way I just can’t explain in words. And then my cell phone rings.

I really don’t give a shit about whoever is trying to get a hold of me, except the phone is in the pocket of my pants and the vibrations of it between us is making Molly giggle into my kisses which is cute as hell, but very distracting.

I pull the phone from my pocket and as I glance to the screen before I turn it off, I know I’ve just made a huge mistake. I lower my head to rest against Molly’s, the cell still ringing in my hand. She places a palm on my cheek and I feel her nod as she whispers, “Answer it.”

She must realize who it is.

“Justin,” I say, answering the phone. “How are you doing, dude?”

“Good enough,” he says, sounding exhausted. “Listen, are you still with Molly? I can’t seem to reach her and I wanted to check on how she’s doing.”

I catch Molly’s eye and raise my brows at her.

She nods.

“Yeah I’m here with her, do you want me to pass her the phone?”

“Can you? You’re a life saver.”

“Right, hold on.”

As Molly speaks to Justin, I straighten my shirt and pull myself together. This was a shitty idea from the start, spending all this time with her. This could have been trouble for me; the biggest mistake of my life. A chick should never get between friends. That’s rule number one.

I run a hand over my face and up into my hair, pushing it back into place just as Molly flips my phone shut. Her eyes are pleading when she looks at me and that alone makes me want to give in.

“Stay.” That one word is filled with the same irrational longing I feel but she’s Justin’s girl, even if there is nothing between them. Justin would never forgive me for this.

“I can’t, Molly. This is bad.”

She ducks her head. “I know.”

I show myself to the door and pull open the closet in the front hall. What I see there hits me like a fist to the stomach and I know I’m just being an over analytic asshole about this whole thing, but she’s painted the inside of her closet fuchsia.

Fucking fuchsia. All boring beige on the outside and freaking fuchsia on the inside.

Shit.

I grab my coat and leave without even pulling it on. This is so bad I can taste it.

I almost run over the pizza guy as I back out of the short drive, but I don’t stop, I just lay my foot on the gas pedal and peel out of there as fast as I can before I talk myself into going back into her house and kissing her until neither of us can see straight.

This thing we’ve started, whatever this is, this has to be bad-thing number three. I can feel it like a train rumbling down the tracks and I don’t know if I’ll be able to escape it.

I flip my phone open and hit two on my speed dial. The phone gets answered on the first ring.

“Xan?”

“Kitty. Tell the old man I’m coming to see him, so whatever it is he has to say, it better fucking be worth my time.”