Which is why I can’t fight it.
“Don’t worry about it. I totally understand.”
He rubs the stubble on his chin, looking exhausted. “You do?”
I do. I don’t want to, and I hate it, but I do.
“Yeah. It makes sense to have unresolved issues and to want to work through them.”
He closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “Molls, I feel like I used you.”
I laugh softly.
“You didn’t use me. If anything, I tricked you into performing sex acts on camera for my own selfish gratification.”
“You didn’t have to trick me, Molls. And I don’t regret it.”
“Me neither.”
He nods. “Okay. Well, I’m sorry about this. I really don’t want to send you mixed messages, or hurt your feelings, or—”
I can’t stand this pitying tenderness. I have to make him stop before I burst into tears. So I slap a wry smile on my face and hold up my hands.
“Whoa,” I say. “It was just cam sex, dude. We’re not dating or anything.”
That isn’t true, of course. It wasn’t just cam sex, at least not for me. But I don’t want him to think that I’m going to sit at home, pining for him. I do have dignity. And I won’t make him feel guiltier than he already does.
But he looks taken aback. Injured, almost.
“I guess it just meant something for me,” he says. “And that’s the problem.”
I don’t say anything. I want to cry.
He gives me that tight-lipped smile again.
“Bye, Molls.”
And with that, he ends the call.
PART SIX
July 2021
CHAPTER 24Molly
Florida in the dead of summer would not be my first choice for a wedding. I am, after all, on record as someone who avoids group celebrations in general, and I also firmly believe that the Gulf Coast is only habitable November through February.
But Jon and Kevin’s wedding is special. At the risk of being mawkish, it represents more than a celebration of their romance. It’s a celebration of the chance to live life again. And for that, I will endure all the double-masked transcontinental flights and suffocating humidity you can throw at me.
And tonight, the eve before the blessed event, I am soaked not just in sweat, but also in the pleasure of being with my best friends. Reuniting with Dezzie and Alyssa after not seeing each other for eighteen months is transcendent.
Except for the presence of Rob.
We’re sitting on the patio of a restaurant, and he is speaking way too loudly to our waitress.
“Another old-fashioned, sweetheart,” he says, rattling the ice in his empty crystal tumbler at her.
Dezzie gives him a dirty look. We’ve been here forty-five minutes and he’s already two drinks in. That’s not counting the two martinis he had at Alyssa’smom’s cocktail hour. His consonants are already muddy. It’s seven o’clock, and he’s basically slurring.
