Letters to Molly (Maysen Jar, #2)(18)

Rayna had also gone for the day, handing over counter coverage to Dora, our newest employee, who worked part-time for us while she went to school at Montana State. She’d caught on fast, so Poppy and I were leaving her on her own more and more these days.

I poured my salad dressing into the jar of vegetables, rescrewed the lid then shook the hell out of it. This was the best part of eating salad, even though Poppy’s were delicious. It was just that her macaroni and cheese was phenomenal. But I saved that for special occasions—and today was not one—so I dumped my mixed salad onto my plate and lifted my fork.

“Is everything okay between you and Finn?” Poppy asked the question I’d been expecting all morning. “When he closed the door to the office, I was worried you were fighting.”

“It’s good. We had to work out a few things with the schedule.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. We had agreed that his schedule would never again include sleeping at my house. “He actually mowed my lawn yesterday.”

“Who? Finn?” Her eyes widened. “That was, um, nice. Especially since he didn’t do it when you were married.”

I shoved a bite of salad into my mouth to hide a smirk. Poppy was possibly more irritated with Finn’s behavior as a husband than I was. She’d held on to that resentment for longer too, whereas I’d let it go—mostly.

“It was great not to do it for a change,” I told her. “It was either find the time or take Gavin up on his offer to do it for me.”

“Gavin wants to mow your lawn?” Poppy smiled as she forked some greens and wagged her eyebrows. “You should let him.”

“I’m blaming Cole’s influence for all the innuendo you’ve been dropping lately. He’s corrupted my sweet, demure friend,” I teased.

“He has corrupted me.” She smiled. “In the best possible way. Now I want someone to come along and corrupt you.”

“Nope.” I shook my head as I chewed. “I have a good life. I’m happy. No corruption needed, thank you very much.”

“On the days you have the kids, you are. But on the days when they’re with Finn . . .” She trailed off as she took another bite.

“I’m happy even on the days when the kids are with Finn.” Happy. Lonely.

“Gavin seems like a nice guy.”

“He is nice.”

He’d come into the restaurant every now and then to say hello, and Poppy had been pulling for him since the beginning. She thought his goatee and tortoise-shell glasses were sexy.

“Why don’t you give him a chance?” she asked.

“Maybe.” Last night, I’d considered dating again, but then I’d had sex with Finn and remembered I didn’t have time to deal with this kind of drama. Not that I could share that with Poppy. “Timing hasn’t worked out with Gavin. We’ll see how I feel if he asks me out again.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can ask him out.”

“No.” I scoffed. “Never happening. The guy asks out the girl.”

It was one of those things I’d been hung up on since I was a teenager. Maybe because of my parents’ conservative upbringing, but I liked the idea of a man courting a woman. I liked it when the man took charge and went out on a limb to show the woman he was interested. When he jumped out of his comfort zone because she was worth the risk.

The letter in my purse popped into my mind.

I should have asked Finn about the letter. Why didn’t I? It had been right on the tip of my tongue, but I’d chickened out and swallowed it back.

Ignorance was bliss, right? Knowing why he’d sent the letter now, why he hadn’t sent it back then, was guaranteed to sting. The truth was, I didn’t have the guts to bear that pain.

After we’d divorced, things between us were strained for months. Finn was so angry at me, rightly so, that he wasn’t able to look at me. He spoke to me only when absolutely necessary. We moved around each other like magnets turned the wrong way, pushing instead of pulling.

Then one night he came over to talk.

It was right after Poppy had started dating Cole. My theory was that he’d finally stopped punishing me because she’d inspired him.

Poppy had found happiness after heartbreak, and Finn wanted that too. He admitted to being an asshole since the divorce and confessed he was tired of the animosity. I’m ready to let it go, he said.

I remember holding my breath as he spoke that night. I sat on the couch, stupidly thinking for a few blissful seconds that he wanted to get back together. That the next words out of his mouth would be he still loved me, he forgave me, and he wanted to put our family back together.

Nope. He wanted to date again. To move on, like Poppy had. She’d found love after Jamie had died. She’d found Cole.

He wanted new love too. If I’d had any oxygen left in my lungs, those words would have stolen the rest. The tiny shards of my broken heart had turned to dust, because he’d wanted closure.

Was the letter another piece of his quest for closure?

Finn would never forgive me for having a one-night stand with another man. He’d made it clear that he was looking for the next Mrs. Alcott, not at the former.

My guess was this letter was another mechanism for him to put things to rest. To dissolve everything Finn and Molly.

I didn’t need or want Finn to spell it out for me, so along with last night, I was pretending that letter had never happened. If Finn had something to say, he could be the one to bring it up, not me.