Letters to Molly (Maysen Jar, #2)(9)

Panties. My feet were tangled in the panties I’d pulled on yesterday morning and Finn had ripped off last night.

I kicked my feet free, then scooped up the gray cotton briefs, balling them up in a fist. If Finn woke up before I made it to the bathroom, there was no way I wanted him inspecting my comfortable, sexless underwear. With them hidden, I hurried—more carefully this time—for the bathroom, collecting discarded clothing as I shuffled along.

At the door, I risked a glance over my shoulder. Finn was still asleep. No surprise. The man had slept like the dead when we’d been together. When the kids were newborns, I’d have to kick him repeatedly to rouse him for his feedings.

I shut the door to the bathroom, leaned back against the white paneled wood and breathed a sigh.

I slept with Finn.

This was a disaster. What the damn hell had I been thinking? Finn and I had spent years getting to a place of friendship. I was happily single, I bought my own car, and I ran my own life. I’d even considered dating again. Why? Why am I so stupid?

I was shaking when I pushed off the door. I threw my clothes in the hamper, then turned on the shower. I spent a few extra seconds breathing in the steam and my rosemary and mint shampoo. Neither helped calm my trembling.

“So stupid,” I told the spray. “I’m not doing this again.”

I wasn’t getting mixed up in Finn. I wasn’t a casual sex woman and certainly not with the man who’d once been my entire world. What had happened to my boundaries? They were there for a good goddamn reason.

When Finn and I had broken up, it had destroyed me.

“I’m not doing this again.”

No. No, I wasn’t. With a sure nod, I shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. I dried my body with angry strokes then secured the towel around my chest. I twisted up my hair and marched out of the bathroom.

“Finn, get up.” I shook his shoulder, then whipped the comforter off his back.

“Huh?” He sat up, dazed, blinking. Then he dropped his head back into the pillow. “Five more minutes.”

“Finn,” I snapped, pulling the comforter down even farther before poking his side. “Get up and get out. You need to leave before the kids wake up.”

I was going to forget about last night the second the door closed behind him. The kids would never be the wiser.

They’d had a hard time with the divorce, Kali especially. It had taken her years to understand that her parents lived separate lives and were never getting back together. She didn’t need to see her father naked in her mother’s bed.

“Finn.” I poked him again. God, why was he such a deep sleeper? “Wake up.”

“Molly, five more minutes.” He lifted his sleepy eyes and blinked. Then they widened. “Fuck.”

He leapt out of bed, hissing a string of curses as he scanned the floor for his clothes. When he found his jeans, he dove for them so fast he’d have rug burns on his knees.

I rolled my eyes. I’d had a similar reaction, but he’d been asleep. He could have at least tried to hide his mortification from me.

“What happened?” he asked as he zipped up his fly.

I glared at his flat stomach. Those abs were to blame for this mess. They’d always been my weakness. Last night, I’d touched one of the six and, well . . . here we were. Divorced men in their late thirties weren’t supposed to have that V along their hipbones. How was that fair?

Finn’s hair was a mess thanks to my fingers. The matching scruff on his jaw was no less sexy than his half-naked body. He searched the floor for his shirt, going to the bed and throwing up the covers. He ducked down to see where it had gone.

“Where’s my shirt?” He found it under the bed before I could help him search, then he put it on faster than a human being had ever donned a piece of cotton.

I ignored the sting of that too, along with the fact that he wouldn’t look me in the face.

He picked up his watch from the floor and took a step for the door, but then stopped to look back. “Molly—”

“You need to go.”

He still wouldn’t look at me. “We should—”

“Go, Finn. I don’t want the kids to see you here.”

He sighed, then nodded and walked to the door. His bare feet made no noise as he snuck out of the house. The sun was beginning to shine through my bedroom window.

The front door opened and clicked shut. Thankfully, my bedroom was on the main floor and the kids were upstairs. Then I waited, listening for his truck to start up and rumble down the road. When it was silent again, I sank down on the edge of my bed.

He was gone. We weren’t going to talk about last night. We weren’t going to discuss the monumental mistake of sex with an ex-spouse. We were going to pretend it had never happened.

Once my disheveled bed was put to rights, I’d take a Magic Eraser to last night’s memory and scrub with fury. Those damn things worked on everything. Surely one would work on my brain.

But instead of ripping the sheets from the mattress, I sat frozen, staring at the pillows.

I still hadn’t gotten rid of Finn’s pillow. He’d ordered it online because it was supposed to be good for stomach sleepers. I thought it was too firm and too thin, but I hadn’t been able to toss it out. I washed its case weekly. I fluffed it each morning.

It had been there for him to sleep on last night.