Not Pretending Anymore(88)

Before I could elaborate, Molly interrupted me. “There is no more Will and me, Declan.”

I cocked my head. “What?”

“I broke up with him.”

My heart felt ready to explode, bursting with hope. “When was this?”

“A couple of days ago.”

“What happened?” I tried to seem sympathetic, though I wanted to dance.

“I realized one night—when I randomly started crying at work because someone named their baby Declan—that I’m…totally in love with you.” Her chest heaved.

She’s in love with me?

Molly is in love with me?

I should’ve immediately told her I loved her back, but my overwhelmed brain wasn’t there yet. It hadn’t caught up with my heart and was still processing.

“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t know if you felt the same way, and I wasn’t sure it was right to tell you. That is, until I found a note you’d left under your bed. Well, actually Siobhan found it.”

Note? “What note?”

Molly took a piece of paper out of her purse and handed it to me.

I recognized the rambling thoughts I’d written down the time I was going to ask her to take a chance on me. I’d never imagined those scribbled words would lead her to me tonight.

“I wrote all that down the night you told me you were going to start dating Will. All day I’d tried to figure out how I was going to tell you I wanted us to take a chance and go for it. But when you made that announcement, you seemed so optimistic… I decided I shouldn’t tell you what I was feeling. But I’ve regretted that decision every day.”

Molly wrapped her hands around my face. “I would’ve chosen you, Declan. There’s no doubt in my mind. I wish you’d told me.”

Placing my hands over hers, I said, “I didn’t want to turn your life upside down when you’d made the decision I thought you wanted. My fears crept in fast. I convinced myself you were better off without me. Better off with him.”

“Why would you ever think that?”

It was hard to admit that my insecurities were to blame. “It had a lot to do with my fears about turning into my mother—how my future might affect you. I hadn’t told you about my depression at that point. I didn’t want to burden you with my issues. Not to mention, at the time, you were going through a lot with your dad, and I didn’t want to make things harder.”

She shook her head. “You could never be a burden to me. When you care about someone, you take all parts of them. It doesn’t scare me, Declan. And even if it did, it wouldn’t stop me from wanting to be with you. No one is perfect—certainly not me. As long as you let me be there for you and don’t shut me out, we can make it through anything.”

Her words brought me immense relief. “I know you mean that.” I nodded. “And I’m trying to work through my fears.”

We stared into each other’s eyes until Molly finally spoke.

“The day you hid the note under your bed… Maybe at that time I thought Will was what I wanted, but there’s never been a moment I wasn’t thinking about you, hoping we could be together. I was kidding myself believing things could work out between Will and me. This entire time, I’ve been falling in love with you. My inability to tell Will I loved him had nothing to do with my feelings for him, and everything to do with the fact that I love you .” She laughed. “It just took me a while to figure it out.”

I placed my forehead against hers. “I believe you’ve now told me you love me twice, and I haven’t said it once.” Not wanting to flub this, I kissed the top of her head and geared up to pour my heart out. “Molly, I love you so much. It’s why I went to Chicago—to tell you. Up until now, I’d been afraid you’d tell me to go back to Cali. I wasn’t gonna fight it if you were truly happy with him. But I’m so glad I went with my gut. If I’d known you felt this way about me, I would’ve been there a hell of a lot sooner.”

“It’s okay. We both had to figure this out in our own way.”

“We’ve been trying to get to the same place—to each other—but we’ve had a lot of missed connections along the way.”

“What now?” she asked.

“You tell me,” I said.

Molly reached up on her tiptoes to speak over my lips. “I want you right now. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever.”

“Pretty sure if I don’t get to feel what it’s like to be inside you, I’m gonna explode.” I savored the sweet taste of her lips. Then I lifted her into my arms and carried her over to the bed, collapsing on top of her.

The second our bodies hit that mattress, the bed bounced us around as if we were in the middle of the goddamn ocean.

“What the fuck?” I yelled.

Molly fell into a fit of laughter. “What is this, 1985?” she cracked.

Belinda had a freaking waterbed! “What the fuck is she thinking?” Then I noticed something else. “Listen.” I paused with Molly still under me. “Do you hear that?”

It was the sound of the ocean. Belinda had some kind of setup where as soon as the bed moved, it triggered the sound of waves and seagulls.

It was fitting, with how topsy-turvy our relationship had been, that our first time would be in a waterbed that mimicked the ocean. Honestly, it didn’t matter where we were.