One Night with her Bachelor(38)
Her eyes welled up, her hand fluttered to her chest, and it hit him how true the words were and how long she’d probably waited to hear them. “Anything, sweetheart. What can I do?”
“Teach me how to boot scoot boogie.”
She froze for one second before bursting out in laughter. Next thing he knew, she was smothering her face in his chest, and he was hugging her as she shook against him. Laughing, crying… he wasn’t sure what she was doing. But after a long time of holding each other, she invited him in and spent the afternoon dancing with him.
It was tough. The moves hurt him. He tried to mask how much, but his mom figured it out. When his knee buckled and he nearly fell on his ass, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”
“Thought it would be good exercise.”
She smacked his arm. “Don’t lie to me.”
Rifling his fingers through his hair, he gave her a sheepish look. “I’m trying to impress a girl.”
She grinned. “I knew it! It’s that Lily Taylor, isn’t it? Oh, Gabriel, she’s beautiful. You two would look so wonderful together.”
Trust his mom not to judge a woman for having been a stripper. If anyone knew what it was like to ignore catty whispers as she walked down the street, she did. “Not Lily. It’s Molly Dekker.”
Saying her name aloud felt like healing—the itchy, still-hurt-but-better-soon kind.
His mom’s grin faded away, but the soft, hopeful expression that replaced it made Gabriel’s knee feel like it would give way again. “Molly Dekker. The kindergarten teacher?”
“Yeah.”
“The one whose boy—”
“Yeah.”
She pressed her hand to her heart. “This is more than you looking for a quick screw?”
He cringed. “I’m gonna go puke now. Thanks, Mom.”
“Be serious with me, Gabriel. I need to know.”
He shored up his courage and finally admitted what he hadn’t been able to admit to himself. “Yes. This is more.”
Much more. Everything more.
“Does she know?”
He shook his head.
“And you’re taking her dancing?”
“Yeah.”
“Why line dancing?”
He shrugged. “It seemed like the hardest.”
His mom’s face fell. “You know, one day you could choose to do things the easy way.”
Yeah, he could. He could also give up on living. Same thing, really. “What would be the fun in that?”
She scoffed, turned the music back on, and said, “In that case, try harder to keep up with me. Ready?”
After a few hours of the unusual activity, his bad knee hurt like a son of a bitch and his right cowboy boot pinched, so he collapsed onto his mom’s couch and took that boot off. No point in removing the left boot. It would just be a hassle, and his mom didn’t need to see what his boot covered. She’d seen it before, and she’d wept over him.
Today was not a day for weeping. She sat across from him, her cheeks glowing like she’d been lit up from the inside out. Maybe coming into town wasn’t so bad. Maybe he should do it more often, just to put that healthy smile on his mom’s face. He’d seen that smile too rarely in his life. She deserved more than a husband who’d kicked her out the day she came home from the hospital with another man’s twins and begged for a forgiveness she would never receive. She deserved more than a temporary lover who left the state when his twins were barely in school. And she deserved more than two sons who couldn’t stand to be in the same room. His and Wyatt’s fights had been legendary. Their mom’s tears afterward had been heartbreaking.
Strange, he’d never felt like he had much of a heart to break. But losing his best friend, his career, and his lower leg all in a few moments had ripped his heart to shreds.
And now he was taking his broken body dancing with his best friend’s little sister. No wonder he felt unsteady on his feet.
He rubbed his shattered knee through his jeans. A phantom itch had burrowed into his left leg, but he refused to give in to the impulse to scratch it.
Mind over matter. Ignore it and it’ll go away. Giving his left knee one last soothing rub, he stood. “I’m gonna go now, Mom. Thanks for the help.”
“Any time. I mean it.”
He shoved his right foot back into his cowboy boot.
He glanced at the time as he climbed into his truck. He hadn’t given Molly a specific time. It’d been so long since he’d asked anyone on a date that he’d forgotten how to do it. Hell, Molly didn’t even have a way of contacting him if she decided she didn’t want to go.
He really, really needed to get better at this. And he really, really wanted to get better at it with her.
Chapter Eleven
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The doorbell rang as Molly stepped out of the shower. Wrapping a towel around herself, she opened the bathroom door just enough to shout down the hall. “Josh, can you get that? It’s probably Lily, but ask first. If you don’t recognize the voice—”
“I won’t open it! Jeez, Mom, it’s not like I’m eight.”
She bit back her reply. No, more like thirteen than eight. He was starting to develop the attitude of a teenager three years too early. But she’d noticed his friends doing the same thing, and she experienced a bizarre sense of relief to be worried about something other moms worried about—not how to help her paralyzed son go to the bathroom or become more independent when he could no longer walk. Preteen attitude problems.