Nate exited, leaving Kyle to eye the spare controller to his favorite video game forlornly. “You want to play, Liam?”
“Sure.” Liam picked up the controller, readying himself while Kyle got situated. Since Kyle spent most of his time playing video games, Liam did not last long before his avatar was brutally slaughtered. He handed the controller to Molly, who took it with reluctance. In twenty seconds, she destroyed Kyle’s guy, depleting his hard-earned points and sending him into Game Over land.
“What?” Kyle turned around, narrowing his eyes when he saw it was Molly holding the controller, and not Liam. “Not fair. She talks with her hands for a living. I don’t play video games with Molly anymore.”
“You’re an interpreter?” Liam inquired, disregarding the golden child as if he was just another of his little brother’s pesky friends. “Where do you work?”
Molly opened her mouth, but Kyle answered for her. “She’s contracted, so all over town. Mostly at the hospital and doctors’ offices. She freelances as a court interpreter. Sometimes she does telephone interpreting, too. Or she translates for the Asians. Speaks like, four languages or something.”
“Thanks, Molly.” Liam made a face at Kyle, who was too busy resetting his character’s stats to notice. “Four languages? Seriously?”
Molly waited a beat for Kyle to reply for her, but found she was given free rein to speak for herself for once. “Russian, Japanese, Spanish and French. Plus sign language. And Latin and Ancient Greek, of course. I mostly speak sign, though.”
“Are you serious?” The last woman he’d gone out with had a high school diploma and insisted they not see a “boring movie” when he’d suggested taking her to a foreign film. They’d ended up skipping the movie altogether and heading back to his hotel room to make the most of the only desire they had in common. That had been the last time he’d been with a woman, and it was too long ago to think on with any sort of vibrant clarity. He’d never been out with a woman who spoke so many languages. He began to experience something while seated next to Molly that he hadn’t felt since junior high. Liam was nervous. “Wow. Color me inferior.”
Molly rolled her eyes with a bashful smile. “Yes, because the medical field is such a fallback career.” She waved her hand to excuse his compliment. “Once you learn Latin and Ancient Greek, everything else is easy. It all stems from that. People make it out to be harder than it is.”
“How’d you get into that line of work?”
Kyle belched before answering for Molly. “We got her when she was almost three or something, and she wouldn’t speak more than a word or two for years. My parents thought she was either mute or retarded, so she learned sign language.”
“When you got her? You’re adopted?” Liam watched Molly nod as she picked at the blanket, all traces of the sweet woman who held him vanishing with every question Kyle answered for her. He saw her embarrassment, and wished Kyle would stay out of their conversation.
Kyle took a long swig of his beer before speaking again. “Yeah. Her parents died when she was two? Three? I don’t remember. And she came to live with us. Mom and Dad adopted her. Everyone just assumes we’re real siblings.”
Taking in the woman’s quiet demeanor, Liam wondered what she would say if she was given the chance. She looked so small, her petite frame hunching in on itself as she tried to hide from the retelling of her tragic beginning.
“It’s just as well,” Kyle said, handing Liam the second controller again. “Her parents were crazy, from what Mom and Dad tell us. Total nut jobs. Lucky she landed with us, and not foster care.”
Liam leaned forward and smacked Kyle upside the back of his head. “What’s the matter with you? That’s her parents you’re talking about.”
Molly’s mouth fell open again. No one had ever struck Kyle. He had never been spanked. She was the one who got smacked around. Kyle’s bad behavior was ignored, or blamed on Molly’s presence.
Liam closed her mouth for her with a nod of solidarity. “How’s your ankle?” He looked down to her propped-up foot. “Oh, forgot the ice. See? I’m too comfortable sitting next to you. I’m forgetting basic things, here. I’ll be back.” He stood up, but took another look at her, as if wondering why he felt more at home with her than he had in ages.
Molly discreetly picked up the controller Liam tossed aside and made quick work of slaughtering Kyle’s proudly rebuilt avatar. When Kyle protested, she merely smiled vindictively down at him. “Oh, now you’ve got a personality?” he teased, giving her the stink-eye. His brand new, top-of-the-line cell phone rang, and he answered with a smarmy smirk. Molly could tell he was talking to a woman with low standards, judging by how disgusting his flirting became. “Sure, Gina. Come on over. Miss your tits. Yeah, why not? Bring the whole gang. Nate’s back in town. He could use a little welcome home.”
Inwardly, Molly groaned. Not Gina. Anyone but her. Gina Johnson and Kyle used to date, but she cheated on him a few times. This did not stop Kyle from still being in love with her, and drinking more heavily than usual when she came over. She was loud, obnoxious and had something “fascinating” to say about everything.
When the whole crew was invited over, Molly usually hid in her room, locking herself inside so her bed would not be used as a mating spot for the ever-horny monkeys. Then in the morning, she was left to clean up the mess they always made.
Liam came back with a bag of peas and wrapped it around the top of Molly’s ankle. “That should help with the swelling. You feeling any better?”
Molly nodded just as Kyle chimed in. “Good luck getting an honest answer out of her. She broke her arm once when she was a kid. Didn’t fess up for two days.”
Liam quirked his eyebrow at Molly. “That’s a pretty high pain threshold. Wish some of my players had that kind of holdout.” Liam sat down next to her, this time not leaving the obligatory cushion of space between them. He draped his arm casually around the couch behind her. His considerable muscle leant to more weight, which slid her toward him and right into his nook like two well-made puzzle pieces.
Unsure if she should pull away or not, Molly merely held her breath and waited to see if she was crossing some kind of social norm. When Liam only moved further into the cuddle, Molly relaxed and leaned her head against his shoulder. It was firm, strong and radiated protection. After the evening she had, protection from the storm was a thing she gravitated to.
“There you go,” Liam murmured quietly to her, basking in the glow of her presence. He’d been on edge for far too long; first with work being not all he’d hoped it would be, then his personal life feeling completely impersonal, and then with his mother taking a turn for the worst. Molly’s quiet demeanor calmed him, though he couldn’t put his finger on why. He only knew he had to be around her if he wanted to slow the pace of his world to something he could finally enjoy.
The two watched Kyle play his game in silence, Liam’s arm falling down behind her back to draw her yet closer to his body heat. They were no longer wet, and relished the warm coziness the other provided. He picked up her hand to study the scrapes, fiddling with her fingers until he nonchalantly linked his through hers. He’d never been much for hand holding, but his fingers seemed to know the dance well. He couldn’t stop himself from trying to be near her, to connect himself to her in any way that she’d allow it.
Molly was swimming on a cloud of delirium. Liam DiNatali was holding her hand and purposefully put his arm around her. The only time this sort of thing happened was when one of Kyle’s friends was drunk, or was just using her to make a joke. There it was, Liam’s hand entwined with hers, resting on his lap. She could not smell alcohol on his breath or sense any hint of him using her to make the room laugh. He was kind, and she craved his warmth after such a cold day.
Leaning up to speak quietly to him, Molly said, “What kind of medicine do you practice?”
Liam’s thumb traced her side at a slow pace that relaxed them both. “When I’m not sweeping beautiful women off their feet in the rain? Sports medicine. I’m contracted for the college and minor league football teams in the state. I’m on the road a lot.”
“Do you like it?”
Liam considered the question. “You know? No one’s ever asked me that before. It’s alright. I like being on the sidelines and working out with professional athletes, but the travel season is brutal. Miss the feel of a real bed. Miss actual food. Kinda lost its glitter after the first couple months. It’s not a bad job, though. It’s paying down my epic student loans, so I can’t complain.”
She reached for the very little she knew about him. “Do you still play football? I remember you played in high school.”
The dimple in his left cheek gave way to a tease. “Now how would you know something like that? How old are you, anyway?”
Molly’s gaze focused in on their fingers. “Everyone knows who you are. We went to the same high school, Liam. I graduated same year as your brother. I’m not totally oblivious.”
He shook his head, giving her side a light tickle. “I wouldn’t guess you are. I knew you were Kyle’s sister, but for some reason I thought you were much younger.”
“She is,” Kyle piped in, speaking for Molly. “She’s two years younger than I am, but she was skipped up two grades, so we graduated together.”
Molly watched Liam do the math in his head and come to the conclusion that she was twenty-five. She waited for him to pull away, but he did not. “So you must be really smart,” Liam commented.
Molly shrugged in response. “Smart enough to get by.”
Kyle chimed in again, as if it was he and Liam having the conversation. “She’s five points below genius.”
“Really smart” was a label Molly reserved for actual geniuses, but she said nothing to this. It was the point in the conversation people usually shied away from her. She braced herself for the distance, preparing herself to just be grateful for the good time she’d had being tucked into his side.
Liam scratched his cheek with the hand that was still holding hers, brushing her knuckles against his stubble. “That’s a change from the women I’m usually around. No offense to cheerleaders, but they’re really not my type.”
“Didn’t you date the head cheerleader in high school?” Molly questioned.
Liam shifted uncomfortably. “I did. But that was years ago. I’m not that guy anymore.”
Molly rested her cheek to his chest, sighing with sheer delirium when he traced the outline of her face with his thumb. “I don’t remember you being a bad guy.”
“Ah, but there’s a difference between not being a bad guy and becoming a good man.”
“Which one are you now?” Her eyelashes fluttered shut, and seconds later, she felt his thumb gently touching the tips of them, feathering the follicles back and forth. It was intimate in a way she was unprepared for, and the simple touch moved her further from writing this all off as him just being a nice guy and taking pity on her in her hour of need.
“I’m not sure anymore,” he said in a husky breath. “You’re making things all confusing. This is the most…” He moved his thumb to her mouth, tipping her face up to his, and inching closer to her parted lips. He knew it was far too soon to kiss her, but something about her mouth called out to him, though her voice was mousy and quiet. She lulled him into feeling things he’d tried to create with casual flings on the road, and had never been able to.
Nate flung open the front door, announcing that the storm was still in full swing as Molly broke from her dreamy state. He was drenched and stayed on the mat until Kyle relieved him of the Chinese food so he could remove his sopping sneakers. “So, newsflash, but it’s still drizzling a bit outside. I think we’ve graduated from dogs and cats to raining full-on dinosaurs.”
“Thanks for going out, Nate,” Liam said by way of a greeting, not willing to remove himself or Molly from the couch.
“Not a problem. Did you miss me real bad, Molly Llama?” Nate walked over to the two and shook his head like a dog, raining precipitation down on them. His perma-grin in place, Nate planted a loud smooch on Molly’s now wet cheek, laughing at her grimace.
“Man, Nate! Would you get off her? You’re like a puppy who hasn’t learned to sit yet.”
“Or play dead,” Molly mumbled. “Hi, Nate. Thanks for picking up the food. Real nice of you.”
It was then that Nate took in the climate of the room. His brother was sitting next to a woman, and had his arm around her. This was no cheerleader traveling with the team. This was no gold digger. It was little Molly Luco, and Liam was practically holding her. Molly was usually a ball of nerves, but Nate noticed her relaxed against his brother, as if she belonged there. Nate had never considered Molly with a guy; she was so shy and socially awkward. That she was cozied up to his older brother was a shock Nate had to really study a couple times over to believe it was real.
Nate’s smile turned teasing. “Fair enough. Let me even things out. Give me your cheek, Li.” He puckered, aiming a kiss at his brother, who brought his elbow back into Nate’s gut. Nate made dramatic groaning and moaning noises to announce his pain.
On his way to the kitchen, Nate pulled the afghan off the armchair and draped it over the two. He clamped his hand down on Liam’s shoulder, showing support for his brother finally displaying interest in a woman who finally got him to turn his head without the use of pom-poms.