“Sorry my brother’s a jerk.” Liam fanned the blanket around them, making sure Molly’s bare feet were covered.
“I heard that!” Nate sang as he exited the living room.
“I said it loud!” Liam called back.
Molly shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m used to him. You forget that I grew up with that. Nate’s not so bad.”
His arm slid back around her as he slipped his fingers through hers again, relaxing both of them at the contact that only grew in its sweetness. Her skin had a slight chill to it, and he was determined to warm her. “How’s your ankle?”
“Cold,” Molly admitted. “But fine. I’m not used to being babied. Am I doing it right?”
“You’re just missing one thing.” He looked down at her, waiting until she summoned up the courage to meet his gaze. He dropped her hand and began to trace her lower lip with his forefinger. The curve seduced him, lulled him and enticed him to get a closer look.
In the stillness of the room, Molly’s heartbeat was so loud, she feared it might be audible. Liam was examining her trepidation, her shallow breathing and parted lips, and all she could do was let him. His cologne was faint, but sweet, and Molly mused that she had never inhaled so perfect a scent on a man before.
He leaned slowly closer, giving her plenty of time to pull away. She tilted her head up toward him, giving him the green light, despite the warring butterflies in her stomach. Nerves were peaking, and just as he was about to deliver the most anticipated kiss of her lifetime since her fantasies about Channing Tatum, someone banged on the front door, snapping them apart.
“Moll, could you get that? I’m eating,” Kyle called from the kitchen.
“She needs to stay off her ankle,” Liam chided the man.
Molly could hear the rhetorical “dumbass” Liam wanted to tag onto the end of the sentence and sniggered. The high of almost kissing the former star quarterback was making her giddy. “It’s fine. I’m alright. Kyle doesn’t get the whole nursing-the-sick thing.”
“How do you usually handle him?” Liam frowned in the direction of the kitchen as he stood to get the door.
“I just don’t get sick. It’s a better plan than making a fool of myself in front of a perfectly nice stranger.”
“Aren’t we past the ‘stranger’ part of things? I mean, I am wearing your thong.” He dimpled at her as he opened the door. “Come on in,” he said, and then looked over to see who it was. Gina Johnson and eight of her cronies gawked up at him, clearly having expected Kyle or Molly.
Gina’s high-pitched nasally voice greeted the local celebrity. “Liam DiNatali? What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Gina. Good to see you. Come in, guys.” He donned a smile of practiced patience. A smattering of his little brother’s friends who all knew him as the football star jock from high school was off-putting, especially since he would rather shove those days behind him and cram them inside a forgotten yearbook. “Kyle, your friends are here,” he called into the kitchen.
Gina followed Liam, looking up at him like he was the biggest piece of meat she had ever seen. Molly was not surprised. Gina was always in heat over some new guy. She flirted, flashed her Double Ds, slept with them, and moved on, laughing to her friends about the shape and size of the differing phalluses. Molly knew because Gina had done this when she’d moved on from Kyle, making jokes about him right in front of his face at parties. Kyle drank a lot on those nights.
Liam sat back down next to Molly, deflating at the ruined mood that had sneaked up on him every bit as much as it had her. Instead of walking around the couch or the coffee table, Gina plowed right through Molly’s propped up leg, casting it aside without a glance at the girl who had to bite her lip to keep from crying out at the sudden jolt of pain. Molly was a fixture at Kyle’s house, but a mute fixture, so she melted into the background easily. Gina hiked up her bra in front of Liam to catch his eye, and Molly knew she would never be able to compete with that. Gina always knew what she wanted, and took it without apologies or hesitation.
Liam frowned at the newcomer. “Watch it, Gina. She hurt herself today.”
Gina looked down as if just noticing Molly for the first time. “Oh. Hi, Molly. Didn’t see you there.” She flopped down on the couch at Liam’s right, adjusting her white t-shirt that had soaked through from the rain. She pressed her breasts to Liam’s arm as she talked, gushing about how great it was he was back in town, and how she remembered the last time she saw him, because it was when she slept with some other jock he knew back in the day.
Liam looked like he wanted to melt into the cushion every bit as much as Molly did. Music was turned on and up to an uncomfortable level. Beer was passed around like water, and Gina’s laughter grew more like breaking glass as the guests settled in around them. Five more people let themselves in, adding to the atmosphere Molly only found tiring.
The third person who knocked Molly’s leg off the table earned a severe lecture from Liam, sobering up a few of the drinkers and alerting them to the fact that part of the couch was in fact taken up by the mute girl they usually took no notice of.
Instead of propping her foot back on the coffee table, Liam moved both her legs to his lap, covering her icy toes with his large mitt. As Gina flirted shamelessly, Liam made a show of rubbing Molly’s good foot, her slim ankle, and even her calf, turning her into a puddle of relaxed goo instead of the on-guard mess she usually was at these affairs.
When her third “shocking” sex tale garnered no more than a noncommittal grunt from Liam, Gina gave up ignoring his fawning over Molly and decided to address it head-on. “So, Molly, how’s it going?” Before Molly could answer, Gina was already talking again. She put on a patronizing laugh and pointed at the girl. “Remember when you won the science fair with that weird dirt cleaning contraption? That other guy, what was his name? The Asian with the glasses. He was so pissed. Didn’t he break into the school and try to ruin it or something? That’s hilarious. I mean, it was just a stupid science project.”
“That ‘stupid science project’ sped up changing the pH levels in soil,” Molly mumbled under her breath. She shifted uncomfortably at the unwelcome attention. She made so many new discoveries since then. Her high school project seemed juvenile and dated when compared with her current knowledge acquired during her extensive lab study in college.
Molly’s simpering tone was not missed. “Aw! That’s cute. While we were all at football games and parties, you were up late at night, plugging away on your little mud project. Can’t you just picture it? Molly in lab goggles, fondling beakers. Man, I would’ve killed myself if that was my life.” She put her hand on Liam’s arm, rubbing her overexcited nipple against his elbow. “Can you imagine studying like that? Who has that kind of time?”
Someone just entering the conversation answered with, “Someone with no life, that’s who. Or a buzzkill.” Gina’s tinkling laugh was ear-piercing now, so she could be heard over the too-loud music.
Kyle and Nate were playing video games on the floor. Nate was immune to the chatter, but Kyle was not. He frowned at the screen, playing it off like the game was upsetting him, instead of Gina’s blatant passes at Liam. He’d made it clear to Gina that he wanted her back, and that was what he’d fully expected to happen when he invited her over that night.
Liam looked on them like the children they still were. “You do know I graduated from medical school, right? Not studying might be cool for…” he stopped himself before he could speak his mind and be cruel.
Gina held up her hands and pointed to the passerby. “Hey, he said it. Not me.” She pointed at Molly’s bare calves with a sneer. Liam had rolled up the hem of her fitted capris to rub the muscle all the way up to her knee. “Who has legs that white? You look like an albino ghost or something. Don’t tell me you still spend all your time indoors with your chemistry set.” She cackled again, drawing her lackeys in on the gag. “That’s so sweet. You with your microscope on a Friday night. The perfect date.”
Liam rubbed her shins, soothing over the sting of the insult with his balm of safety. Years later, and he was still a safe place to turn to, just as he had been in the lunchroom that day. “You doing okay?” he asked, focusing only on her. He hadn’t been witness to high school bully cruelty in years, and didn’t like Molly being the brunt of the joke one bit. Even worse was that she didn’t seem surprised at Gina’s attitude, and didn’t say a thing in her own defense.
Molly nodded, but Gina was ready with more bait. She turned around and tugged up the back of her shirt so more than half her back was exposed to him. “You’re a doctor, right? What do you think about my spine? I was thinking of going to a chiropractor.”
Three other girls came up with medical questions on the fly that apparently only Liam could answer.
Liam rolled his eyes. “Go to a chiropractor, then. Just be sure you get one who partied in high school and didn’t study in college. You’ll have something in common with him. You don’t want someone who wore lab goggles or owned a microscope. You want the chiropractor with a beer bong. Make sure to specify that to your HMO.” He did not permit another glance in Gina’s direction. Instead he turned to the woman whose creamy calf he could not stop rubbing. “Hey, do you want to get out of here? This isn’t really my scene.”
Molly looked around before speaking, making sure enough people were distracted. “You want to go out in this weather?”
He took in the gale through the picture window with a frown. “Almost. Would that get me out of here?”
Molly chuckled at his discomfort. Finally, a person as out of place at these things as she was. She leaned forward to speak privately to him. “But Liam, Gina’s got breasts! Didn’t you notice? And all these legitimate medical questions that require tons of fondling and up-close examinations! Why aren’t any men asking you to fondle them? Weird.”
The sliver of personality she showed only to him endeared him to her. That she was meek and sweet was one thing, but that he could make her smile through an uncomfortable situation was another. He had his pick of breasts that night, but he found he couldn’t look away from her face. Liam held her playful gaze, breaking it to give the tender spot under her ear a gentle kiss. “You’re a sassy one.” He smiled into her neck as she leaned into him and shivered.
Kyle’s mouth fell open at his sister being cozied up to by the larger-than-life older man. “What the crap are they doing?”
Nate thumped Kyle in the head and said through gritted teeth, “Don’t look directly at them. Do you know how rare this is for Liam these days? Play your stupid game and be cool.”
Liam kissed Molly’s cheek and whispered, “Is there somewhere we can go that’s more private?” Gina was still too close to him, and it made him edgy. Before everyone had interrupted their almost kiss, Liam felt more tranquil talking to Molly than he had in ages.
Nate spouted over his shoulder, “I call the spare bedroom! Liam, you can share a bed with Kyle or Molly.”
Molly blushed at the obvious set-up, noting it as one of the nicest things Nate had ever done for her. “Upstairs is quieter,” she offered, pleased at her daring.
“Done.” Liam stood and kept his arm out for her to use as support as he helped her up the stairs, not bothering to give more than a parting wave to the others as he went with Molly to her bedroom.