by Carol Rose
“Well, they’re great.” The woman took another rainbow square and drifted away.
Across the porch, Jenny, the birthday boy’s mom was cool and beautiful in an expensive casual outfit of a sleeveless top and cropped pants. She and her banker husband sat chatting with the guy’s boss while Molly shifted the cake on the table and again looked over her shoulder, searching for her super hero.
The guy she’d finally hired to be her costume character person was nearly an hour late. She hoped vengefully that he’d had a bad accident. His tardiness didn’t bode well for future ventures.
Jenny sidled up to the refreshment table and took just one small Jello square from the tray there. “Mmm. These are great. Simple, but different.”
She nodded toward the bounce house, complete with a big slide. “That was a good idea, too. Sebastian and his friends seem to really love it.”
“Kids do.” Molly smiled. “Give them simple foods and a way to make themselves sick and they have a great time.”
“I hope so.” The perfectly-coifed woman looked to be a good fifteen years younger than her husband and way too young to have a six year-old. “I really want Sebastian’s sixth birthday party to be terrific. The smallest thing can set a kid’s feet on the wrong path.”
Chuckling, Molly responded reassuringly. “Well, he seems to be having fun.”
Personally, she didn’t think a sixth birthday party could make and break a kid’s future, but she was in no position to dispute the woman having hired her.
Taking a nibble of Jello, Jenny swallowed and said, “Annalise Murphy, Bryston’s mom, recommended you highly, so this going so well is no surprise.”
She frowned. “Didn’t you say that you’d have a Spider Man, too.”
“Yes,” Molly responded candidly, “He’s late. I can’t imagine what happened, but I’ll go call him again.”
She made her way into the kitchen and dug her phone out of her bag. Hissing into the voicemail that the call switched to immediately, Molly said “This is Molly Stanhope. Where the heck are you?”
Just then she looked through the window into the back yard and saw her missing superhero, surrounded by bouncing kiddos. She put the phone back into her bag and went out the door.
Ty Michaels wasn’t a kid. At thirty-three, he had a resume with acting credentials and professed a love of working with kids, but Molly had a sinking feeling as she walked across the yard toward him and the kids. His Spider Man suit was wrinkled—amazing for a stretchy polyester material—and his head piece/face mask was rucked up on one side, showing a glimpse of pale neck.
“Hey, kids. Want me to spray you with web stuff?”
Getting closer, she thought she could detect a whiff of beer, covered up by heavy cologne, but Michaels was spraying web goo at a nearby tree and the kids seemed thrilled, so she stood off to the side, watching him work.
“See. Spider Man can do amazing things. Come on, let’s go in the bounce house and you can see me jump high.”
“I’m glad Spider Man finally got here.” Jenny’s husband—wearing the standard rich, white guy casual outfit of a pink polo shirt and plaid shorts—stopped next to Molly. “Silly, but my boss loves Spider Man.”
“Yes. The kids are excited to see him.” Ignoring the sinking feeling in her chest, she smiled at the older man and turned back toward the house. “We should probably get the cake ready for the birthday boy to blow out the candles.
* * *
“Drake! Drake.”
Molly’s voice and a knock at the open door, brought his head around. Turning from the screen that he’d been staring at, Drake got up as she came in.
“Hey, what’s up?” He hadn’t seen her since the embarrassing urethaning-his-pants-to-her-floor incident and he felt a little weird about it.
True, Molly knew about most of his limitations, but this screw-up had made him look silly and had thrown him off-balance. The blog about how to refinish wood floor was on the screen and he had the urge to tell his readers some of the potential pitfalls, but he wasn’t sure he should.
Standing in his foyer in her pretty party dress, he assumed she’d just come from a gig.
“Another birthday party or a dry-run for the Easter Picnic?” He leaned against the end of his couch. “ Sit down.”
She sank down on the red microsuede seating unit she’d picked out for him several years before.
“It wasn’t good, Drake.” Looking up at him with uncharacteristic self-doubt, she said, “I’m good at this, right? I usually make things work? Even when the beer keg at a summer barbeque blows up or a retiree forgets his reading glasses and can’t read his speech? I usually make it come out all right, don’t I?”
“Of course, you do.” He slid down onto the couch next to her. “You made a game of which of the retiree’s friends wore the same reading glasses. It was a hoot. What’s going on? Why are you so worried?”
Shaking her head, Molly said, “I’m not sure I’m up to this whole Easter Picnic thing.”
“What? Why not?”
“You know I’ve been looking for a replacement cartoon character guy, right? Since the other one I’d been using got a full time job and Cheryl’s can’t really be available, what with raising his grandson?”
“Yeah, of course. And you found one.”
“I thought I had.” She shook her head. “But he showed up to a kid’s birthday party an hour late and I thought I smelled booze on his breath. He worked out okay in the end. I mean, the kids and the parents were happy once he got there, but he didn’t look quite right. He was wearing some kind of colored socks, instead of the standard Spider Man shoes and, like I said, he came late. Really late. I wasn’t even sure he was going to show.”
Turning toward her, Drake felt a little of his tilting world straighten with her being there. This was what he and Molly did—they supported one another. “But the character guy did show. Even if he was a little late. And you said the kids liked him.”
“They did.” A grin briefly dispelled the worried look on her face. “Even the dad’s boss—had to be in his fifties—liked the Spider Man. After he got out of the bounce house, the men kept wanting him to shoot out spider web goop from his wrists.”
“So it worked out fine.”
“Yeah, after I spent most of the event worrying about where he was and wondering if I picked the wrong guy.” The worried expression was back on her face, which wasn’t like Molly. “This really could have derailed everything. What if he hadn’t just had a couple of beers? What if he came completely smashed? The whole thing could have blown up in my face.”
“But it didn’t.” He reached out, drawing her into his arms for a companionable hug.
Molly looked up in his face. “What if I really picked the wrong guy to be the Easter bunny at the picnic. I interviewed a dozen possibles and I chose this guy, not that I had a lot of options. But what if I picked the wrong one? My instincts might have really sucked.”
“Your instincts are fine,” he soothed, dropping a kiss on her cheek.
The troubled expression stayed on her face. “Maybe I’m just not ready for this big a job. Maybe Cheryl should give it to one of her more experienced competitors. I could blow this event! Maybe I can’t trust my judgment. You know most of the party planning stuff is instinct. You have to know what’s a good idea and what isn’t.”
Tucking her against his body for a tighter hug, he said, “You can do this. You’re smart and you have great ideas. You’ll be great.”
She turned her head, looking up at him, their faces only inches apart. “I know I always act tough, like nothing gets the better of me, but this is a really big deal, Drake. I blow this picnic and I might as well get out of the business. Go back to interior design or waitressing or something.”
“You’re not going to blow it.” He gave her another squeeze. “You usually look like you’re confident because you know you’ve always managed before.”
“I know, I know.”
Molly’
s words were soft and anything but confidant.
“Hey,” he said, putting a finger under her chin to turn her face towards him.
“You’ll be great. I know you will.”
Then he did something without even thinking. He kissed Molly Stanhope on the mouth.
In his mind, he’d meant it to be a little, reassuring peck between friends.…
And then she kissed him back and all hell broke loose inside him.
Molly’s lips suddenly moved beneath his—hungry and eager—and Drake felt it through every cell of his body. What he’d meant as a reassuring peck shifted into something very different.
She kissed like a wanton, like she’d been hungry for him forever and he pulled her closer, angling her in closer, taking her mouth over and over. His body roared into response, craving her, needing the touch of her skin beneath his—
--and then it was over. Just like that.
She pulled away sharply, her chest rising and falling with rapid breath in echo of his suddenly labored breathing. He felt as if he had run the hundred meter dash. And he wanted her, wanted more.
He sat on the couch still, staring at her, his body feeling as if he were sixteen again and had just touched her naked breast.
“I need to leave,” she said tightly, the passion in her expression now shuttered away from him.
“Okay.” It was all he could think of to say, but he wanted to kiss her again.
He really wanted to kiss Molly again.
* * * * * * * * *
CHAPTER FOUR
Damn, damn, damn. How could she have let this happen? Molly drove through the streets automatically, not even seeing the other cars. If she hadn’t been afraid Drake would see her, she would have sat in her car outside his house, stunned and trying to catch her breath.
Whew. The guy could kiss.
After all these years, he’d kissed her again. When she was sixteen, she’d been a hotbed of hormones. While anything, but expert, she’d been an enthusiastic partner in the backseat action between her and whichever boyfriend she was dating at the time.
Her six months of dating Drake, though, things had gotten pretty steamy.
She knew now that it had freaked her little sixteen year-old heart out. Dating the high school quarterback had been a way of not dealing with everything between her and Drake. In some ways, she wished she could slip out of these feelings as easily now. Why had she fallen for the one guy who’d already moved on?
That kiss just now wasn’t because he loved her—well, he had been trying to comfort her, she supposed. But what should have been a tender salute had shifted to a hungry, horny interchange. But he didn’t love her.
He’d just picked up her longing and run with it, like any guy would.
Only she didn’t just want his any guy action. She wanted all of Drake, heart and loins. Or she wanted none.
* * *
“Drake!”
Sitting at his desk, he shifted the phone in his hand. “Levi?”
“Yeah, it’s me. How are you doing, buddy?”
Before leaning back in his desk chair, Drake moused over to save the file he’d been working on. “I’m okay, I suppose. How are you and that new wife doing?”
His friend laughed. “Holly and I are terrific. She’s doing documentaries to save the world and I’m still focusing on making filthy lucre. I hear you’re writing some sort of home repair blog?”
“Home improvement. You know, how to rehab your kitchen, fix up your garage so your Porsche isn’t unhappy in it and things you need to know about fixing your roof. Things like that. Why? Your Porsche unhappy?”
“Ferrari,” Levi corrected. “And last time I checked it was very content.”
“Glad to hear that.” Drake laughed. He wouldn’t want Levi’s life, but it had some great perks. “You always were a lucky son-of-a-bitch.”
“Hey,” Levi protested. “Luck didn’t get me that car. Hard work did. Of course, that resume you wrote for me after graduation helped. Landed me an internship at a law firm and pointed me toward law school.”
“I know, I know. You went from there to law school to the big time. And now you have a lovely wife who soothes your fevered brow.”
“She does that and a bunch of other things. Finding a partner has some definite advantages.” his college friend said, satisfaction in his voice. “Holly’s great. I’m a lucky man.”
“Yeah, I hear having a life partner can be a good thing,” Drake admitted, thinking of Molly. “Listen, is there any way an employer can make a writer do a television show?”
“No.” There was a tremor of human in his friend’s voice. “But I can think of quite a few writers who would kill for the chance. Why? Has your boss asked you to be a television star?”
Drake looked out his office window. “Something like that. I mean, he’s insisting I shoot some test spots.”
“Well, if you don’t want to be on television, just screw them up. Not too obviously, though. Be wooden. Not your charming self.”
“Funny,” he told his college friend. “I’ll probably be pretty bad at this, anyway. Particularly since I’m not handy and I’ve never done home repairs.”
Levi laughed. “Then you have nothing to worry about, unless the producers think the rest of us might see ourselves in your ineptitude. It could make you a big star.”
* * *
Later that day, Drake’s hand hovered over his phone. He picked it up and scrolled through the Contacts until he reached Molly’s name.
He’d sat there writing the blog—which had to be turned in by midnight tonight—and the feel of Molly’s lips under his kept coming back to him.
Kissing her had left him aching and he couldn’t stop wondering how good it could have gotten if they hadn’t stopped. Hell, maybe he should have tried harder to date her after she broke up with him for the high school quarterback.
When she picked up the phone now, he said without preamble, “I need another blog lesson. Got a project I can help you with?”
Molly took a moment to respond. “What do you mean?”
“The blog posts. I need material and you said you’d give me some educational tips.” God, she could give him tips anytime. He wondered if he could come up with a project that had to be done in swimsuits? Naked was too much to hope for.
Besides, he just wanted to mess with her, tease her. He’d been working at his desk all afternoon and he wanted to relax. Somehow that was when his thoughts always turned to Molly.
“I’m kind of busy now, getting ready for the Easter Picnic.” She didn’t sound like herself and seemed anything, but eager.
He should probably just back off, but that kiss had been really good. Drake wasn’t too proud to play the pity-card. “Okay, but you did say you’d help me get to where I can handle the blog projects by myself.”
Again, she let several beats pass before responding. “I don’t have any home improvement projects going now, what with being focused on this picnic.”
“Well, you have anything there that I could help build or fix…or anything?”
“Sure, I guess,” she relented. “Let me think, umm, I wanted to build a gazebo in the city park where the picnic will take place. You know, for the kids to use for an Easter basket building station.”
“Great. Sounds terrific. When should I be there? With my work clothes on,” he assured her, not worrying that he sounded too eager. With most women, dating called for a certain amount of coolness, but playing games with Molly made no sense.
“This may be too big a project for a five minute spot.”
Drake thought fast. “From what Mike said, I can do bigger projects. They’ll film all stages of it and then edit it down to fit the time slot.”
He added, “I’ll even bring my shiny new hammer? Need any nails?”
There was a hint of laughter in her voice. “Actually, no. We’ll use the screw gun mostly and a nail gun for the bigger pieces.”
“Sounds good. I’m tired of plumbing,” ev
en if the faucet in his kitchen still dripped, “and don’t even talk to me about urethane.”
She laughed out-right then, which he’d hoped for.
“By the way, I know we still need to fix your bedroom floor. I’m assuming you got my pants up?”
“Yes, I did.” She still sounded amused. “Although I had several friends who really like the man’s-trousers-glued-to-the-floor-next-to-the-bed thing and actually suggested I do the same for them.”
“No need to thank me,” he said modestly. “Just glad my embarrassment had good repercussions for you. Brought you some business, too, if you install a few pair of men’s pants on their floors.”
“Yeah. I’m too busy for that right now. Have you thought about what you’re going to submit to the television program?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.” He leaned back in his desk chair, realizing he liked processing things with Molly. Even about boring work stuff. What had seemed so natural for years, now felt wonky. First she’d blackmailed/threatened him about not helping with the blog and then the kiss….
Damn that was some kiss.
Drake cleared his throat, saying, “Despite the fact that the floor had a sad ending, I think I might use that as a potential segment. Also the toilet thing. I mean, everyone has toilet issues now and again. Might be a simple project for some, but it could be good.”
“I agree. What else are you going to suggest? They wanted three, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. Hey, maybe I could use the gazebo thing? That’s kind of showy. Nice change from the toilet piece.” He stared into the space above his screen. Maybe he shouldn’t chase after Molly this way. Sex complicated friendships…. But hell, he wanted to have sex with her.
Still, she’d been his best friend for years. He didn’t want to lose that either.
“Be at Comstock Park at ten, if you want to help.” Her words were crisp.
“Okay, boss. I can be your bitch.” Drake couldn’t help teasing her a little.
“Excuse me?”
“Just tell me where to do it, how to do it and how hard.” He let some innuendo leak into his words.