by Carol Rose
"And you were friends before this?" The blonde stirred the drink in front of her.
"Yes." He brooded for a moment. "Best friends. Always there for one another. Hung out a lot. She saved my butt with the blog. Until she wouldn’t help anymore. Actually blackmailed me into learning all this home improvement crap."
"Oh. Bummer." Preslee raised her blue gaze to his. "So, wanna come back to my place and get nasty? Take your mind off things?"
In the middle of taking a drink, Drake sat the glass on the table with force. "Now that--that's what I'm talking about. Why can't she just enjoy what we have? Why is she changing the rules—again? I can’t keep up! We’ve had the best friendship. We have fun, tease each other. Now—now, we’ve had sex—really, really great sex, too."
Preslee fiddled with the earring in one ear. "She wants to get married, huh? That’s what most women want."
"No. It’s not even that I’m against that." He shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe that’s what she wants. We didn't get that far."
"She didn't say?"
Staring into his drink again, Drake said, "No. She just said she loved me. That was all. I was so blown away. I mean, the last time we tried dating, it didn’t end well for me. If you know what I mean."
"Just because she said she loved you, it doesn't have to mean marriage." His date peered at him across the table. "Are you anti-marriage? Or just anti her?"
"Neither." The word felt thick on his tongue. "Neither one. I'll get married someday. I’d like to do that. You know, have a family and everything. And I’m definitely not anti-Molly."
Preslee took in a breath and reached down to fiddle with her shoe. "Me, too. Marriage someday, I mean."
Various scenarios ran through his mind. He missed that—just being with Molly. “She’d be a terrific mom.”
Continuing to nibble on her straw, Preslee didn’t say anything.
Drake leaned forward, asking her, "You never dumped a guy, did you? Left him with a hole in his chest that he didn’t know how to fill?”
"Who remembers who dumped who?” She stared vaguely over his head, seeming to try to recollect. “There have been too many of them.”
The alcohol surrounding him with a gentle glow of well-being, he squinted at her. “How'd you get such a healthy attitude about this messing around thing?"
She crossed her legs. “I don't know. I guess I just like sex. I’ve been told I have daddy issues. At least, that's what this other guy—a psychology college guy I messed around with when I was in school—that's what he said. I don't know.”
"He said that? That you have daddy issues? Seems harsh."
"I know," she nodded. "Particularly since I'd just gone down on him."
"What right does a couple of college courses in psychology give him to label you?"
"Oh, he knows the subject. He wasn't taking the classes," she corrected. "He taught them. As a matter of fact, he was a professor of mine."
"Umm. Aren’t professors not supposed to have sex with you? Isn't that a conflict at grading time?"
Preslee shrugged. "It didn't seem to be a conflict for him. He gave me a B minus in the class."
Drake said indignantly, "You have to be kidding me!”
"No." She took another swallow from her glass. "No. So, what are you going to do about this Molly girl? I mean, you seem to have it bad for her.”
“I don’t,” he shot back. “Maybe. I don’t know. I used to have it bad for her—years and years ago. Then she dumped me and just wanted to be my friend. We’ve been friends all this time.”
His feeling of well-being receded some. “Now, she doesn’t even want that.”
Preslee lifted her thin eyebrows. “She said she loved you. Remember?”
Leaning forward again, he rested his elbows on the bar table. “We’ve done the friend thing for a long time now. I…I want Molly in my life. What if the friend thing is all we can do? I-I don’t think I can go back to not having sex with her, but we tried dating and it didn’t work. I clearly wasn’t enough for her.”
Looking bored, Preslee said, “If you’re not interested in more than friendship, you probably shouldn’t have had sex with her--”
“Made love,” he interrupted, putting up a hand when Preslee made a face at him. “I’m just saying, it felt like…more. Particularly this last time.”
He meditated on those moments with Molly wrapped all around him, calling out his name.
“It’s one way or the other.” Presley met his gaze. “Either you guys are friends and you just fucked her because you had a hard on or you made love. It can’t be both, I don’t think.”
He couldn’t deny she was right. Either Molly was a great piece of tail or…he loved her. God, that was scary. The problem was that loving her might be the path to heartbreak and rejection. Again. And losing what they had….
* * *
“Hello.” Holding his aching head with one hand and pressing the cell phone to his ear with the other, Drake remembered all too clearly why drinking a lot wasn’t a good idea.
It wasn’t that he’d downed a whole beer keg, either. Just enough to have him waking with a helluva headache.
“Hey, buddy. You sound like crap. What have you been up to?”
Levi sounded way too chipper for this time of the morning.
“I’m sitting here at my kitchen table, holding my aching head and wondering if dying isn’t better at this point.” Drake didn’t see any reason to pretend with his friend.
“Whoa. Sounds like college. Did you and Molly make up and then lick too much champagne from your naked bodies?”
“No. That would have been more fun. I met Preslee at a bar last night and spent the evening talking about Molly.”
His friend snorted into the phone. “You didn’t sleep with her? That’s telling.”
“Telling what? Don’t be subtle. I’m using all my brain power to handle basic functions.”
“Isn’t Preslee the call-me babe? I thought you, two, just had convenient sex occasionally.”
“We do.” Drake lifted the damp cloth off his neck. “At least, we did. But we didn’t do more than talk last night.”
“Ahhhh. Holly was right.”
“What? Right about what?” Drake took an experimental sip of coffee, setting the paper cup down gently.
“When I told her about you and Molly, she said you had it bad for her.”
“I don’t. At least, that doesn’t sound like anything I’d want to admit to. Hell, I’m just trying to get my head straight so I can write about fixing the damned faucet.”
“Okay, let’s talk plumbing,” Levi said peaceably. “But before that, have you heard anything about the jobs?”
“No.” Drake took the cloth off his neck. “Not a damn thing.”
* * *
Drake fingered his phone. His hangover had faded, but he still felt like crap. He didn’t know what to say to Molly, but he damn well knew he needed to say something.
Dropping his phone on the desk beside his laptop, he stared at the blank screen.
He was staring into the blog deadline and this was the first segment he’d do completely without Molly. Having successfully changed the washer and stopped the faucet drip felt pretty good, but he missed her. Missed her ragging on him for not knowing home improvement crap. Missed Molly’s voice.
Hell, he wanted to talk to her, but he just didn’t know what to say. He needed to talk to her, even if that meant she never talked to him after that.
There was the bigger issue, though—what if he played this thing out and went with her saying that she loved him. He liked being with her more than any other human on the planet. She made him hot. She made him laugh at the oddest moments and at least he wouldn’t have any need to confess his sins about the blog.
Molly knew everything about him.
But what if he just didn’t end up being enough for her again? What if he opened himself up and she left him? He didn’t think he could live through a rejection by Molly. Not a
gain. Wasn’t the saying that half a loaf was better than no bread at all?
In their past, the only long-term interaction had been friendship. When they dated in high school, it had been his first real relationship. The first time he wanted to be with a girl that badly.
Frustrated, he pushed the problem aside, trying to focus on the blank screen. This was what paid the bills. He might be a fraud, but he had a Visa payment coming due.
* * *
“This is it, my boy!” Mike slapped Drake on the back.
Seeing him in a tux—in anything more formal that his usual faded blue jeans—seemed weird.
Drake looked around the darkened ballroom, filled with tables. The lights from the stage were staggering. He supposed this Bloggie Award ceremony would be streaming on-line.
It seemed weird not to have Molly by his side. When they’d talked last, they agreed to come to this damn thing together, but he’d gotten a brief text this afternoon, saying she couldn’t make it after all.
Looking around the room to distract him from missing Molly, Drake heard the clink of cutlery on china blended with the chatter of several hundred attendees. The stage being so lit cast the rest of the room in darkness. At three or four spots, cameras were set up, their operators all wearing business-like headsets.
Sitting there between Mike and the head honcho, Jerome Willstock, from the home improvement network, Drake felt even more like a fraud. He just wanted to get the evening over with so he could go home and decide what to do about this situation with Molly. Sometime in the dark hours last night, he’d come to terms with the fact that he didn’t know what would happen between them. That was what kept him locked up over this thing.
“…we will be announcing…”
The award show started, television reality show star Lily Bradshaw stood at the podium, all whitened teeth and tight sequin dress.
Dropping his gaze to the wine glass next to his plate, Drake tried to ignore the pit of his stomach. The blog he’d written last night—all about replacing washers to fix faucet drips—had been fairly good, if Mike was any judge. Drake always picked his own work apart, questioning each word choice and rethinking his use of various phrases. Being clichéd was a dreaded thing, but there were only so many ways to say washer-fix-faucet.
“Your award will be announced about 8:30,” Mike whispered.
Nodding in response, Drake looked around him again. Several tables over was a home improvement blogger also up for the same award tonight. Drake had read his stuff and been impressed. Strong word choice and simple, understandable directions. Hell, he’d used the guy’s blog about faucets before starting on the one in his kitchen.
He was such a fraud. The worst kind, too. He wasn’t ripping off old ladies and from the first he’d refused to plagiarize other blogs, but he was a phony in that he knew he didn’t know this stuff. Molly had been right when she told him he was a fake. If he hadn’t had her help all these years, he’d have never made it this far.
Sitting at his table, the food placed before him by a short Hispanic waiter—who moved swiftly and silently, supplying plated dinners to Drake’s table and several around him—Drake didn’t bother trying to eat more than several bites. This was a nightmare of a different sort.
Next to him, Mike seemed jumpy and also not interested in his food. Drake wished he could calm his boss’ anxieties, but he knew Mike had very different wishes for the evening’s outcome than did he. On his other side, the network guy seemed almost too relaxed by contrast. Like he’d been to a hundred of these shows and wasn’t impressed or worried.
Drake acknowledged to himself that Jerome probably had been to a bunch of these dinners—at least as long as the Bloggies had been in existence. The guy reminded him of the suits who’d occasionally come into the newsroom at the paper. All dressed in work wear that cost ten times what the regular guy paid, they looked both disinterested and highly competent.
He knew they lived or died by the numbers. They were probably more important than these awards, no matter how showy they sounded.
“Our next award,” Lily Bradshaw breathed into the mic, “will be announced by Sam and Sherman of Fix That Man Room! Their show has run for five seasons!”
She smiled her blinding smile and led the audience applause, clapping enthusiastically, as if five years was an incredible amount of time.
Drake supposed it was when home improvement shows of all varieties came and went with a breakneck speed, as if the networks were trying to outpace a fickle audience with ADD.
Sam Donnelly and his cousin, the Sherman in the show’s title, stepped up to the mic, looking surprisingly comfortable in their tuxes. From what he’d seen, they spent their on-air time wearing jeans as faded as Mike’s.
“Thanks, folks,” Sam said as the audience applause died down. “Tonight, we’re here to announce the award for the Best Home Improvement Blog.”
His smile was nearly as toothy white as Lily Bradshaw’s and Drake reflected that dentists must love award shows.
Hearing Sam Donnelly and his cohort reading off the nominees for the award show, Drake wished Molly could have been there, just to hear how seriously this was presented. He suddenly thought that he hated that she’d cancelled on being his date, rather than go with Mike and Jerome.
Next to him, Mike sat forward, clearly tensed in his chair. Drake could only be relieved that the evening would be over soon, at least, his part of it.
“And the Best Home Improvement Bloggie goes to….Drake Hampton of …”
Feeling himself turn to stone in his chair, Drake had the weirdest sensation of everything around him seeming to fade for a moment.
“Get up, boy,” Mike hissed, shaking Drake. “Go up there and accept your award.”
For a moment, Drake had the image of all the show business award show he’d watched where winners paused to hug and kiss those sitting next to him. In his wildest dreams, he couldn’t imagine hugging and kissing either Mike or Jerome. But he got to his feet, aware that Mike had grabbed his hand and was wringing it. Jerome was even smiling, giving him an enthusiastic pat on the back as he went past.
Making his way between the tables, Drake wended his way toward the blinding stage. He found the steps and trotted up them—still with the weird sensation of acting out what he’d seen on television. Suddenly, he was there next to Sam and Sherman, a slender wand in front of them, holding a mic. The hammer-shaped award was pushed into his hands by some girl in an evening gown and suddenly he stood looking into the darkness that he knew held his competition and a bunch of other bloggers, much more deserving of this award than he was.
Standing there, holding the award he knew he didn’t deserve, Drake cleared his throat and tried to talk into the mic. “Thank you. Thanks to the Bloggie people and thanks, especially to Molly.”
He looked into the camera in front of him, trying to imagine her watching him. “You’ve helped me in more ways than I can list. Thank you. For everything. Really.”
Urged off the stage, still holding the damn award, Drake could only hope she knew what was in his heart. He just wished he knew what to do with it.
* * * * * * * * *
CHAPTER NINE
Closing his apartment door behind him later that evening without turning on the light, Drake dropped his keys into the bowl by his door, sitting the Bloggie award on a lamp table as he paused by his couch. With the room still cloaked in darkness, he shrugged out of the tux jacket and wondered how he’d gotten himself into this mess.
He’d just needed a job…. That was all.
Going into the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator door to stare inside. The light splashed over him as he suddenly thought of Molly’s laugh. He’d opened the fridge door to get water out after they’d made love on his couch that day.
Molly…. Molly naked in his arms, thrusting against him as they both reached oblivion.
God, he thought, lost in a wash of memories. She’d touched him all over after she shocked and thrilled him
by shoving her hands down his pants. Damn. He was getting hard just thinking about it.
Drake slammed the refrigerator door before he left the kitchen. No doubt about it, he was really messed up. He went into the living area, dropping onto the couch before he picked up the remote and clicked on the flatscreen.
An ESPN channel popped on the screen and he stared at the sportscasters there. This Bloggie award was bogus. He’d stood on that stage tonight—television cameras pointing at him as shutters clicked all around—and he’d known it wasn’t right. There were others in the ballroom who actually deserved that trophy.
For an instant, he thought of calling Molly to talk this over. He craved that as much as he wanted to make love with her again. Just to talk to her—normal, about nothing. About all this.
Dammit, what was he going to do?
With the toe of one shiny black dress shoe, he nudged the other off, resting his sock-covered feet on the coffee table in front of him—the one she’d sat on, crying out in ecstasy as he drove into her. Crap. He needed all new furniture and a new apartment not filled with memories of Molly….
Or he could just call her. He needed to call her.
This had gone on too long. He should have called her several days ago…shouldn’t have frozen when she told him she loved him.
He loved her, too. He’d just been too damned scared to say anything. Too fearful of the fall if she didn’t keep loving him.
Just then the doorbell rang…and it pealed again urgently as he quickly muted the television and went to the door.
Drake opened the door and there she stood, his porch light throwing yellow beams on her white blonde hair, her makeup dark under her eyes as if she’d been crying.
“Molly!” It was as if his fevered imagination—his longing—had conjured her up.
“You can’t keep it.” She announced without preamble as she pushed past him into the apartment, turning to face him.
He followed her into the room then, saying heavily, “What? You saw The Bloggies?”
Standing in his shadowed living room, only the light cast from the flatscreen television illuminating the space. Molly nodded, her face somber and smudged with tears. “I never thought you’d win. I can’t believe you won!”