Just This Once

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  “Not yet.”

  Molly tapped the screen, bringing up the messaging program, and then sent the picture to herself. When the image arrived, she deleted the shot from Brody’s phone before returning the device to him.

  “I’ll tell him,” she said, hating the sinking feeling in her gut. He’d be fine, but last night had been perfect. She hadn’t wanted anything to taint it.

  Brody took a long swallow from his beer. When he set it down, he shrugged. “Why Sean?”

  The question caught Molly off guard, and she opened her mouth in a sputtering protest.

  Brody cut her off with the wave of his hand. His soulful green eyes locked on hers as he folded his arms on the table in front of him. “Because it’s always been him, right?”

  She wanted to deny it—to Brody, to herself. But there it was. It had always been Sean, and at least in some way, it always would be. Because he’d made her laugh when she’d forgotten how. Because he needed her as much as she’d needed him. And because one day, he’d looked at her, and suddenly, she hadn’t been able to catch her breath…and just like that, it was him.

  She slumped back in her seat, giving in to the helpless smile. “Yeah, it has.”

  It was hard to admit, even to Brody, who was arguably one of her best friends. She could confide in him about almost anything. But Sean—Sean had always been a secret too close to her heart. Even once she’d grown out of the most crushing emotions, she’d kept them close. “But the kiss…” She couldn’t admit to more than the kiss. Not even to Brody. “That never happened before last night. And the rest, me all caught up in him… It hadn’t been like that for a long time.”

  “I know. I wouldn’t have asked you out myself if I’d thought you were still into him.”

  Molly smiled, looking into her beer. Brody had been a lot of things to her over the years, and she loved him…but only like a brother.

  “So what changed?” he asked, nothing in that rumbly deep voice of his but curiosity based on caring.

  “Sean walking around my apartment, stripped down to nothing but those silky basketball shorts and a sheen of sweat. Some friend, right?” She laughed and looked away, not wanting Brody to see her eyes. Because while what she’d given him was the simplest truth, it wasn’t the whole truth. Which seemed to be a pattern with her lately, and one she wasn’t too proud of.

  Why couldn’t that shallow objectification be the whole story?

  Why couldn’t she really have outgrown the feelings for Sean that had plagued her since that first year they met?

  They’d been tamed to a degree. Managed enough so she could function…date…smile.

  Get out of bed.

  And most importantly, be around the friends who were the foundation of her life without giving anything away that would threaten that bond. But as adept as she’d gotten at pretending those forbidden feelings for Sean didn’t exist, they were never far away. She was always working to keep them in check, because they were deep, and they were strong, and they were a very real part of who she was.

  “You sure a friend is all you are? Because that picture, Moll?” He let out a low whistle.

  She knew. That picture said more than she wanted about her feelings for Sean. The look on their faces had been almost pained, as if it hurt not to be closer than they were. And what had been captured in that image was nothing compared to what had been going on a couple of hours later.

  After another long swallow of her beer, she scrunched back in the booth. “I’m sure. Whatever was in that picture, we got out of our systems last night.” And even if they hadn’t, Sean had the movers coming first thing the next morning.

  * * *

  “Just what the fuck was your dirty fucking dick doing anywhere near Molly?” Max demanded, stalking out of the Wyse private elevator two days later.

  Sean uncrossed his legs and stood from where he’d been leaning against an incredibly uncomfortable wingback chair in the foyer of his parents’ incredibly uncomfortable apartment. He’d been expecting something like this, but even for Max, ninety-seven minutes after touchdown seemed extreme.

  “I’m guessing this is a straight-from-the-airport visit?” Sean asked, fairly sure his favorite employee, Sarah Brandt, was going to skin him alive the next morning for screwing up her honeymoon. “Where’s the lovely bride, anyway?”

  Max rubbed the back of his short brush cut. “Dropped me here and then took the cab back to our place.”

  Sean was dead meat, for sure. And it was definitely going to be the newest Brandt taking him down. Not his buddy, who just looked like he wanted to.

  “I’m serious, Sean.” Max crossed his arms over his chest and glared at him. “What the fuck were you doing? Because I know it wasn’t putting some bullshit move on her like you do with all your other disposable dates. I know you wouldn’t be that stupid.” Then, as if the guy couldn’t live with leaving it at that insulting threat, his head dropped forward, and he added, “I know you wouldn’t be so selfish with Molly. Not unless you were wrecked or something, and even if you were, that’s no fucking excuse.”

  Jesus, Sean wouldn’t have thought there was anything worse than Max looking at him like he wanted to take his head off, but knowing that one of his best friends in the world couldn’t look at him at all was definitely worse. Especially when Sean was about to do what he was going to do.

  Lie.

  Code or no code, Molly was a grown fucking woman, and what happened between them was no one’s business but their own. If she wanted her brother to know they’d slept together, she was welcome to tell him, and Sean would gladly own it. But that information wasn’t coming from him, and not just because said brother was standing there looking like he was about to have an aneurysm waiting for Sean to put his fears to rest.

  Still, if he wanted to defuse the situation, he was going to have to give the guy something. Hell, Molly was Max’s little sister…and that bro code of ethics they’d all adhered to back in college mattered. He knew it did.

  “Look, Max, we were screwing around, and it got out of hand. She wanted me out of the apartment, and I wanted to make sure that dipshit didn’t have an opportunity to weasel his way back in.”

  The frown etched into Max’s face went deeper. “I’m not seeing how your dick gets involved from there.”

  “Right,” Sean admitted, not even sure himself how to connect all those dots without giving Max even more to worry about. Because Sean was pretty sure the only way big brother was able to sleep at night was believing his friends had blinders on when it came to Molly and that none of them had the slightest clue how fucking gorgeous or desirable she was. Or hell, maybe that she was a woman at all.

  Clearing his throat, Sean nodded back toward the kitchen and started walking. He needed a beer.

  Max hung back, then heaved a sigh and followed along. “You managing okay, staying in your parents’ place?”

  Barely. Every damn night, he had to talk himself out of driving back to Molly’s and begging her to let him in. Not for a repeat of the night they’d had together. Hell, he knew better than that. What he wanted was just more Molly. He wanted to hang out. To kick back in that way he was only really comfortable enough to do with her. He wanted to see her smile and know the most important thing in his life was still as solid as ever.

  But that wasn’t what Max had been asking. Sean shrugged and waved a hand at the showplace his parents called one of their homes. “What do you think?”

  Max stopped beside a Victorian settee in shades of white matching the rest of the decor and shuddered.

  “Exactly.”

  In the kitchen, Sean pulled a couple of bottles of beer from the fridge and handed Max one before propping a hip against the white marble-topped island. Explanation time.

  “She thought the best way to get me out of the apartment was to freak me out by pretending to flirt with me.�
� It wasn’t the whole truth—it wasn’t even most of it—but it was the part Sean could give Max.

  Max’s expression grew steely, and Sean rolled his eyes.

  “Don’t get on her case about it, Max. It worked. I freaked.” Not exactly for the reasons Max would believe, but whatever. “Only you know how it is with me and Moll. I wasn’t about to let her win.”

  He couldn’t bring himself to say that he probably should have, because he didn’t even want to think about the idea of not having shared what he had with Molly. Of not knowing about that last layer of the friendship between them.

  “So, what are you saying?” Max prompted, sounding almost hopeful as he asked, “You got a bone to one-up her?”

  What?

  “No, I got a bone because she crawled into my lap, and she’s fucking beautiful,” he snapped back before he’d thought about the filter he might have used.

  But Max seemed to have missed the urgent truth in his delivery and nodded. “She got to you.”

  More than he’d ever let on. “Yeah, but we both realized the line we’d crossed and took steps to ensure it didn’t happen again.” And this is where it got dicey. Because while that much was true, the omissions that followed—about the failure of those steps and just how far past the line they’d ended up going—made this conversation a lie. But it had to be done. “Dude, this isn’t something you need to worry about. Molly and I have got it figured out. We’re past it, so go home to your wife before she tosses your clothes from the honeymoon onto the front grass.”

  Max stared a minute longer until he finally nodded, the furrow between his eyes smoothing. “Okay, man. If you guys are good, then I’m good. I know you’d never do that shit with Molly—treat her the way you treat those other women. Just had to ask anyway.”

  Sean clapped him on the shoulder, covering the sick feeling in his gut with a practiced smile. He wasn’t sure what bothered him more…that he’d essentially lied to a guy he thought of like a brother or the idea of Molly being lumped in with any of the women Sean had spent the night with, despite the fact that he’d never been anything but respectful, up-front, and—he’d like to believe—good to them.

  Molly didn’t belong anywhere near that group of casual encounters, because that’s not what she was to him. She was critical, not casual.

  * * *

  It shouldn’t be this easy between them, but a week after he’d moved out, Sean still couldn’t scrape together a single regret about the night he’d spent with Molly. Even moving out wasn’t the end of the world. He’d gotten rid of the freeloader. Paid Molly for a full month of living there. And as it stood, they were closer than ever.

  Temptation eliminated. Mostly.

  “Hey, man.” Jase greeted him with a fist bump at the front door to his place. “Glad you made it.”

  “Sorry for the holdup. Dad decided to cut his trip short, and every time they change their plans, it throws a world of shit out of whack.”

  Jase grunted in that way that suggested he knew exactly what Sean meant. He got it.

  Cutting straight back to the kitchen, Sean bit back what he wanted to know most. Whether Molly was there already. He’d have his answer in less than ten seconds, so whatever pressure was building in his chest, he ought to be able to handle it.

  Fine, so maybe there had been a few residual effects of sleeping with Molly.

  She was on his mind more and, admittedly, in a way she hadn’t been before. He’d been inside her, heard her moan his name, and felt her come apart for him. But aside from needing to talk his dick down from time to time when he thought about what they’d done or when he accidentally on purpose stumbled across that photo Molly had brought to him from the back alley—the one he was supposed to have deleted but hadn’t quite managed to—there was this other thing happening too. A need to talk to her…more. To hear her laugh. To touch her and see for himself that there wasn’t anything broken or hurt in her eyes. That what they’d done hadn’t cost him something immeasurably precious.

  Laughter bubbled over the sounds and scents emanating from the kitchen, and that pressure in his chest instantly eased, replaced by something warm and easy.

  Molly.

  She was there.

  As he stepped through the wide cutout doorway, their eyes met across the room, sending a satisfied pulse through his system. Her smile stretched wide as she nodded toward Emily and Brody, who were shoulder to shoulder, each whisking some kind of sauce while exchanging backhanded compliments about the other’s product.

  “Tell me this means what I think it means,” Sean pleaded, rubbing his hands together.

  Molly nodded, an eager smile lighting her face. “Oh yeah. The taste-off is on. Emily is challenging Brody’s mustard cream sauce.” Edging out from behind the cooks, Molly shimmied around Jase and stopped beside Sean, leaving an inch of space between them. An inch he couldn’t leave alone.

  Leaning in to her so their arms brushed, he waited for it. The slow shift of her eyes meeting his, the flicker of a smile that was only about them. The relief he shouldn’t need to feel. And yeah, the pull of an attraction he could only manage as easily as he was because of how completely she’d fallen back into their routine.

  Whatever had gone haywire between them was shut down, at least from her side. Which made it a hell of a lot easier to keep his side in check. Thoughts were one thing, but those impulses weren’t getting off the leash.

  A commitment totally reinforced when Max and Sarah showed up a few minutes later.

  “Let’s see those tan lines,” Emily urged, abandoning her sauce to greet the newlyweds, who’d been back for almost a week but hadn’t been able to meet up with everyone until that night. Though Sean had seen them both, Sarah because she’d become something of his right hand at Wyse, and Max because of his little visit on the way back in from the airport.

  Donning a pair of ovenproof mitts, Brody hunkered down in front of the oven, coming back up with a broiler pan loaded with juicy medallions of perfectly charred steak.

  “Rare all around, yes?” he asked, not actually listening for an answer, because Brody had a knack for remembering everyone’s tastes the way Sean had a knack with numbers.

  Sarah was leaning forward over the counter, looking like her nose had led her. “That’s it, Max. I’m throwing you back and running off with Brody.”

  Emily was moving a stack of small white plates from the counter to the island. “Yeah, Brody knows his way around a choice piece of meat, but after you taste my sauce over it, you’ll be begging me for a three-way.”

  Molly leaned back into Sean’s space, her shoulder meeting his chest as she grinned back at him, eyes gleaming.

  He knew exactly what she was thinking. Emily hated to lose more than any person he’d ever met. She was physically incapable of not competing, and it was hilarious.

  A flick of Molly’s eyes toward Jase, and Sean gave her a nod. He’d seen it. While Max was aspirating his beer over Emily’s quasi proposition, Jase was sitting there nodding, with that same smacked look of love on his face he’d had since Em had agreed to marry him. Agreeing to a three-way his wife hadn’t even offered to include him in. Over a sauce.

  Damn, he loved these guys. Slinging his arm around Molly’s shoulder, Sean pulled her closer. She smelled like coconut, and when his thoughts veered to how she’d smelled like coconut everywhere, he pulled her closer still, reminding himself about what was really important.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, Molly was huffing and puffing after the four-block sprint from the Armitage L stop. Her last Brandt Housekeeping job for the morning had asked her to stay after she’d finished cleaning to talk about a friend who was interested in getting on Molly’s wait list. It had cost her most of the time she’d budgeted for lunch with Emily and Sarah, but they still needed to get some planning in for the camping trip, so she’d been hustling.


  Pushing through the front door, she waved to Jill by the till. Then catching sight of the girls at a four-seater in the main bar, she headed over.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Molly apologized, quickly weaving through the tail end of Belfast’s lunch crowd to where Emily and Sarah were already done with their meals.

  Looking around, she caught one of the servers’ eyes, giving a nod toward the empty plates before sliding into her open seat. She wasn’t on for another hour, but she’d been around as long as Brody, and whether she was working or not, when she was in the bar, the staff tended to look to her first.

  “What, did you run here?” Sarah teased, pushing her water in front of Molly.

  “Feels like I’m running everywhere these days.” Molly laughed, shaking her head at the offered glass, figuring she’d have her own in a matter of minutes. “Sorry I missed lunch.”

  “That stinks, but we totally get it,” Emily assured her, and Molly knew she meant it.

  If anyone understood about work demands, it was these two. Even if they were working in high-rise corner offices and Molly was down on her knees scrubbing the corners of Gold Coast homes, they were all ambitious women who understood goals.

  “How many employees are you up to?” Sarah asked, straightening her silk blouse as she sat back.

  “Twelve, but I’ve got a couple of prospects, and if they work out, it’ll bring me up to fifteen. Which would be great, because it’s killing me to turn down customers.”

  If she wanted to, she could hire the staff she needed by the afternoon, but she wouldn’t risk the reputation she’d worked so hard to build on people she couldn’t vouch for personally. Her plans were long term and depended on consistent revenue streams. Satisfied clients were the key.

  Emily nodded and picked up her phone. “So what do you think? Should we start figuring out the logistics for the trip?”

  Molly grabbed her own phone, bringing up the calendar. The trip was still two weeks away, which would have been two weeks more time than she needed to plan if they were camping like they had when it was just her, Max, and Sean.