The Gravity of Love

by Thomas, Anne

  "Tomorrow morning. Why?"

  She stared at his injured ear to see it healing nicely as she shrugged at his question. "As it so seems, Ephram needs a little help with his lawn. His house sits on three acres all of that three which haven't been mowed in a good deal of time. So I was just wondering..."

  "You were wondering if I would like to spend my lazy Saturday doing something productive?"

  She smiled brightly. "Hey, you got it! Think you could spread the word to Joe too?"

  Harrison flashed a look skywards. "Yeah, he'll do it. What time do you want us to be there?"

  "When do you get done from the hospital?"

  "Eleven o'clock, with any luck."

  "Then get your sorry butts over to Eph's around noontime. I think we'll add some fun."

  "Now you've perked my interest, sweet cheeks. What fun is being added to this?"

  "Well, I thought we could have a race. Who can finish their plot first, for starters. And then a real one still on lawn mowers though. You bring your mowers and I'll bring the lemonade and lunch and we'll just make a nice little day out of it without any physical violence."

  "As long as there's no rule against verbal violence and word lashing before, during and after those races, it's a deal."

  She grabbed his hand and shook it with a happy grin. "Deal."

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  Ephram came from behind Molly, wrapping his arms around her bended waist and kissed the back of her neck, avoiding the few auburn curls that kept escaping from her pent up bun.

  She looked up at him with a bright grin as she laid out the lemonade and chips, which was what they were starting out with.

  "Do you think we have enough for six? I mean, with your Harrison eating the way he does..."

  Molly counted the people in her head, looking confused at him. "There's only five of us." She corrected.

  "No...oh, didn't Marty tell you? Her oldest brother Dan is coming too. She was talking to him about what she was doing today and he decided to come too."

  "Oh wonderful! I've never met any of Marty's family before!"

  Ephram released his hold on her suddenly, stepping back with playfulness in his eyes. With his hands on his waist, he cocked an eyebrow. "And what am I? Chopped liver?"

  Molly laughed, putting her arms lazily around his middle and holding him tight to her while still gazing in to his green eyes. "No, you certainly aren't. I don't date my food. Well, usually not. There was this onetime..."

  He gave her a quick kiss, ceasing her talk. "In truth Molly, you're stories about you and Harrison when you were young scare me enough. I don't need to hear about how you dated any kind of food." He teased.

  She wrinkled her nose, knowing she looked cute doing it, as she thought up a reply. But she was too late, for a rusty old truck pulled up in to the drive way. Her eyes lit upon seeing the new arrival. "Harrison and Joe are here!" She squealed in delight, letting go of her boyfriend to run to the parked truck.

  She grabbed hold of Harrison's hands, swinging them back and forth with hers between them. "I'm so glad you're here." She said happily.

  "Well, I'm glad to be here...for now." He replied, looking over at Ephram.

  She rolled her eyes with a shake of her head, leaning her face closer to his. "No, you're going to behave today Marty's brother is coming."

  Harrison let out a deep groan. "Another chef?"

  She couldn't help but release a giggle. "Yeah, another one of those."

  "Well, as long as you promise not to date this one too..."

  "Hey now I've only dated one chef!"

  "But it's good dating, isn't it? It's working." He pointed out.

  "I don't fall for that, Harrison Redford you're not tricking me in to telling you how things are going. If you can't tell by looks, you don't need to know."

  "I was teasing, Molls. Trust me, I rather not know or be able to see it. Speaking of which,"

  She decided to cut him off before he could go in to his speech about public displays of affection. "How is your ear? What did the doctor say?"

  "He said it's healing just fine without any signs of affection."

  Molly threw her head back and laughed hard. "That's infection, dummy!"

  Harrison shook his head. "That's what I said!"

  "No, no you said affection. I didn't think you're stitches would be giving you that, because I thought that's what Candice was here for...but hey, whatever works for you, right?"

  Harrison sighed grumpily, shaking off her swinging hands and going to the truck of the truck, taking out a large water cooler. "Filled with lots of liquids one trip to the hospital in a day is plenty enough for me." He commented, walking it towards the table that Molly had set up already. "So, when is Dave coming?"

  "Dan. His name is Dan. Harry, are you sure you're alright?"

  He offered a wry grin. "I haven't slept in four days, leave me be."

  "Well why the hell haven't you?" Her eyes grew wide. "Wait, do I want to know?"

  He shook his head. "No, but not for any of the reasons that you might have in mind."

  "Then what?"

  He shrugged. "Like I said, you don't really want to know."

  She was curious, but left it at that and allowed his privacy. It didn't matter much anyway he told her everything sooner or later.

  Just as she helped him set down the heavy water cooler, another car pulled up this time, it was Marty and Molly's Marty and her brother had arrived.

  "Okay, it looks like we got everyone here." Ephram grinned, rubbing his hands together with eagerness.

  Marty got out of the car and ran to Molly. "This is going to be so much fun!" She squealed in excitement, then waited until her brother came out of the car.

  "Holy hell." Molly heard Harrison say under his breath when Dan Lewison came in to view. Molly was surprised herself.

  Dan had long curly blonde hair and a strong jaw line, resembling Ephram eerily. Their heights matched almost to perfection. But Dan had dark, brooding brown eyes and a scruffy beard, resulted from a week of no shaving. Dan was also bigger in width his shoulders were wide, as was his chest, showing muscular from the tight shirt he wore.

  "I don't know Molls...I think Marty set you up with the wrong relative." Harrison teased.

  She hid her laugh, slapping his shoulder but still looking on to the new comer.

  Marty stood off to the side of them, looking very proud. "You should meet the others my whole family is full of curly blonde top cuties."

  "Cuties? No Marty, that's not cute. That's...a whole different field." Molly said, struggling to remain a straight face for the sake of Ephram, if he saw her.

  Josiah came walking up to them from behind, placing a hand on Molly's shoulder and Harrison's. "I don't know Molly, I think Marty set you up"

  "Hey!" Molly silenced him, her eyes going wide in surprise while Harrison burst out in laughter, eyeing Molly.

  "See? What did I tell you?"

  "I'm not leaving Ephram from Dan, Harry!" She said, but it was a little too loud, seeing that the two men just mentioned had stopped in their reunion to look at her with great interest.

  Her ears flamed red, as did her cheeks. Turning to Harrison, she glared at him.

  "The death glare just isn't the same if you're trying to stop yourself from laughing, Badger." Harrison remarked with that charming grin he had on all too much.

  Badger another one of the too many nicknames that he used to call her. Badgers had horrible short tempers and usually fussed and made strange straggling noises to show it, and somehow, Harrison always thought that this was in relation to his best friend. Well, Molly thought the opposite Harrison, with all his grumbling he did when he was ticked off, should be the badger.

  But none of this mattered at such a time.

  Redeeming herself, she walked up to Ephram and offered a kiss, then laid her head upon his shoulder, holding him tight and glaring at Harry.

  "Don't push he
r anymore you never know what lengths she'll go to just to prove you wrong." Josiah commented, never one for public displays of affection either.

  Marty shook her head, finished with all of this and eager to get on with the show. "Hey Dan, over here. These two knuckleheads are Joe and Harrison. That's Molls with Eph.

  Everyone, that's my brother Dan, the man Molly won't be dumping Ephram for. Every one good now? Good let's move on."

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  The four men surveyed the different tractors, looking at them closely with a cup of lemonade in their hands.

  After he was done, Ephram turned to Harrison and offered his hand. "Before this starts, I'd just like to thank you for taking this time out of your very important lazy day to be humiliated. It's means a lot, thank you."

  Harrison smirked with a nod. "We'll just see who gets humiliated."

  "Yes, yes I suppose we will."

  Dan leaned over to Josiah as he stared at the other two men. "So what's going on between them that has them competing?" He asked.

  Josiah pointed to the auburn haired woman, smiling at something her friend was saying. With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, he said, "Over her."

  "Uh...Molly's her name, right? What's so special to them with her?"

  "Ephram is dating her, Harrison's her best friend that used to really disapprove of Ephram. But they sorted things out in a jail cell and lately, they've just been pretty much like this. It's a great improvement to my ears, at least."

  Dan smirked, taking a seat on his tractor and putting the key in to the ignition. "Well, are we going to start this or what?" He said to everyone, then looked back to Josiah. "Don't those two know that it's not good to delay trying to win the girl? You do it and get it over with so the winner can brag for that much longer."

  "You think that's what they're doing? Competing over Molly?"

  "What other twenty nine year old men do you know who take a Saturday out of their laid back routines so they can drag race lawnmowers? I just talked to Ephram two weeks ago and he said this plot of land wasn't a concern to him in the near future. I do believe he meant more than two weeks when he said near future. It's my judgment that this grass could be let along for a while longer without the council coming after him and I know I'm on the city council."

  Josiah grinned wickedly. "Well then, in that case, this indeed should be quite interesting..."

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  Dan was the first to finish his land plot, but neither Harrison or Ephram seemed to notice. Not much for a race that really didn't involve him much, Dan got off the tractor and pulled out the grill, starting to make steaks for the girls, who were sitting in lawn chairs and watching the progress.

  Half way through, Josiah grew tired and gave up, abandoning his tractor somewhere in the middle of his slightly over half an acre plot. His nose led him to Dan's side with a plate in his hand and eyeing up the cold lemonade.

  "It's not freaking worth it, man. I don't do this kind of work on Saturday mornings unless I'm getting heftily paid, let alone not doing it means free steaks."

  Marty laughed, pushing him out of line with her hip and showing her brother the empty plate in her hands. "Danny boy, serve me up one first like the good ol' days?" She asked in such a sweet tone, neither Molly or Josiah had ever heard it before. All for the price of great feeling that you got the first steak of the grill.

  Her batting eyelashes won her the goal and she was soon seated and feasting before everyone else.

  "Don't shove it down to fast, sis by the looks of it, those two will be at some kind of competition all day and I only have so many steaks."

  And hell if it wasn't true. They were sitting and eating, watching, reading magazines and they still weren't done. After they had both mowed their plots at equal speed, they went to see who could finish their half first of Josiah's plot.

  It took longer than one would imagine a race to take, and soon learned how boring this could be.

  In the meantime though, Dan told them stories of his childhood with Marty, as well as what's been happening lately to ease their boredom of watching two green tractors circle land plots.

  But at last, it did end, and the real race of going full tractor speed from one point to another was to begin. Originally, this was supposed to be for all four men, but Dan and Josiah had grown so lazy from being filled with good food and cold beer that they rather continue sitting in their chairs and comparing lifestyles.

  Luckily, Harrison and Ephram hardly cared. Molly got up to set up the start and ending lines while Marty inspected how exact their start points were to each other.

  And then the four moved their lawn chairs to the ending line a full acre away from the starting point and their beloved drink cooler that they had been getting so fondly attached to.

  But the race started, and despite their earlier boredom, this forced them to catch and hold their attention.

  It was close, nose to nose, all the way. But, it wasn't Harrison who was the winner, though he had been so sure. Molly grimaced, knowing this would not end friendly.

  Ephram grinned proudly over to his opponent with satisfactory and pride. "Again, I say thank you for putting time out of your day to humiliate yourself in public." Was his first congratulatory words.

  Harrison pointed a stiff finger in Ephram's direction. "Do not start a hype war with me you will not win!"

  Ephram acted as if he was surprised, like he just realized he reigned victory over the tractor race. "And yet...I just won on the last thing you promised I wouldn't. No Harry, I don't think your worded threats have such impact upon anyone anymore."

  Harrison growled and Molly was surprised that he had let Ephram live with the nickname calling. In all the twenty five years Molly had known Harrison, only she and his mother have ever been permitted to call him Harry on occasion. Of course, there had been those pesky school kids that just liked to tease him, but she hadn't seen one that wasn't pummeled in to the cement.

  Molly sighed as she saw Harrison's temper start to bubble under his surface. "Come on guys, get off those and grab the last two remaining steaks and a few cold drinks to cool your competitive attitudes that boil under the hot sun."

  Harrison and Ephram looked at each other sheepishly for a moment before Ephram looked down at his girl friend, looking quite embarrassed and a faint blush. "Uh...I'm not sure if we can get off, let alone walk."

  The four did little to stop their laughter at the confession and instead of helping the sweaty, eager men, they walked away and talked about how they should decide who among them gets to eat the last two steaks.

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  Harrison and Molly sat in the stiff rocking chairs on the porch of their apartment building. It was a calm, cool night to end their long warm day and things, for once, were quite peaceful between the two friends.

  Silence was allowed to slip easily between them in a calming sensation as they stared up at the black sky. For a while, it was that silence that sufficed nicely, but it didn't last forever.

  Harrison switched his gaze from the diamond stars and over to his friend, with conflicting emotions mixing in his eyes.

  It took a moment to feel his intense, focused gaze, but once she had noticed it, Molly looked over and met his eyes.

  He swallowed with difficulty, searching her whole face as worry welled in his inner eyes. "Hey...we're...we're okay, right? I mean..." His voice trailed off. He meant that after all

  they had been through lately, he still wasn't sure but hoped to hell that he was right in his assessment.

  She smiled sweetly at him, the warmth spreading in to her eyes as she nodded to confirm his thoughts. "Yeah, we're okay, Red."

  He moved his chair closer to hers until he could comfortably wrap his arm around her shoulders. "Good." He said softly, returning his eyes to the full moon that illuminated al
l beneath it.

  Molly laid her head on his shoulder with a contented sigh.

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  Chapter 7 But Somehow, it's enough...

  "When did Molly say she and Marty would be home?" Josiah asked.

  Harrison unlocked the door and they both filed inside Marty's home, changing the location from meeting always at Molly's place. "She wasn't sure. They're going grocery shopping and then to the movie rental store, so there's no telling when they'll return."

  Josiah shrugged and slid in to a seat on the hot pink sofa, feeling just fine relaxing here in the meanwhile.

  Harrison wasn't so easily able to just sit while waiting for two girls for an unknown amount of time, let alone daring something of his body to be caught on something of that extreme color. Instead, he paced around, looking at pictures on side tables and gazing through books.

  All was quiet and fine until Josiah disappeared in the bathroom, then a few minutes later came back out with dripping wet hands and calling his friend's name.

  "What? Any trouble you go in to while in there, I don't want to know." Harrison said, putting up his hands and looking away.

  "I'm not the one in trouble...but Marty may be."

  Harrison squinted an eye, debating upon the idea of indulging on this fact or running away from it. But Josiah looked genuinely alarmed, and anything that could have Marty, or Molly in relation, in danger was worth at least a glance.

  Once the two were gathered in the bathroom, Josiah led them towards the sink and pointed down at the waste basket that was right beside it. Instantly, Harrison knew what had riled Josiah's senses on top of tissues and such, laid a pregnancy test.

  He was instantly sent in to a temporary shock at just the fact that Marty might need one. He was sent somewhere along the lines of wrinkling his nose in disgust at the thought and worried that no one has told him of any boyfriend's of Marty's lately another part of the girl's lives set apart from him? Usually they allowed him to be introduced to their guy before committing, comforted by his great ability to judge character. But then again..Molly hadn't let him meet Ephram for too long and was definitely dating him for a while before Harrison even set sights on the man.