Craving Molly

by Nicole Jacquelyn

  “Women like that,” Cam called out, shaking his head. “They don’t keep their mouths shut.”

  “I’m not tellin’ her shit.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cam said in frustration as I climbed on my bike. “She’ll know shit anyway.”

  I didn’t reply as I fired up my bike. Molly didn’t know anything. Most old ladies didn’t know much, but Molly knew close to nothing. She saw my cut, knew I was an Ace, but that was the extent of it. She didn’t want to hear about the club, had no interest in going anywhere near it.

  I pulled out of the gates and headed for Molly’s place without conscious thought. I’d barely been home since we started hanging out again. I mostly just stopped by to grab clean clothes and make sure no one had broken in. It wasn’t in the best part of town, but the neighbors were pretty cool. They stayed out of my business as long as I stayed out of theirs.

  Shit, I wasn’t sure what the fuck to do about Molly. I wanted her badly, and there was something about her that just kept me coming back for more. She wasn’t someone I’d normally go for, wasn’t classically beautiful or built. She didn’t show off her body.

  But fuck, when I got her naked, it was like every holiday rolled into one, and when we were fully dressed and just hanging out, she made me laugh. She was so goddamn sweet. She took good care of her kid and never lost her patience, at least with Rebel. Even when we were arguing, I wanted her.

  I knocked on her front door and waited less than a minute for her to unlock it and let me in.

  “I thought you had to work,” she said in embarrassment, smoothing back her messy hair as I went inside.

  She was wearing an ugly set of flannel pajamas that had reindeer all over them, and a pair of thick, fuzzy socks. Rebel came waddling over as I began to smile, and I laughed a little. The baby was in nothing but a t-shirt and a diaper, but she had a pair of Molly’s socks pulled all the way up her thighs and a stocking cap pulled down almost covering her eyes.

  “Did I interrupt?” I asked, looking back at Molly as Reb came closer and raised her arms so I would pick her up.

  “It’s a lazy day,” Molly answered, crossing her arms over her chest before laughing and dropping them back down. “God, you had to show up today, didn’t you?”

  “Didn’t want to miss the lazy day.” I leaned down, still smiling, and kissed her.

  “You didn’t know it was lazy day,” Molly replied against my mouth.

  “What do you do on lazy day?” I asked as I pulled back.

  “We watch TV,” Molly answered, turning to walk farther into the living room. “And we cuddle up in the blankets and lay around.”

  “Reb lays around?”

  “Well, she doesn’t really appreciate lazy day,” she said seriously. “But she plays in here and lets me be lazy.”

  I looked around the room and scoffed. The comforter and a pillow from Molly’s bed were bunched up on the couch, a mug of something was on the corner of the coffee table, and toys were spread out all over the room. There was Play-Doh on the table, stuffed animals lined up in front of the TV, the pieces of some sort of board game tucked into the windowsill. Shit was everywhere.

  “You made a mess,” I told Reb, fixing her crooked glasses. She nodded in reply, her little face serious.

  “It’s okay,” Molly said, climbing back into her nest of blankets on the couch. “It’s lazy day—I’ll clean it all up later.”

  See? That shit right there. It fucking got to me. She didn’t give a shit that her kid was tearing apart the house. As long as she was having fun and wasn’t getting hurt, Molly was totally relaxed.

  “Let’s clean up a bit, yeah?” I said softly to Rebel, setting her down on the floor and getting down on my knees so we were at the same level.

  “Can you help me put the Play-Doh back in the containers?” I asked, reaching for the clay. “Where’s the blue container?”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Molly said, pushing her blankets off her lap.

  “Lay back down, sugar,” I ordered, making her scrunch her nose at me. “We got this—no, that’s orange, baby girl.”

  I helped Rebel find the blue container and we cleaned up most of the mess on the table. That shit was irritating as fuck, because the minute you stuck two colors together, there was no separating it again. Most of Rebel’s Play-Doh was a mix of colors that we ended up just stuffing into any container we found.

  I threw Reb’s stuffed animals into a laundry basket, then wiped down the table and put the Play-Doh on top of Molly’s fridge. I didn’t want to deal with that shit again. When I went back into the living room, Rebel was curled up on Molly’s lap, and the only part of her visible was her little face.

  “Room for me?” I asked as Molly put some kids movie on the TV.

  “Come on in,” she said with a grin, lifting one side of the blankets.

  I shrugged off my cut, laying it over a chair, then kicked off my boots before sitting down next to her. Rebel’s little knee dug into my groin as she crawled into my lap, and I huffed out a laugh at the scowl on Molly’s face.

  “Women can’t resist me,” I told her, laughing harder when she elbowed me in the side.

  We sat there quietly for a few minutes watching the opening credits of the cartoon, but before anything exciting happened on the TV, Rebel was sliding sideways off my lap. She’d fallen asleep sitting straight up. I caught her before she went far, and scooped her up in my arm like a newborn, her little feet dangling as I pulled her glasses off and set them on the table. When I turned to check if Molly had seen that Reb was asleep, I found her the same way, her head resting on the back of the couch.

  The lack of sleep was catching up to both of them.

  I carried Rebel into her room and lay her gently in her bed, pulling her blanket up around her shoulders. I didn’t want her to be cold since she wasn’t wearing any pants, but I didn’t see any other blankets in her room, so I grabbed a clean towel off the top of her dresser and laid that on top of her blanket.

  When I was sure she wasn’t going to wake up, I left the room, feeling pretty fucking proud of myself that I’d put the baby down for a nap. Well, I guessed she was technically a toddler, right? Didn’t matter. She still seemed like a baby to me. Normally, Molly dealt with anything to do with Rebel. She did all the diapers and getting her things to eat, and getting out of bed at night when Reb woke up.

  It made sense. She was Rebel’s mom, and I was just a guy that was hanging around. But it still made me feel like an asshole when we both woke up at night and only Molly got out of bed to get Rebel back to sleep. The kid wasn’t mine—but it felt wrong to not help out.

  “Where’s Reb?” Molly asked blearily as I sat back down next to her on the couch.

  “She fell asleep,” I replied as I pulled her against my side. “I put her in the crib.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled against my ribs. “I’m so fucking tired.”

  Her breathing slowed as her body leaned more heavily into mine. God, she was cute as hell. Her hair was a rat’s nest, and she hadn’t even tried to straighten it up while I was helping Rebel clean up her mess. She’d just left it that way, like she couldn’t be bothered to fix it. I pulled her body up and stretched out, situating Molly between me and the back of the couch. I pulled off her glasses and leaning over as far as I could without waking her up, I dropped them on the coffee table and snagged the remote to turn the volume up a little so I could finish watching the movie.

  At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up later to Molly scrambling off the couch and Rebel yelling in her room.

  “I thought she didn’t—” the rest of my words were muffled under Molly’s hand as her eyes filled up with tears.

  “Just let me listen,” she whispered, going completely still with her hand covering my mouth.

  “Mama!” Rebel yelled loudly. “Mama!”

  It wasn’t the babble that we usually heard, and she wasn’t just talking to herself. Rebel was actually calling for
Molly by name.

  Molly’s lips trembled and she gave a little laugh, lifting her hand off my face.

  “I waited a long time for that,” she said softly. Then she practically skipped down the hallway to Rebel’s room.

  I sat up and scrubbed my hands down my face. She had waited a long time. Rebel was almost two, she was walking and getting into shit on a daily basis, but she hadn’t said her first word until five minutes earlier. It was a big deal.

  My chest felt tight as I rolled up Molly’s comforter and set it on top of her pillow. I’d heard the baby girl’s first word. And she hadn’t been messing around, either—you could tell by her tone that she was pissed. She’d probably been in there awake for a while, but we hadn’t heard her pounding on the side of the crib because the baby monitor was in Molly’s room across the house. I grinned.

  I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to tell everyone.

  “Look who’s awake,” Molly said brightly as she carried Rebel into the room wrapped in the towel I’d tucked her in with. “And she’s got a new blankie.”

  “She didn’t seem warm enough,” I mumbled, coughing a little. “I wasn’t sure where the extra blankets were.”

  “So you used a towel?” Molly teased, reaching down to get Reb’s glasses off the table.

  “Worked, didn’t it?” I smiled smugly when Reb reached for me, almost falling from Molly’s arms before I caught her.

  “Who’s that, Rebel?” I asked, pointing to Molly as Reb leaned her head against my chest.

  “Mama.” She said it like she’d always been saying it, like it wasn’t a new thing she’d picked up. Like Molly wasn’t watching her in wonder.

  “What’s my name?” I asked.

  Nothing.

  Molly laughed. “Nice try.”

  “Can’t fault a man for trying,” I joked.

  I rubbed Rebel’s back as she sat quietly in my lap. She felt good there, her little body completely relaxed against mine. Her hair was curly and matted in the back where she’d rubbed it against her sheets, and she was still wearing Molly’s socks pulled up past her knees. She barely weighed anything.

  Molly grabbed her pillow and comforter and carried them into her bedroom. Between the nap and Rebel’s first word, she was practically dancing.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked as she came back in the room.

  “How about I take you out?”

  “Out?”

  “A restaurant? You know, where they cook your food and clean up after you,” I replied as Rebel sat up and started climbing off my lap.

  “I have to get dressed,” Molly hedged.

  “You should probably at least put a bra on.”

  “I didn’t think you noticed.”

  “Sugar, I always notice your tits.”

  “You’re going to have to be more careful,” Molly admonished, her eyes widening. “She’s saying words now.”

  The look on her face was pure happiness. I don’t think she would have cared if tits was the next word Reb picked up, as long as she was talking.

  “I’ll watch my mouth.”

  “No, you won’t,” Molly replied dryly.

  “No,” I agreed. “I won’t.”

  Reb chose that moment to smack the coffee table hard with a plastic boat she’d found on the floor.

  “I’ll get her dressed,” I said nonchalantly, getting to my feet.

  I was testing the waters. Molly didn’t seem to have any issue with me being around Rebel—holding her and helping her eat sometimes. But we were new—we weren’t yet in a place where I helped out. I wanted to be.

  Fuck, after the last few minutes, I wanted all of it.

  “Are you sure?” Molly asked nervously, glancing down at Rebel.

  “Sure.” I leaned down and kissed her softly. “Go get dressed.”

  “It’s cold outside, so make sure she’s in pants and a sweater,” she said quickly. “And her socks are in the top drawer. The long socks—all the short ones are cute, but they fall down her heel and it drives her crazy.”

  “No problem,” I replied with a nod.

  “And the far right side of her closet has all of the clothes that are too big still, so don’t use those.”

  “Okay.”

  “And she needs a t-shirt under the sweater—one of the ones that snap shut at the bottom. That way her little belly doesn’t get cold. And—”

  “Moll,” I cut in, physically turning her toward her bedroom. “I got it. I fuck up and you can change her, yeah?”

  “Okay.” She nodded then raced for her room, probably so she could try and finish getting ready before I was done getting Rebel ready.

  “You want to go get some lunch?” I asked Rebel, picking her up off the floor.

  She signed eat, nodding like a little bobble-head.

  “Okay, lets get you some pants, then.” I carried her into her bedroom and set her down on the floor. “You can’t go out when you don’t have clothes on,” I told her as I grabbed some long socks out of her dresser. “Remember that when you get older. Not only would you be cold, but I’m never letting you out of the house without pants—so don’t even try it.”

  Reb watched me with a smile as I grabbed some little purple pants and a sweater that matched out of her dresser.

  “Some day, your feet are going to fit in these socks,” I informed her as I sat her down and pulled Molly’s socks off her legs. “Then we’ll have to find you some super long ones so you can pull them way up your legs. Bet you could use mine when the time comes, I’ve got pretty big feet.”

  I took off her glasses and set them aside before pulling off the little shirt she was wearing and putting a little white one right back on, snapping it in place. I didn’t want her to get cold. Shit, maybe I needed to talk to Molly about turning her furnace up.

  “You need a Harley shirt,” I informed Rebel as I pulled her little pants up and over her diaper. “Or a sweatshirt, since it’s getting cold out. You want me to get you one?”

  She smiled, her eyes unfocused without her glasses.

  “Okay, sweater on,” I said as I pulled the little penguin sweater over her head. “There, now we can put your specs back on. How’s that? Should we go show Mama how good we did?”

  “Mama,” Rebel said loudly.

  “I’m right here,” Molly said from the doorway, fully dressed in some jeans and a sweater that just barely hung off one shoulder.

  I wondered if she’d been watching me the whole time.

  “How’d I do, coach?” I asked, getting up off the floor as Reb climbed to her feet and hurried toward Molly.

  “You did good,” Molly murmured, giving me a soft smile as she bent over to pick up Rebel. “Rebel, my love, we need to do something with that hair.”

  Rebel scrunched up her shoulders and shook her head slowly, making me laugh. Every time her head moved, little flyaway curls that were sticking up from the top of her head weaved back and forth.

  “Quick ponytail,” Molly said seriously, nodding her head.

  They left me standing in the middle of Rebel’s room with a smile on my face.

  Chapter 9

  Molly

  “I think I need to take her to the doctor,” I told Will groggily a few weeks after Reb started calling me Mama. I stumbled out of bed for the second time that night. “This can’t be normal.”

  “Mama!” Reb yelled, the sound blaring through the baby monitor in my room. “Mama!”

  “I can’t believe she’s awake again,” Will rasped, sitting up as he rubbed at the scraggly beard on his face. He hadn’t trimmed it in a while, and he was beginning to look like a doomsday prepper, complete with bloodshot eyes and a perpetual scowl on his face. We’d been spending every night together for weeks, and we both usually woke up the next morning feeling like crap because we’d barely gotten any sleep.

  I glanced at the clock as I stumbled out of the room, noticing that it had been only an hour since I’d gotten Rebel to sleep the last time she’d woken up. I couldn
’t decide if her sleeping habits were getting worse, or if it just seemed like they were because I was so freaking tired.

  “Why are you awake again?” I whispered to Rebel as I walked into her room to find her standing up in her crib. “It’s time to be asleep, boo.”

  “Mama,” she replied¸ her tired eyes brightening as I reached for her and lifted her into my arms. Her head immediately went to my shoulder as I cuddled her against my chest. She was exhausted, and I couldn’t understand why she was having such a hard time sleeping.

  “Want me to sing the bedtime song?” I asked softly. She nodded her head against the side of my neck, so I started singing “Ten in the Bed,” closing my eyes as I swayed from side to side. When I finished the song, her body was relaxed against mine, but when I went to lay her back down, her little fists gripped the t-shirt that I’d worn to bed.

  “Come on, baby,” I murmured, sighing. “You have to go back to sleep.”

  I was almost in tears as I started the song again. I was so exhausted.

  About halfway through the second verse of the song, I turned my head to see Will quietly walking into the room.

  “Come on, sugar,” he said, wrapping his arms around us from behind. “Just bring her to bed with us.”

  I had a rule that Rebel had to sleep in her own bed—I didn’t want her to get into a routine where she wouldn’t sleep in her crib—but at that moment, I was so tired that anything that would let me sleep sounded like a good idea. I let Will guide me back to my room, and I climbed into my bed still holding Rebel to my chest. As soon as I lay down, her little head popped up to see what was going on.

  “Time to sleep, baby girl,” Will said firmly as he lay down on the other side of the bed. He reached out as I rolled to the side and started rubbing Rebel’s back as I laid her on the bed between us.

  “Do you think this will work?” I whispered as Rebel pulled her knees up to press against my belly.

  “Willin’ to try anything at this point,” Will murmured back.

  I gave him a small smile and closed my eyes, falling asleep to the quiet sound of the callouses on Will’s hand scraping against Rebel’s pajama shirt and her warm breath against my chest.