Page 103 of Finding Him
Now’s not the time. Besides, I’m not trying to throw shapes into her on my Ma’s good furniture. Just a steamy shifting session like the one we had at the bakery.Thatwas nice, and I’d love whatever sequel she’s willing to give me.
It’s not long before her lips are on mine, and we’re shifting more comfortably on the cushions. Her hands keep shifting from my back to my biceps, and I make sure to move very slowly so as to not alarm her or anything.
Eventually, we’re horizontal, still kissing. I release her lips with a wet sound, trailing down her jaw and trying a few spots on her neck to see what she likes best.
One second, she’s sighing softly into my mouth as my lips reach hers again.
The next, she’s frozen.
My head is still doing its spinning thing, butterflies feeling like they’ve exploded in my lower stomach and flying all around us. So maybe that’s why I don’t notice right away, but once I do realize her lips aren’t moving back against mine, that the sounds she’s making are now sharp breaths in, I pull back.
Her eyes are blown wide and very clearly panic stricken, her whole face frozen in...fear?Her chest is heaving between us, like she can’t get enough air in.
“Molly?” My voice cracks with concern. She looks the way Finn always does when he’s having an asthma attack, except I don’t have an inhaler to quell this panic.
What did I do? What did Ido?
“Mols?” I say again when she doesn’t answer. I try to scramble off her, to put more distance between us, and I have to pry her white-knuckled fingers off my shirt. “Molly, I’m sorry. Here, here, sit up, love. Breathe, you need to breathe.”
She’s crying now, avoiding eye contact as she sits up on the couch, still breathing fast and uneven. She pulls her stockinged knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. I sit next to her—not too close—and wait, unsure of what to do or say?
Did I move too fast? Did I scare her? Was she just not into it and didn’t know how to say stop? Did I push her?
My mind is scrambling, my heart hammering away against my rib cage as I watch Molly curl into herself and cry silently. I feel sick, and my hands are shaking like I’ve done something wrong.
I have to have done something wrong.
“I’m sorry,” she finally whispers after a suspended silence. “I’m sorry.”
“No, Molly,I’msorry.” I want to touch her shoulder, or squeeze her hand, or pull her into a hug, but I don’t know if she’d recoil. “Was I going too fast for you? Because if you felt like you had to do something just because...”
She shakes her head. “No, no, I just... I just panicked. That’s all.”
That’s all?
“Do you need me to get you anything? Water?”
Molly shakes her head again.”No, I’m—I’m fine.”
She’s not fine. She’s very clearly NOT fine, and I don’t know what to do.
“Do you want me to drive you home?” I offer, because maybe she just wants out of this situation, out of my house. I wouldn’t blame her—I’d hate me too if I made someone panic like that.
Molly wipes at her cheeks, looking down at her lap, eyes fixed on the navy fabric of her skirt. “You want me to leave?”
“No,” I say quickly. “No, I just—I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay.”
She’s quiet again, for a long time, but when she finally looks up at me I sort of wish she hadn’t. Those pretty blue eyes—the ones I love so much, the ones thatIhad filled with fear and panic only seconds ago—were red-rimmed and wet with tears. The only solace is that she looks overall calmer now and is breathing normal.
“I... I don’t... I didn’t mean to—I mean, for a second my mind just—” the words come out jumbled together, and none of them make sense to me. I’m not even sure they’re making sense to her. She shakes her head, clearing her mind. “Maybe I do want some water.”
“Okay,” I say, glad to have a task, something to keep myself busy with something other than wracking my brain. “Water. Stay here.”
My knees are weak, but I manage to make it to the kitchen and fill a water glass without collapsing. But I’ve barely made it back to the sitting room when the front door bangs open.
At first I think Molly has left in a rush, but then I realize it’s Claire coming in. She tries to slam the door shut behind her, but someone’s hand—JJ—catches the wood at the last second and he shoves his way inside.
I pause outside the doorway to the sitting room, wondering if I huffed some paint this afternoon, because everything feels so impossibly strange right now.
