"Well I hope you get it, girl. You deserve it."
I hope I get it too.
Waiting for Dakota to come and pick me up is the most nerve-wracking thing I have ever done. Even when I was a teenager waiting for my date to come get me and knowing they'd have to face my Dad and brother, wasn't this bad. Lucy is one of the most observant people I know, and there's just something niggling at the back of my mind that tells me she's going to know. She's going to see us together, and put two and two together.
When the headlights pull into my driveway, I hop up as if my ass is on fire, more nervous than I should be. Will he come to my front door? Do I meet him out by his truck? I'm trying to decide what I should do as I'm pulling my crossbody bag on and there's a knock. Guess that answers my question.
I close my eyes, lick my lips, and inhale deeply, before letting the breath out.
Then I open the door, and every single thought I just had evaporates, because Dakota is standing on my front porch with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, and he is looking at me the way that men in movies look at women. Like I'm the only thing in his line of sight and everything else around me has gone soft and blurry.
His eyes start at the top and work their way down, slow enough that I feel it like a physical thing, and when they come back up to meet mine, the corner of his mouth pulls up. "Damn, Molly."
"Is that a good damn or a bad damn?"
"That is a you are so fucking hot that I'm genuinely annoyed about it right now kind of damn." He rocks back on his heels, that grin spreading wider. "You look good, Pretty Girl. Real good."
The heat that crawls up the back of my neck is embarrassing, given the fact that this man has seen me in considerably less than a sweater and jeans, but something about the way he looks at me when I'm fully dressed causes my pulse to spike. Like he's cataloguing me. Like he's saving it somewhere to use later when he’s alone. "Don't make it weird," I tell him, stepping out and pulling the door shut behind me.
"I'm not making it weird, I'm being honest." He doesn't move back when I step forward, so I end up closer to him than I intended, close enough that I can smell whatever soap he used and the cold January air that's still caught in the fabric of his jacket. "You curled your hair."
"I did."
"I like it."
"You like everything," I tell him, rolling my eyes.
"Only when it comes to you." He says it easy, like it's nothing, like it isn't the kind of thing that could absolutely unravel me if I let it, and then he steps back and nods toward the truck. "Come on, Lucy's waiting."
I follow him out to the driveway, and that's when I see that Lucy is not alone in the back seat. There's a boy next to her, dark-haired and lanky like someone who hasn’t grown into himself. He's got the expression on his face that tells me he is extremely aware that he is sitting next to a girl he likes and her older brother is the one driving. I feel for him immediately, giggling under my breath.
Dakota opens the passenger door for me, which he does so casually that I almost miss it, and I climb in before glancing back at the two of them.
"Molly!" Lucy's face lights up the same way it always does when she sees me. It always makes me happy, because I’ve known this girl since she was small enough that I could carry her on my hip, and watching her turn into the person she is now is one of my favorite things. "You look so good. I love your hair like that."
"Thank you, girlie." I turn a little more in the seat so I can look at her properly. "Who's your friend?"
"This is Bryan." She says his name with the whimsy of a teenage girl who wants you to know this name is special. "Bryan, this is Molly. She's basically my older sister."
Bryan gives me a wave, his face red in the glow of the lights. "Hey."
"Hey, Bryan." I give him a smile that I hope reads as non-threatening, because the poor kid looks like he's being evaluated from all directions, which he of course is. "Nice to meet you."
Dakota gets in on his side and pulls out of the driveway, and for a minute the cab is quiet as we all kind of try to figure out our place here.
Then Lucy says, completely out of nowhere, "Molly, I just want you to know that I think you are so beautiful, and I think you and Dakota should date."
I stare straight ahead through the windshield.
Dakota makes a noise in his throat that sounds like it's caught somewhere between a laugh and a cough.
"Luce," he says.
"What? I'm just saying. You're both single, you're always around each other anyway, and she's the most beautiful woman in Laurel Springs who also actually likes you as a person." She says it with the complete confidence of someone who has not yet learned that there are things you simply do not say out loud in front of the subjects of the conversation.
"We're friends," Dakota says, and his voice is even, but I can see from the corner of my eye that his jaw has gone just slightly tight.
"Friends," Lucy repeats, in a tone that communicates exactly how much stock she is putting in that word. "Okay. I'm just saying that my friends don't look at me the way you look at her."