Page 49 of Molly

“You’re serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious.”

“I’m not ready to go.”

I shrug in reply.

“You’re just going to leave me here to go and be with her? You spend all your fucking time with her, Ryan! What? I’m not important anymore?”

I roll my eyes.So fucking dramatic.“Jess, I’m leaving. If you want to stay, stay. You’re twenty-eight years old. I’m not your babysitter.”

“I hate that fucking bitch! She’s turned you into a completely different fucking person!”

It feels like the whole room goes silent. Everything else blurs, and all I see is red. I lean down, holding myself up with one arm on the back of the booth.“What did you just say?” I hiss. How fuckingdareshe.

“Ryan, you have to see how much you-”

“Stop.”

She looks up at me, her eyes full of unshed tears. The rose-coloured glasses slip off, and for the first time, I see her for who she really is. Beckett and Molly have been right this entire time. She hasn’t been struggling to fit in, she’s got a thing for me and I’ve been too fucking stupid to see it.

“Don’t call me. Don’t message me. Don’t come by the shop. From this moment on, you don’t exist to me. Do you understand? Molly is twice the woman you are. I tried. I really did. You moved down here, had no friends, and I tried to include you. But you’re a spiteful, jealous, manipulative bitch. This little crush you’ve obviously got needs to stop. I don’t want you, Jess. Never have. Never will.”

“You don’t mean that.”

I laugh in her face. Making sure she understands the meaning behind it.

“Truer words have never come out of my mouth.”

I stand up straight, turn around, and leave her sitting there, alone in the booth, crying. And for the first time since she got here, I feel like nothing is standing in the way of a future with my girl.

24

MOLLY

“You sure you’re good to go tonight, Mol? I know Jess makes your skin crawl,” Penny asks from behind me.

I look up in the mirror to see her standing in the doorway of her bathroom. She looks incredible; her hair is dead straight and so fucking shiny. Her makeup is perfect, completed by her smoky eye and red lipstick. She’s wearing skin-tight dark blue skinny jeans, black heels and a black DZ Deathrays t-shirt, tied in a knot just above her belly button.

“He doesn’t talk about her that much anymore. I don’t think they really see each other a lot, so it’s fine. All his free time has been spent with me, so I win,” I reply, sounding more confident about the matter than I feel.

She clears her throat and looks to the side before saying in a voice barely above a whisper, “She comes by Inked on Agnes a lot from what I’ve heard, Mol.”

I know that. Ryan’s told me she comes by for lunch occasionally. But how does she?

“Beckett tell you that, Pen?” I grin, trying to move the focus off me.

She rolls her eyes. “Yes. Shut up.”

“Pen, c’mon. Why won’t you talk to me about him?”

She sighs. “It’s not serious.”

“Then what is it?” I ask.

Her shoulders slump. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want it to be serious?”

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