Page 9 of The Followers

At her touch on his bare skin, Scott pulled away, the night air cool on the places his hands had been.

“We’d better get back,” he said.

Molly forced a laugh to cover her sinking embarrassment. “Lead the way.”

The next morning, they all packed up camp and put out the rafts to finish their trip. Scott spent the day in near-silence, giving terse commands to the women in his raft, not once looking at Molly. By midafternoon they had reached their final destination, loaded up Ayla’s car, and headed back to Denver.

Two weeks later, Molly had all but forgotten about him. It was a Friday evening, and she and Chloe were making homemade pizza and taking videos of the process to post. The doorbell rang, and Bitsy leaped up from her spot on the couch, barking. Molly dusted her flour-covered hands on her sunflower-print apron and went to the front door.

She froze when she saw Scott on the stoop. “What are you doing here?”

He shifted his weight, hands in his pockets. “I looked up your address in our records. I can’t stop thinking about you. But if you want me to go, I will.”

She didn’t know what to make of that. He almost seemed like he did want to go, as if he was engaging in some kind of internal struggle on her doorstep.

“Do you like pizza?” she asked, opening the door wider.

He stayed all weekend. The first night he fell asleep on her couch after talking until three in the morning. They discovered that they both loved old movie musicals (her favorite: My Fair Lady; his favorite: The Music Man), caramel popcorn (he made a giant bowl for them to share, using his grandmother’s recipe that he had memorized), and board games (especially Settlers of Catan). He was still quiet and reserved, just as he’d been on the river trip, but he slowly opened up and relaxed. She did, too; he made her feel so at ease that she felt completely comfortable hanging out in an old pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt from college. The second day they went to the Denver Zoo with Chloe, and she instantly adored this big, gentle man who lifted her onto his shoulders so she could see over the crowds at every animal enclosure. That night, he slept in Molly’s bed. She knew, even that early on, that she was falling hard.

A week later she drove the six hours down to Durango, and a week after he drove back to Denver to spend a few days with her. That turned into a year of back-and-forth drives, long-distance phone calls, introducing their girls and dogs to each other, and finally, finally, a marriage proposal, an engagement ring, and a simple wedding one month ago at the Durango courthouse with their daughters present. Both of them had been married before, so they wanted to keep it focused on the family they were starting.

Now Molly was here, in the kitchen of their new home, watching as her husband returned from his shower. He was carrying Chloe on his back, her favorite tiara falling into her face as he galloped her around the room. His hair was wet, his face freshly shaven. Anticipation rushed through Molly at the thought of what they would be doing as soon as the girls went to sleep.

Scott set Chloe on the ground, and she attached herself to his leg like a baby koala. “How was your day?” he asked Molly.

She told him about the live—he listened attentively, nodding and hmmm-ing in all the right places—and then she told them about going to the park with Chloe. “And guess what? I made a new friend there,” she said.

“You’ve lived here less than a month and you already know more people than I do,” Scott said, smiling.

“Because I talk to people,” Molly said, teasing him. “I introduce myself, I make conversation. It’s called being sociable.”

“I are sociable,” Chloe repeated in a prim voice.

“Yes, you certainly are,” Molly said. So sociable she had run right into that poor woman at the park.

“Tell me about your new friend.” Scott grabbed the plate of raw chicken and headed out to the back patio. Molly followed, letting the screen door shut behind her after the dogs darted through and started wrestling on the lawn.

The backyard was one of Molly’s favorite things about the house, with two massive red-leaf maples shading the grass and a disheveled stone patio that would be perfect for entertaining once she applied a bit of love and elbow grease. And found the aforementioned friends.

“She’s from California,” she said. “And she’s new here, too. Her name is Liv.”

Liv had seemed a few years younger than Molly’s own thirty-one years. Small and fragile-looking, with dark hair in a pixie cut. But what had caught Molly’s attention were her dark eyes, large and intense in her pale face. Those eyes had followed Molly while she pushed Chloe on the swing, talking to as many people as possible, trying to cover up the discomfort she felt at Liv’s pointed stare. She assumed Liv had recognized her, and that Liv had been feeling as isolated as Molly had since moving here. Maybe she wanted to connect with someone who felt familiar. Molly had learned over the years that her followers felt like they truly knew her, which was disorienting because Molly didn’t know any of them. But she often wished she could.

“I should’ve invited her to the party,” she said.

Scott smiled at her over the top of the grill. “You want to invite her to the birthday party? You hardly know her.”

“It’s my birs-day party,” Chloe chimed in.

“I know, sweetie.” Molly brushed a strand of hair out of Chloe’s face. “But the more the merrier, right? Oh, and she’s a Swiftie, Scott! We bonded over it.”

“Ah,” Scott said, nodding like it all made sense now. “Well then you obviously need to invite her. Are you sure you’re okay with me not being there, though?” His forehead wrinkled as he flipped over a chicken breast. “I still feel bad about missing it.”

“Don’t. It’ll be a bunch of girls running around shrieking, eating too much sugar, and sprinkling glitter all over the house and backyard. You’ll be back the next day and we’ll have our own celebration.”

Scott would be guiding a three-day river rafting trip—he did one every weekend, all summer. Molly figured the party would give her, Chloe, and Ella something to do together while he was gone, and an opportunity to make friends here. Despite her popularity online—or maybe because of it—Molly didn’t have tons of real-life friends, aside from a few mom-friends from Chloe’s preschool and a network of fellow influencers back in Denver. She’d always dreamed of creating a true village, though, and what better place to do it than a small town like Durango? She’d invited twenty-five girls and their mothers, and they’d all RSVPed yes, which was exciting but also nerve-wracking. The party needed to be beautiful enough to post on Instagram, but not so over-the-top that it made her guests uncomfortable. She wouldn’t post any pictures of the guests—she’d learned that it was safer to not include other people on her social media—but her followers would want to see the decorations and the food, enough to feel part of it.

Ella walked through the gate into the backyard, and Scott glanced up, said, “Hey, there’s my girl,” and pulled her into a hug.

---