Not Pretending Anymore by Vi Keeland
CHAPTER 5
Declan
Julia and I sat in the empty conference room. We’d spent the morning practicing our pitch for a new campaign. We were taking a break, enjoying some coffee from the kitchen.
She stirred some cream into her cup. “Your roommate seems to like you.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I can just tell.”
“We’re friends, yup. We get along well.”
“Okay, but I mean I think she might like you more than you think.”
“Did you not hear her say she’s into that doctor from work?”
“Well, yeah, I mean, that’s what she says…but I think she also might like you. I mean, why wouldn’t she? You’re a catch.”
Well, well, well…
In all the time Julia and I had been friends and co-workers, she’d never come close to complimenting me like that. She’d also never exhibited anything that remotely resembled jealousy. Yet given the redness of her cheeks, if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought she was jealous. Well, I’ll be fucking damned. Maybe there was a chance for me after all.
“She also could have totally put her bra back on before she came home,” Julia added. “I think it was an excuse to flaunt her tits around you, to be honest.”
It was hard not to show my amusement.
I decided to push the envelope. “Well, she does have a nice figure. I’ll give her that.” I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe she is into me. You could be right.”
Then the craziest thing happened.
“What are you doing tonight?” Julia asked.
“No plans. Why?”
“When we’re done here, we should grab some dinner.”
Okay, then.
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
Julia almost never initiated hanging out with me outside of work. It was always me suggesting it. Holy shit. Maybe I was onto something. I’d been giving Molly advice on how to get Dr. Dickalicious to like her—by seeming disinterested. But maybe it was even more powerful to seem interested in someone else.
***
That night, I opened the refrigerator to find that my roommate had polished off the majority of the leftovers. Molly was lying on the couch reading when I decided to taunt her.
“You bad girl, Mollz. I see you couldn’t resist my risotto.”
She closed her book and sat up. “Actually, I could. But I chose not to. I was also curious as to what the punishment might be. How do I know if resisting your cuisine is worth it if I don’t know what the consequences are?”
I chuckled. I didn’t know what the consequences were myself.
“I’ll come up with something. The penalty will be posted on your door tonight.”
“Ah, something to look forward to. You said your grandmother taught you to cook? Is your mom a good cook, too?”
I wasn’t about to explain the complicated story of my family dynamic, or how my mother wasn’t always enough in her right mind to care for her kids. Instead, I shrugged. “Everyone took turns cooking in my house. But I mostly learned from my grandmother.” Opening a bottle of Gatorade, I changed the subject. “So, how is everything going? Did you hear anything from Hot Doc?”
“No. And unfortunately, I found out from my friend that Will got pretty cozy with Daisy again after I left the bar.”
“Yeah, but that’s only because you weren’t there.”
“I guess I’ll have a better gauge as to where things stand at work this week. He said he wanted to grab coffee. Let’s see if he pursues it.”
“Daffodil won’t stand a chance once you get in the game again.”
“Let’s hope.”
“So…something interesting happened on my end,” I began, eager to share my experience today.
“What?”
“Julia and I were working at the office, and she started randomly talking about you. I sensed a little jealousy.”
“Really? It’s funny you say that, because I thought I sensed the same last night. What did she say?”
“She said she thinks you like me.” I flashed a cocky grin. “I mean, we both know you do. But it was interesting that she picked up on it.” I winked. “I’m kidding. Well, not about her thinking you like me. The hint of jealousy I sensed from her got the wheels turning in my head.”
“About what?”
“It made me realize the only thing better than showing disinterest as a strategy might be the threat of someone else.”
“Interesting. Well, glad I could be of help.”
“Your nipples helped more than anything, I think. Thank them for me.”
Molly blushed. “Wait—she thinks I did that for you? But I told her about Will.”
“Yeah, but she said you could have put a bra on before you came home. She felt like you were flaunting them.”
“She thinks I’m a slut. Great. I didn’t think to put my bra on because I was coming straight home and thought you’d be out.”
“Well, you know that, and I know that, but she doesn’t. So, let her think it. Let her think I like looking at you, too. That may be what finally works.” And I do like looking at you, but that’s not the point here.
Later, after Molly had gone to sleep, I left a sticky note on her door.
That risotto got you in a quandary, because now you must do my laundry. I’ll have a basket ready by tomorrow evening. ;-)
***
Molly and I didn’t cross paths again until she called me from her shift the next day. I’d been in the middle of a late-night workout in my room and stopped to talk to her.
“What’s up, Mollz?”
“Seriously? Your laundry?”
I wiped my forehead with a towel. “I’m in the middle of pumping iron as we speak. Lots of sweatiness for you to wash.”
“Oh joy.”
“I’m excited because I bet you’ll color coordinate my underwear.” When she fell silent, I said, “Hey, I might as well milk it. Is that why you called? To complain about my punishment?”
“No, actually, I wanted to tell you something interesting.”
I took a swig of water. “I’m always up for that.”
“Remember when you were telling me Julia seemed jealous when she was talking about me?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I think you’re on to something. Will and I just had coffee together during our break. He asked me what was new, and I told him all about my new roommate. I started raving about you, as if you were God’s gift to women.”
“So it wasn’t much of a stretch. Okay. Go on.”
“Whatever.” She laughed. “Anyway…his mood seemed to change as I was going on about you. He seemed interested in our relationship.”
“Did he ask you out?”
“No. But I’m wondering if maybe he needs something to light a fire under his ass. Maybe I need to make him believe I am interested in you.”
I scratched my chin. This could work. Better yet…
“Maybe I could visit you at the hospital. If he saw me, he’d be even more threatened.”
“Conceited much?”
“Just trying to help.”
“Actually…” she said. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you come to the next happy hour?”
“I could totally swing that. But on one condition.”
“Why are there always conditions with you?”
“This one is only fair.”
“What is it?”
“You do the same for me. I haven’t figured out the logistics, but I want to make Julia jealous. I think we should pretend there’s something happening between us.”
After a brief pause, she said, “Okay, but we have to figure out what this entails.”
Wow.I was a little surprised she was going for it. She must be really hard up for Willy Dick.
“It entails whatever it takes to make the other person jealous,” I said. “If we’re supposed to be seeing each other, that means—”
“We have to, like, touch…and kiss?”
I chuckled at her reaction. “If you think that’s too much, we don’t have to. We can just seem really, really into each other in some bizarre way, like constant creepy staring and telepathic communication.”
She sighed. “No, I…think we should make it believable.”
Well, this is going to be fucking interesting.
***
I didn’t see Molly for the next few days. She worked her three, twelve-hour shifts, and our schedules didn’t align. But I knew today was her day off, so this afternoon I’d texted to ask if she’d be home for dinner and stopped at the grocery store after work to pick up some things I’d need to make one of my specialty dishes.
She came in and tried to peek over my shoulder as I was mixing ingredients in a bowl. I turned so she couldn’t get a look at what I was making.
“No looking before dinner’s ready,” I said.
She pouted, but I saw the smile beneath those full, downturned lips. “What if I don’t like what you’re making?”
“You’ll like it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m making it, and it seems you’ll eat whatever I cook.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get all full of yourself. I only stole your leftovers again yesterday because I was too lazy to go to the store and get cold cuts.”
I grinned. “It’s okay to admit you like my cooking, you know.”
Molly shook her head. “From the short time I’ve known you, I’m positive you don’t need anyone stroking your ego and making it bigger.”
“You’re right. I got something better than my ego that grows when you stroke it.” I winked.
She started to blush, but turned away so I wouldn’t see. I don’t know why, but I loved when she pinked up and tried to hide it.
“How long do I have before dinner is ready?” she asked.
“That depends…how long do you need?”
“Well, if we have fifteen minutes, I’m going to call my mom back before we eat. She called while I was a few blocks away, but I try not to talk on my phone and drive at the same time anymore. I had a little fender-bender a few months back. I’d been arguing with my credit card company about a charge that wasn’t mine and not really paying attention.”
“Take as long as you need.”
“Fifteen minutes should be good. If I’m still on, just loudly mention that dinner is ready. That’ll help me get off. My mom really likes to talk.”
I smiled. “You got it.” I actually only needed a few minutes to finish up what I was making, so I figured I’d wait until I heard her get off the phone to start again. But almost half an hour went by, and Molly still hadn’t come out of her room. So I knocked lightly. Maybe she hadn’t been exaggerating earlier and needed help getting off the phone.
“Hey, Moll? Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
Ten minutes later, she finally emerged from her room. I had two plates all ready on the kitchen table and was just about to tease her for making my dinner cold when I looked up and saw her face all red and blotchy. She’d definitely been crying.
I rubbed my breastbone. My chest felt like I had heartburn or something. “What’s going on? Is your mom okay?”
Molly sniffled a few times. “Yeah. She’s fine. It’s not my mom. It’s my dad.”
“What happened?”
“He’s sick. Apparently he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and the long-term prognosis is not good.”
“Shit, Moll. I’m sorry. Come here.” I pulled her into a hug. She started to cry again in my arms. Not knowing what to say or do, I just held her tight and kept petting her hair and telling her everything was going to be okay. Once she calmed down, I led her over to the couch.
“What can I get you?” I said. “Do you want a glass of wine, or water, maybe?”
“No, it’s fine. You made dinner, and it’s probably already getting cold.”
“Don’t worry about dinner. Tell me what you need.”
Her face was so red that it made the blue in her eyes really stand out. Mascara or some other kind of makeup streaked down one of her cheeks. I wiped it away with my thumb. “You want wine?”
She nodded. “I think I could really use a glass, yeah.”
In the kitchen, I poured two white wines and took the bottle with me when I went to sit next to her again. Passing her a glass, I said, “My dad had prostate cancer when I was a teenager. I was terrified and thought he wasn’t going to make it. But he pulled through. Medicine improves every day. Sometimes a bad prognosis can change.”
“I know. It’s just that my dad and I… We have a complicated relationship.”
I nodded. “I get it. My relationship with my mom isn’t simple, either.”
Molly sipped her wine while staring down at her feet, seeming lost in thought. I gave her some time to decide what she wanted to share with me. Eventually, she continued.
“When I was sixteen, my father left my mother. He’s a dermatologist, and he married his nurse barely a year after he walked out. Kayla, his wife, is only six years older than me. I think I took the breakup and his recoupling harder than my mother did.” She shook her head. “I was just so mad at him. He basically started a new life without us. The entire thing was so stereotypical and cliché. My mom had worked two jobs to help put him through med school. He paid her back by trading her in for a newer model a month before her fiftieth birthday—and his nurse, no less. I actually have a little sister who people think is my daughter.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry, Molly.”
“Thank you. Anyway, it’s been almost twelve years now. My mom is over it. She’s dating a really nice guy now. But I never let go of the grudge, and it’s really put a strain on my relationship with my dad over the years. He calls me every few weeks, but our conversations are like two strangers talking—How’s the job? How’s the weather? Any good vacations planned?”
“Does he live here in Chicago?”
She nodded. “He lives over in Lincoln Park.” She stayed quiet for a few minutes again, and then said, “I’ve wasted so many years harboring bad feelings over something that wasn’t even about me.”
“Well…” I took her almost-empty wine glass and refilled it. “The good thing about forgiveness is that it doesn’t have an expiration date. You can give it anytime.”
Molly forced a smile. “Thanks.”
“Is he in the hospital?”
She shook her head. “Apparently he had some tests done, and he’s starting chemo in a few days. He called my mom because he left me a message last week, and I haven’t gotten around to calling him back yet. Apparently neither did my older sister.”
“Does your sister live here in Chicago?”
“No, Lauren lives in London. She did a study abroad during her junior year in college and met a guy. Moved there to be with him the day she graduated. They’re both professors at a university, so she only comes back once a year to visit.”
I nodded. “How are you going to handle things? Will you call him or go over and see him?”
“I don’t know. I guess I should do both—call him back and then go speak to him in person. Though, to be honest, the thought of that makes me feel sick. It’s been a long time, and I’m not sure how to go about fixing things, especially now.”
“I’ll go with you, if you want.”
Molly blinked a few times. “You will?”
“Of course. You’re my roomie. I got your back.”
“I appreciate that. I really do. But it would probably be weird to bring along someone he’s never met before. I think I need to mend this fence on my own.”
I nodded. “Okay. Well, how about I drive you over to Lincoln Park when you go? I’ll park around the corner and wait for you. I can bring my laptop to do some work. That way you don’t have to drive if you get upset, and you’ll have someone to keep you calm on the way there.”
“That’s really generous of you. I know I’ll be too preoccupied to pay attention to the road. So I might take you up on that, if you mean it.”
“I do. And consider it done. You just let me know when, and I’ll be there.”
Molly smiled, and it felt like the hand clutching my heart had loosened its grip a little. “Thanks, Declan.”
She was quiet for a few minutes. “Did your parents have a messy divorce, too?” She tilted her head.
My forehead wrinkled, and Molly noticed.
“You said you have a complicated relationship with your mother,” she explained. “So I thought maybe you had a similar situation to mine.”
I shook my head. It was much easier to talk about my dad’s bout with cancer than my mom’s illness, especially these days. Plus, I’d finally lightened the mood a little. Molly didn’t need me bringing her down any more. So I tried to downplay what I’d said earlier. “Nah, just some family crap.” I stood. “Why don’t you finish your wine and relax for a bit? I’ll go get dinner ready. It’ll take me ten minutes to make a new batch.”
Molly looked over my shoulder toward the kitchen. “What did you make?”
“Belgian waffles with ice cream. Figured part of my job as your roomie was to help you break your aversion to morning foods at night. And I’ll tell you what—since you had a tough evening, this meal’s on me. You won’t even have to do my laundry or pick up my dry cleaning.”
She shook her head, but chuckled. “Thanks.”
I tossed the cold waffles and melted ice cream in the garbage and whipped up a fresh batch. It made me happy that Molly dug in and seemed to forget about her dad for a little while.
“So, how are things going with Julia?” she asked as we ate.
“Good, I guess. We had dinner after work the other night.”
“You went on a date?”
“Not really. We work together and travel a lot, so we often share meals together. But this time it felt sort of different.”
“Like how?”
“She complained about Bryant, her boyfriend, a lot. They’ve been together for almost a year, and she’s never done that before.”
“So she wants you to know there’s trouble in paradise?”
I shrugged. “I thought the timing was interesting. She suddenly lets me know for the first time that maybe things aren’t so great in her relationship, right after she suspects something might be going on between me and my hot roommate.” Right after I said it, I realized calling Molly hot might not be appropriate. I liked to tease her, but I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have called you that. I mean, obviously you’re beautiful, but I don’t want you to think I’m checking you out when you’re walking around the apartment or anything. It’s just the way I talk.”
The truth was, I did check Molly out when she wasn’t looking. It would be pretty damn hard not to. But she didn’t need to know that.
She smiled. “It’s fine.”
“Anyway, the timing could be a total coincidence. But I don’t think it is. How about you? How are things with you and the good doc? Anything new on that front?”
“Not really.”
“Well, maybe seeing us together will give him the push he needs, like it seems to have for Julia.”
Molly swept the last of her waffle around her plate, dipping it into the melted ice cream. “Why does it need to be such a game? If Will likes me, why would he only act on it if he thinks he might lose his opportunity? Same with Julia. The entire thing seems so immature. To be honest, I still can’t get over what I did the other night at the bar. Taking off my bra and pretending to spill water on myself to get a man’s attention? I’m twenty-seven, not seventeen. Looking back, even though it accomplished what I’d set out to do, I’m pretty mortified.”
I shook my head. “I think sometimes we’re all so busy looking for what’s out there that we miss something amazing right in front of us. Does it matter if jealousy or whatever makes us wake up, as long as it does?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess. Maybe that’s just the way life is—but it seems silly.”
It hit me that although Molly was talking about Will, she could have been talking about what went down with her mother and father. And it wasn’t lost on me that Will had the same occupation as her old man, and Molly and her stepmother were both nurses. I was no psychiatrist, but I sensed there might be some deep-rooted correlation.
I got up to put my plate in the sink. “When’s the next time you work with Dr. Hyperopia.”
Her nose scrunched up. “Hyperopia?”
“As opposed to myopia. It’s what you call someone who can see long distance, but not up close.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “I get it.” Molly took her plate to the sink and rinsed it. “He’s the on-call OB this Friday night. So if anyone goes into labor, I’ll probably see him then. It’s rare we go a night without the OB having to come in to deliver.”
“Why don’t I come pick you up for lunch, then?”
“Uh…because I work seven at night to seven in the morning. My lunch hour is at midnight.”
I shrugged. “So?”
“I’m not going to ask you to come to the hospital at that hour.”
“You didn’t ask. I offered.”
“I know…but…”
“It’s a date, Mollz.”
She sighed. “Okay, thank you. Let’s see if he’s even there.”
We cleaned up the rest of the kitchen together in silence, and then Molly said, “I think I’m going to call my mom back. If I don’t, she’ll worry all night about how upset I was when I hung up. I should probably also get in touch with my sister, though it’s pretty late in London now. Maybe I’ll wait until morning to call her.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“By the way, I haven’t had Belgian waffles and ice cream since I was a kid. It was delicious. Thanks for making me breakfast for dinner.”
“No problem. I’m going to go do some reading in my room for work. But if you want to talk after you hang up with your mom, you know where to find me.”
“Thank you.”
Molly poured herself another glass of wine and said goodnight before heading down the hallway to her room. She turned back as she got to her bedroom door, only to catch my eyes glued to her ass. I’d thought she was going to be pissed off, but instead she smirked.
“I guess you’re not afflicted with hyperopia?”
My lips curved to a grin. “Twenty-twenty vision. Thank God.”
“Goodnight, Dec. Thanks for everything. And I don’t just mean making me dinner.”
“Anytime. ’Night, Mollz.”
