Molly.
Man, I love this chick. She’s better than a Xanax any day of the week.
I sit up from the sink pipes I’ve been working on all day. This building is old. Some days it seems like I fix one thing and another breaks, and Ifeelthat shit. The symbolism. The irony. But none of it matters while Molly’s dancing in front of me. She’s so fuckin’ cute. In another life, I’d have dated the shit out of her. But she’s twenty-one and full of life, and I’m careening towards thirty with nothing but insomnia for company. “What’s cookin’, sweetheart?”
She grins. “You’re a charmer, Fletcher.”
“I try. You need me for something?”
“Just your pretty smile.”
“Now who’s the charmer?”
“I’m practicing,” Molly tells me seriously. “I have a date tonight, and I’m trying to flirt without blushing.”
“How’s that going for ya?”
“You tell me, hot stuff.”
She almost pulls it off. Then she giggles, the flush comes in hard, and we both laugh, because this chick is ditzy sunshine in a Moo U hockey jersey, and whoever lucked out to score a date with her had better give her the damn moon.
Molly’s laughter fades. “I came to tell you there’s a delivery here, actually. The flirting was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Delivery?” I eye the door. I’m not expecting anything else for the kitchen. Most of the equipment is already installed. It’s just the plumbing I’m wrestling with. Or maybe I’m stalling. I don’t know where life is gonna take me when the work at V&V is done, and I like it here.
“It’s a smoker,” Molly says.
“Barbecue?” That perks me up. I’ve spent nine hours a day in this kitchen for weeks now, and yet somehow, my fragmented mind still drifts through mealtimes like a maple leaf in a breeze. I forget I’m hungry till I’m pass-the-fuck-out ravenous.
“It’s not that big.” Molly peers back through the open door. “You’d never get a whole hog in there.”
Couldn’t swing a hog in this kitchen either, so I’m relieved about that. I scan the space, already redesigning the layout to fit whatever’s about to come through the door, but as it turns out, the mental effort is unnecessary. Molly disappears and comes back with a box that’s heavy enough to bend her slender arms, but barely big enough for a pork butt.
I take it off her and set it on the counter, kind of disappointed that Tanner isn’t morphing this place into a beer and ribs shack. I mean, I drink the wine he passes across the bar sometimes, because booze is booze is booze, but given the choice, I’d rather drown myself in Goldenpour. “Damn, that really isn’t big enough for a whole hog. What’s it for?”
“Ask the new guy.”
“What new guy?”
“Tanner found a chef.”
News to me, but I’ve been busy.Sobusy. Building the kitchen, avoiding my meds, and losing staring competitions with Tanner’s living room ceiling when I have a perfectly good bedroom in the apartment next door. Trying to stay sane is a full-time job.
You are sane. Just sick. Be kinder to yourself. It helps, I promise.
Tanner’s voice has been a constant in my brain for months now, even when he’s not in the room, and I love him for the brick wall of support he’s been since he scraped me from my own kitchen floor, but heck, I wish I didn’t need his semi-regular pep talks to survive.
A heavy sigh escapes me.
Molly slips her arm through mine. She doesn’t say anything, and I’m grateful, but the silence gets under my skin too. I drop a platonic kiss to her auburn curls and pull away. “Guess I should go meet this chef dude. Check I’ve put all this stuff in the right place.”
“He’s not here yet. Jax bought him the smoker as a gift for when he comes tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
“Maybe you should go see Tanner anyway, though.” Molly’s round-eyed stare intensifies, and I swallow another sigh big enough to turn my belly into a hot-air balloon. Lord only knows what my face is doing to make her say shit like that to me.
Me? I don’t want to know. I want a shower and an evening that doesn’t end in me creeping across the hall to sleep on my buddy’s couch because my empty apartment scares me.
