“Yes.” She nodded vehemently.
“Dripping.” He shivered. “Hate that word. It means things are about to get sticky or dirty.”
“You don’t like dirty drip?—”
“Nuh-uh.” He shook his head. “If I can’t say the M-word, you can’t say the D-word.” He lifted a shoulder.
Molly grinned like he’d never seen before. Actually, Persona-Molly was pretty fun. Too fun.
“Perhaps we should ask Charlie and Agnes what their least favorite words are. Give us a little more insight into them as a couple?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Eyes unnaturally large, Molly nodded. “Because this has given us so much insight into our relationship.”
“Are you going to text them or am I?”
“Agnes doesn’t text. But I can e-mail her?” Molly tapped out a message on her cell.
“Don’t mind us.” Gavin gestured from himself to the camera and back to himself. “We’ll just wait here while you find out.”
Molly filled the silence by singing a little ditty that sounded like game show music but mostly consisted of the words “Insight is good,” while they waited for a response.
He glanced at the laptop camera and said, “I’d bet one of Molly’s spicy cinnamon rolls that Charlie’s least favorite word starts with a B and ends with I-N-G-O.” Look at him, being punny. Dad jokes: always a good filler.
Molly’s phone chimed. She glanced to the screen and said, “Agnes says don’t bother them during her programs.”
“Do you think that’s code for something else?”
“Like the D-word?” Molly asked.
“Don’t even joke about that or I’ll use the M-word.” He had to put his foot down somehow.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Is that a dare?” he asked.
She did the fish thing again before collecting herself back together to say, “Maybe we should call this finished and go have dinner.”
“I’m game.” Gavin stretched his arms like he was a
teenager at a movie theater making the moves on the girl next to him. That girl being Molly. The ultimate M-word.
She scooted closer to him like she actually liked the contact.
“How do you feel about pulled pork for dinner?” she asked.
Funny thing, he liked the contact, too. But for him, it wasn’t for the show.
“Pulled pork?” he asked, like he was thinking a little too hard about it. “When it’s done well, it can be very appealing.”
“I know, right?” Molly nodded enthusiastically. “Do you like to pull your own pork or do you prefer to have a professional do it?” She paused, letting that sentence—a sentence he could’ve lived his whole life without hearing—seep in.
“A professional? What kind of professional pulls my pork for me?” he finally asked because the length of silence got a tad uncomfortable.
“A chef at a restaurant,” she replied as though this were, of course, what she’d meant.
He knew this wasn’t what she’d meant.
Molly had been flirting. With him. And he liked it.
