He chuckled. Rolled with it.
“How’s that going for you?” she asked, because he was
still sitting there and she didn’t have anyone else to talk to. “The whole getting to know yourself thing?”
“Good. I’m enjoying my company. Enjoying my kids.
Trying out new hobbies.”
That all sounded very adult. Look at him, adulting. Adulting and watching all the kids all day, and now he was making small talk with her. In a tuxedo no less. Whew. It’s like he wasn’t even Gavin anymore.
She hadn’t realized the chilly mountain air had seeped into her skin until the warmth of his body so near hers made it disappear. Not in a normal Gavin-induced-rash way either. He smelled of oak and vanilla and a really heady male scent that made her want to sniff him real good.
What the hell?
She had never, not once in her entire existence, wanted to sniff Gavin Frank.
Throw him in a lake? Oh, lots of times.
Tell him to jump off a cliff? At least a dozen times. The sniff thing? Nope. Never.
Good thing they were both happy to be single together. “Welcome to Club Solo.” Molly tried to go with light,
but it actually sounded sort of sad the way it came out.
“So Dan’s pretty excited about Kaiya,” Gavin said. “He said you introduced them?”
She nodded. Fidgeted with the chilled green bottle of Perrier he’d brought for her. “Yup.”
He said nothing to that. She said nothing to that.
They both just sat there, saying nothing.
She could totally say nothing by herself. His presence was not required for that.
“I’d prefer to discuss your lack of date than mine,” Molly said, finally.
They sat in silence for a moment, but oddly, this time, it wasn’t uncomfortable silence. Just quiet. Watching the room together.
“Somebody once said that before a person is ready to commit, they should be comfortable being alone.” He grimaced a bit. “I’m trying that out.”
In that moment you could’ve knocked her over with a splash of club soda. Because the someone who said that was her. On her web show. About six months ago.
She was an idiot for giving that advice, and mostly it was to comfort herself and her lack of a committed relationship.
“You watch my show?”
“Oh, hey, it’s Molly,” he said in just the same way she did at the beginning of every episode. Not mocking her or anything, just clarifying that he’d seen the show.
The hinge of her jaw stopped doing its job and her mouth plopped right open.
Gavin seeing her show was reasonable on some level, because it was fairly popular. She made enough on ad revenue to pay her rent. Sometimes she’d even do appearances and speaking gigs for viewers who enjoyed her brand of advice.
Still… Gavin? Watching her show?
She couldn’t seem to make her tongue work.
And he’d taken her advice?
