Page 55 of Pity Present
“Uh-huh.”
“If I had a girlfriend, why would I be here?”
“I don’t know, Blake, why would you?” My voice sounds muffled from the ice bag currently sitting on my face. I continue, “You seem more interested in asking people questions than you are in romance.”
I can almost see the hamster wheel turning in his head. “Howwill I know if I want to be romantic with someone if I don’t ask them questions?”
Removing the towel full of ice, I lower my chin and stare directly into his eyes. “You ask Thor and Kyle a lot of questions. Do you think you’ve ruled out wanting to date them?”
“I’m not gay, Molly,” he tells me, “I just like getting to know people.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That I’m not gay?” He sounds borderline offended.
“I don’t believe you’re here looking for a girlfriend.”
A dozen different emotions cross his face before he settles on what I’m sure he thinks is a look of innocence. “Think what you want.”
“Oh, I will,” I tell him, “and I think you’re lying to me and everyone else here.”
He shrugs in such a way that I know I’ve hit the nail on the head.
At this point, I have nothing to lose, so I ask, “Who’s Gillian, Blake?”
His shocked expression tells me all I need to know. Blake is otherwise engaged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BLAKE
Thor was right, I do have feelings for Molly, and I would like to ask her out. I just can’t do that while I’m pretending to be just another single person on the prowl. I will not start something with her based on a lie.
After several long moments where I try to figure out the best way to proceed given my need for anonymity, I finally sit down in the chair next to Molly and blurt out the truth—or a portion of it anyway. “Gillian is my boss.”
“Your boss,” she repeats like I just declared that she was my pet iguana. Talk about irony. I finally come clean about something, and she doesn’t believe me.
“Yes,” I tell her. “Gillian is my boss. She’s the reason I moved home to Chicago.”
“Because you’re dating her …”
Shaking my head, I say, “She recruited me.”
“To make coffee.”
“I do more than make coffee,” I tell Molly.Borderline truth.
“What, you make the scones, too?” Her tone is heavily laden with disdain.
“I … um … rather …”
“Just tell me, Blake.”
I cross my fingers behind my back like I did in grade school before I was about to tell a whopper. I know there’s no scientific evidence this will have a positive effect, but at the moment I’m willing to try anything to lessen the reverberations of telling so many lies. “I’m going to spearhead some singles’ get-togethers at the coffee shop and Gillian wanted me to come up here and get some ideas.”
Molly rolls her eyes. “Your boss paid for you to come here to discover what you could learn from watching any romcom on Netflix?”
“I don’t think she wants the Hollywood version of what dating events are like,” I tell her. “She wants firsthand knowledge about what’s going on in people’s heads. That’s why I’m talking to everyone.”
