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“What happened?”

“Well, it’s my own fault, really. I’d stressed how you and I were in a non-committed relationship, so Will took that to mean I was into doing casual.”

My heart sped up. “You mean he wants to be fuck buddies?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t say that point-blank. But he told me he’d never asked me out before because he didn’t think I was the type of woman to do a casual relationship. Basically, he decided to ask me out once he found out I was open to that type of thing. But the problem is, I’m really not a casual dater. The thought of being with someone who might also be sleeping with other women, especially Will, doesn’t appeal to me at all. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need a man to propose marriage or anything, but once I have feelings for someone, I’ve only ever been monogamous.”

My palms were sweaty. “So you two are…”

“No, we didn’t have sex on our first date.”

I felt a giant wave of relief. “I’m sorry, Moll. What are you going to do? Will you tell him how you feel?”

“I’m not sure I’ll actually need to say anything since he hasn’t asked me out a second time. I don’t think he’s interested in casually dating me, much less anything more.”

Was she blind? I shook my head. “Oh, he’s interested, alright. The dude practically had smoke puffing from his nose when he saw me standing next to you.”

“I don’t know about that…”

“Trust me, Moll. I know.”

Molly bit down on her lip. “I guess only time will tell.”

Yeah, but I’d bet my last dime it was going to come sooner rather than later. There was no way that guy wasn’t going to try to lock her down. He felt threatened.

I sucked back the remnants of my drink in one gulp, feeling like I needed a few more to take the edge off. “You want another wine?”

“I usually limit myself to two when I go out. But since you’re here with me, and I won’t be traveling home in the dark by myself, sure. Why not?”

After I got us another round, Emma came back from the ladies’ room. Molly introduced me to a few more of her friends, and we had some laughs. But throughout the evening, I caught Dr. Dick with his eyes on Molly at least a dozen times. At one point, he was talking to her co-worker Daisy. The woman was blatantly flirting with him, making as much body contact as she could and tossing her blond hair around. Molly looked over and saw it, too, and my heart clenched at the disappointment on her face. So I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. Apparently, Mr. Casual didn’t like that too much, because within a few minutes he was again by our side.

“I’m going to head out,” he said. “Do you have a minute, Molly?”

I had to give him credit; the guy had balls walking up and asking her to talk in private when I had my arm around her shoulder.

Molly looked over at me. I had the strongest urge to squeeze her closer and tell the jerk to take a hike, but instead I let her decide how to handle things.

“Umm…sure. Excuse me for a minute, will you, Declan?”

My heart sank. “Yeah…of course.” Reluctantly, I let go of her.

The two of them spent about fifteen minutes talking in the corner alone. During that time, I had two more drinks. Even though I talked with some of her co-workers, my eyes never wandered too far from Molly.

When she came back, she had a smile on her face. My smile wilted.

“So that was an interesting turn of events…” she said.

“What happened?”

“Will admitted that he was jealous seeing us together. He asked me to have dinner tomorrow night to talk.”

What a dick.

Yes, the plan had been to use jealousy to make our crushes notice that they might lose their chance. But something about this guy made me think it was less about losing his chance with Molly and more about winning a competition. But Molly seemed happy, so I didn’t want to piss on her parade.

“That’s great.” I looked around and didn’t see Dr. Dick. “Is he gone?”

“Yeah. He has an early morning tomorrow, so he left.”

“You don’t have to work tomorrow, right?”

“Nope. I’m off for three glorious days.”

I’d had a fair amount of drinks already, but I suddenly had the urge to get shitfaced. “What do you say we have a celebratory shot?”

“Oh boy… I’m sort of a lightweight.”

I winked. “That’s okay. I’m strong. I can carry your ass.”

***

“Do you have any rattoos?”

I dropped the key to our apartment on the floor a second time as we stood in front of the door. “Rattoos?”

Molly drunk snorted. “You said rattoos!”

I laughed. “I’m just repeating what you said. You said rattoos.”