Page 26 of Bed and Breakup (Dial Delights #15)

Robin

“A small purple vanilla shake, a small PB&J shake, and…” I turn to Molly. “What flavor for the third, Moll?”

Molly scans the menu. “A small butterscotch caramel, please.”

I frown at her. “Are you ordering that one because it’s my favorite?”

“Not just because of that.”

“I’m supposed to be treating you,” I say.

“And I can’t drink three milkshakes by myself. So if we’re sharing, it might as well be something you love,” Molly says, her mind clearly made up. “Besides, I like butterscotch too. My grandma always ordered it.”

“Fine.” I turn back to the server. “And a small butterscotch caramel milkshake.”

“Anything else?” the server asks, smacking her gum.

I try to hold myself back, but this is the Purple Cow. There are some things you just can’t leave without. “Can we also get a small cheese dip and chips, please?”

“How are you going to eat cheese dip while driving?” Molly says as I hand over my credit card, grateful my first check from Counterculture already cleared.

“Very carefully,” I say. “You’re on napkin duty.”

I would have loved to stick around for the works—a juicy cheeseburger topped with grilled onions and mushrooms, perfectly crispy onion rings, a coloring sheet of a cheerful cow that’s meant for kids but nostalgic fun for adults like us who grew up eating here.

It’s funny to think that Molly and I could have been sitting in neighboring booths in this very same restaurant back in the nineties, eating our kiddie meals, not knowing what we’d someday mean to each other.

But today, we need to hit the road if we want to make it home by midnight.

Once we’re on the highway, Molly feeds me chips dunked into the salty, creamy cheese dip.

It’s an Arkansas state treasure, seemingly simple but surprisingly difficult to get right in terms of flavor and texture.

There are whole festivals and competitions dedicated to it.

Families have been broken by disagreements over whether it’s better with tortilla or potato chips.

(Team tortilla chip all the way.) It’s one of the things I missed the most while I lived in the Pacific Northwest. I make a passable version myself, but things always taste better when they come from your favorite diner.

Once the dip is gone, we start on the milkshakes, taking sips and comparing notes.

The purple vanilla is their signature: simple in flavor but a stylish shade of lavender.

The PB&J isn’t bad. It’s pleasantly salty and sweet, if a bit cloying.

The butterscotch caramel, though, has been my first choice since I was a teenager and decided I was too old for the purple one.

I’m surprised when Molly also ranks it first.

“I guess my taste buds have matured,” she admits. “The others are sweeter than I remember. The butterscotch is more balanced.”

“Or maybe your taste buds changed after years of eating my food.”

“Maybe.”

I spot Molly’s grin in the glow of passing streetlights. I want to look at it a little longer, but it’s dangerous to take my eyes off the mountainous road. “So you looked up my restaurants,” I say finally.

Molly switches Styrofoam cups and takes a noisy slurp of the PB&J shake, then says, “I did.”

“What did you think?” I’m weirdly nervous for her reply, as if her opinion could ruin my businesses a second time.

“They looked amazing,” she says, and I feel my shoulders drop a couple inches. “Robin’s Egg seems like the stuff you were making at the inn. Breakfast and brunch. The menu used fancier words to describe the dishes, but I recognized a lot of them. So I get why it was a success.”

“?‘Success’ is a strong word.”

“Didn’t you open a second location on the Google campus?” Molly says, surprising me again with the depth of her research. “That’s huge. They wouldn’t have chosen Robin’s Egg if you hadn’t already proved yourself.”

I can’t help but feel a little proud, even knowing how it ended. “Yeah, well, the pandemic had other plans,” I say, trying to sound cavalier.

“Kindling, though.” Molly turns to the darkened landscape racing past the passenger-side window. “It sounds wild. In a good way, I mean. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“Too wild, I suppose.” I drum my thumbs against the steering wheel to the beat of the song on the radio, wishing I could be more chill about that whole situation. “I tried to break the mold, and instead the mold broke me.”

“You aren’t broken,” Molly says firmly, facing me again. “The world wasn’t ready for your idea yet. But like I said to your dad, there are a lot of ways to measure a restaurant besides how long it stays open and how much money it makes.”

I feel like Molly is looking right into the most hidden parts of me.

It’s always been like this with her, ever since that first day we met at Home Depot.

She doesn’t look through me, or only see what I want people to see.

She sees all of me: the good, the bad, the weird, the soft bits I try to hide.

“Thank you for standing up to him like that,” I say. “I never know how to respond when he criticizes me. I either want to scream or get out of there as fast as possible. But you stood your ground. My ground, actually. It meant a lot.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” Molly holds up a cup. “You already repaid me in milkshakes. And besides, your dad doesn’t always mean things as harsh as they sound. From what Gabe said, it sounds like your parents are having a real self-growth journey.”

“Can you believe that?” I say, suddenly energized. “Gabe’s going to be a stay-at-home dad and our parents are just cool with it? Have they been replaced by clones?”

“I don’t think it was that easy,” Molly says, shifting in her seat. “Your parents, they have this very specific vision of what success means for their kids. Seems like Gabe had to help break that down for them before they understood.”

I groan theatrically. “So you’re saying I have to talk to my parents for them to understand me? This is a scam.”

Molly laughs, but I notice it sounds a little sad.

I suddenly remember that she’s never had a chance to negotiate adult child/parent relationships and feel a rush of guilt at how flippant I’ve been about mine.

I briefly consider apologizing, but don’t know if we’re at discussing-our-childhood-trauma levels of comfort with each other these days, so I change the subject.

“Anyway, how’s the window design for the cupcake shop going? ” I ask.

“Donut shop,” Molly corrects me, already more at ease. “And it’s going. I just need to figure out how to make it look like sprinkles without having to deal with tiny pieces of glass. Otherwise I’ll shred the bejesus out of my fingertips.”

We chat a little longer before Molly dozes off on the winding roads up the mountains.

When she wakes, I think she’s forgotten what year it is, because she reaches across the console, running her fingers gently through the hair at the nape of my neck.

Her touch sends goosebumps down my arms. It’s bananas how quickly we went from resentful exes to friends.

More than friends. Somewhere in the gray area between friends and enemies and…

lovers? Surely not. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel some kind of way when her skin touches mine.

“Thanks for driving,” she says in a sweet, sleepy voice as we pull into the inn’s driveway.

“No problem,” I reply. We stay there, Molly playing with my hair, me unwilling to move because I know it will break the moment.

Eventually she stops, I open the car door, and we make our way into the front hallway. Marmalade comes running, meowing furiously that we haven’t served her dinner yet even though we fed her extra before we left. Molly and I say good night and retreat to separate floors.

I’ve barely gotten myself under the sheets when I hear a soft knock at the door. “Come in,” I say.

Molly enters and stands meekly at the corner of the dresser, her hair a messy pouf on top of her head.

She’s in boy-short undies and a thin blue tank top I bought for her years ago at a gas station on a day trip to Beaver Lake, the name printed on the shirt too funny to pass up.

Considering we didn’t speak for seven years, I can’t believe how many of the gifts I gave her she’s held on to.

“What’s up?” I ask.

Molly bites her lower lip, clearly working up some courage, then asks, “Can I sleep here again tonight?”

“Still afraid of the ghosts?” I tease.

“Maybe a little,” she says toward her bare feet. “It’s just that, last week when I slept in your bed was the best rest I’ve had in months. Years. I’ve, um, had some insomnia issues. But if it’s weird, I can go—”

She’s already halfway to the door before I stop her. “No, stay. Please.” My cheeks feel hot as I realize how much I want her to stay. How strange it’s been sleeping alone. Flipping back the comforter on her side of the bed, I admit, “I slept great that night too. Like a rock.”

Molly relaxes into a grin. She slides into the bed next to me, her cold toes brushing against my calf as she adjusts.

“It must be your snoring,” I say. “It’s perfect white noise.”

Molly frowns. “I don’t snore.”

“Sure. And I don’t have daddy issues.”

Settling on her side, Molly lays her head on her pillow and blinks at me. “Thank you,” she says. “For this.”

I pull the sheet up to her chin and run my thumb down her cheek, across the curve of her jaw. “My pleasure.”

I turn over to click off the bedside lamp, and this time she doesn’t wait until we’re unconscious to cuddle up against my back. I fall asleep with a smile on my face.