Page 3 of October (New Orleans #10)

“J uliet, answer your phone. I know you’re teaching, but I need you to call me back as soon as you can.

I know Gwen is there, and you’re probably going to run to your hotel room where she’s waiting for you on breaks and lunch, but you can have sex with her later.

Your best friend needs you ASAP,” Molly said to Juliet’s voicemail because a text message just wouldn’t do to convey the urgency enough.

She sent two of those as well, just in case Juliet didn’t check her voicemail, and slid her phone back into her pocket before she took a walk around the block.

It wasn’t a big deal. She could handle this.

It was only her longtime crush, the woman Molly had wanted since she first started working at Southern Roastery, sitting next to her in the office, when she spent a good percentage of her days talking to Juliet about her.

Then again, that probably wouldn’t matter all that much now since Juliet would be moving into an office soon.

That news had come as a surprise just the other day.

Juliet hadn’t requested an office, but with the changes she’d suggested to the training programs being adopted by the whole company, they had offered her space in a vacant office.

She wouldn’t be traveling anymore and would actually use it, unlike Jordana, Juliet’s predecessor, who had been on the road all the time.

Molly had walked by the new office when she got into work that morning, and she could picture Juliet behind that desk and Molly sitting in her guest chair, talking about work and gossiping, mostly about Gwen, Juliet’s girlfriend, and Finley and how much Molly wished she could have been even remotely Finley’s type.

She knew it wouldn’t be the same, with Juliet having an office and a new role.

Juliet would be in new important meetings.

She would probably have her door closed some of the time, too, and Molly wouldn’t be able to look over the short cubicle divider between them to ask her friend a question or find out what she was doing that night to see if Juliet wanted to grab a drink.

She worried they would have fewer walks to get coffee at the store down the street as well.

She thought they might even hang out less outside of work because Juliet had Gwen now.

Juliet had already been spending most nights with her whenever she wasn’t traveling, and this trip, Gwen had even gone with her, taking Carly, Juliet’s dog, with them.

They were cute together, and Molly was happy for her friend, of course, but now, Finley was going to be sitting right next to her, and that meant that when she inevitably got back together with India, Molly would have to see them together.

She’d already caught them kissing in the parking garage last month, and that had been hard.

Knowing she didn’t have a chance with Finley was one thing, but actually seeing her kiss someone else in that garage had made her want to throw up.

It had been a visceral thing that she had played off when talking to Juliet, but she had cried that night, thinking about how Finley would be going home with India, and they’d probably take it further than just a kiss.

She hated thinking about that night. She hated that she could now picture what Finley and India looked like when they kissed each other; not just a peck on the lips, but a real kiss.

Molly hated that she cared so much, too.

She should’ve moved on a long time ago, but here she was, walking around outside, trying to get some fresh air to, yet again, attempt to put Finley Storm out of her thoughts.

Her walk done and unsuccessful, Molly opened the door to the building, preparing to go upstairs to get back to work, and her phone rang.

“Finally,” she said to Juliet.

“What’s wrong? What’s going on? Are you okay?” Juliet asked.

“Am I okay? No, I’m not okay.”

“Molls, I’m on a ten-minute break. What’s going on?”

“Finley sits next to me now.”

“What?”

“She got promoted, remember?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So, she could pick her desk, and she picked the one next to us.”

“The open one by the window?”

“No, George’s desk.”

“So, next to you , then; not us.”

“Well, yeah, but she’s friends with you, too. More you than me because I can’t even finish a sentence around her.”

“We’ve watched football together a few times, but we’re not best friends or anything. Wait. Is that what you’ve been calling me about? You said ASAP. You said you needed me to call now, Molls.”

“I did need you to call now. What am I supposed to do, Jules?”

“About what?”

“Finley is sitting next to me.”

“Molly, I’m in the middle of a class, and I’m supposed to go with Gwen to walk Carly right now before I go back in. This really isn’t an ASAP kind of thing.”

“It’s a best friend emergency, Juliet.”

Juliet sighed and said, “Molly, ask her out.”

“I can’t. India.”

“They broke up.”

“They’ll get back together. They always do.”

“But they’re not together now, so you can ask her out.”

“I’m HR. I can’t ask her out.”

Juliet laughed and asked, “How many more excuses do you have ready?”

“Oh, at least ten. Probably more if I try hard enough.”

“Molls, either ask her out, move desks in a few weeks so that she doesn’t think it’s about her or something, or move on .”

“But she’s Finley,” Molly said, finally letting go of the door she’d been holding and moving aside as someone else needed to get in.

“I know.”

“It’s like her being Gwen to you.”

“But it’s not, Molly, because Gwen is my girlfriend. You have liked Finley forever, but you’ve never told her.”

“Because of India.”

“Well, we can go around like this forever, or you could just ask the woman out now that India is out of the picture.”

“She’ll never be out of the picture.”

“Well, you’ll have to take that risk. If not, you’ll never know. I have to go, though. Gwen is waiting for me. I’ll text you later, okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” she said and hung up the phone.

Taking a deep breath first, Molly went back inside. She walked to the kitchen where she planned to pick up a banana and go back to her desk, but she heard a voice she recognized and stopped before turning the corner.

“I stayed there last night,” India said.

“You stayed at her place last night? I thought you two were done,” Lyla, one of India’s peers, said.

“We’re never really done. It’s me and Finley; we’ve been doing this for years now.”

Molly looked down at the floor because she’d been right to tell Juliet that she shouldn’t even bother telling Finley how she felt.

“I don’t know when we’ll get back together, but we always do.”

“Didn’t she end it this time?” Lyla asked.

“Yes, but that’s happened before, too. We’re just a weird couple, I guess, but it works for us. She gets mad at me and ends things, or I’m mad at her and end it. Then, we cool off, and we’re in bed and back together.”

“So, you slept with her last night?”

Molly’s stomach roiled at that question, and she knew she was pretty close to vomiting. She pressed her side against the wall and tried not to picture the parking lot kiss again or imagine what Finley and India looked like when having sex.

“No, we talked and fell asleep. I’m trying to respect her space. I haven’t even been by her new desk yet.”

“New desk?”

“She got promoted. It sucks because she found out after we broke up, so we haven’t celebrated properly. I thought we could with some wine last night, and things would go back to normal, but that didn’t happen, so I’ll take her out to dinner to celebrate later or something.”

Molly turned the corner then and grabbed the banana because she couldn’t listen to this anymore.

When she arrived at her desk, luckily, Finley wasn’t there, and after eating the banana she now hated, when it wasn’t the banana’s fault, she had to go to three meetings back-to-back before she was able to go home.

“Move on? Okay. I need to move on. How do I do that?” she asked herself as she stared at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. “Go out. Meet someone new.”

She nodded and hurried to her closet to pick something out to wear because she was about to force herself to do just that.

An hour later, she was walking to Candace’s bar, feeling like she’d enjoyed the vibe the previous times she’d been there.

She was silently cursing India and, to a certain extent, Finley on her way in, but she knew a bunch of lesbians hung out here, so even if she didn’t meet a single one tonight, she could at least feel comfortable ordering a drink at the bar and trying to talk to literally anyone who could take her mind off of whatever Finley and India might already be getting up to tonight.

“Hey. Molly, right?” the bartender asked.

“Yeah. Uh…”

“Logan,” the woman told her, pressing her hand to her chest.

“Right. Sorry,” Molly replied.

“No problem. What can I get you?”

“A girlfriend,” she replied honestly.

“Sorry?” Logan laughed.

“A beer. I could use a beer. Whatever you have on tap is fine.”

“It’s October. Want the autumn ale we just got in?”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

Logan went to the tap, grabbed a cold glass, and pulled on the handle.

“So, a girlfriend?”

“Huh?” Molly asked back.

“You said you needed a girlfriend before.”

“Oh,” she uttered as the glass was placed on a napkin in front of her. “Sorry. That was a Freudian slip, I guess.”

“I’ve been there. Not sure that helps.”

“You’ve been looking for a girlfriend?” a woman asked as she walked up to the bar, holding a plate with a burger and fries on it, with a glance aimed at Logan.

“No, babe, I haven’t been,” Logan replied. “I live with mine, and she makes me very happy. I meant that I’ve been there in the past, before I met you.”

The woman winked at Logan and walked off with the plate.

“That’s my girlfriend, Rory. She helps out here sometimes.”

“Oh,” Molly said. “Good for you. You found her.”

“I did, yeah.” Logan smiled at Rory, who was at a table now, talking to customers. “You’re still looking?”

“I wasn’t until tonight.”