Mollywood (Carved Hearts #2)

by L. G. Pace III

  I groaned at the suggestion and pulled my knees up to my chest. “Can’t we just put it on Facebook or something?”

  Joe uttered a shocked guffaw. “What? Like a group text?”

  “Do you really want to have this conversation more than once?” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

  “Cowgirl up, darlin’. We’ve got to tell our parents and siblings before we take out a skywriting ad.”

  I sighed. He was always the pragmatist. “Can we eat first?”

  Joe smiled softly. “You’re hungry?”

  “Ravenous.” I could see why Zofran cost a pretty penny. That shit worked like a charm. As if to punctuate my point, my stomach audibly growled.

  Joe glanced at my abdomen with obvious amusement and the smallest hint of pride. When he spoke, there was laughter in his voice. “What sounds good?”

  I batted my eyelashes at him innocently and bit my lip. “Loaded nachos and a peanut butter malt.”

  WE DECIDED TO give ourselves the weekend before we told anyone the news. Two days of peace to just try to absorb our new reality. After failing to teach me how to make blueberry pancakes, Molly dug into all the reading material Dr. Myers had sent home with us. She’d read for a while and then let loose with a string of curse words. Every once in a while she’d blurt something like “You have got to be shitting me!” or “I’m only allowed to take Tylenol?” Then she’d descend into thoughtful silence.

  Thirty minutes after she’d started this effort to educate herself, she jumped up and marched out of the room. I assumed she was headed for the bathroom, since she said she felt like she had to pee every ten minutes. When she didn’t come back, I realized she’d gone into the bedroom. I went to check on her, but discovered she’d locked the door. After my attempts at gentle coaxing were ignored, I got frustrated and picked the lock.

  I found her face down on the bed sobbing into a pillow. She had her laptop open on the bed and when I looked at the screen I saw a webpage about fetal alcohol syndrome. I intervened, pulling the laptop away from her and sitting it far out of her reach. When she finally calmed down enough to speak, she confessed that she was worried about the few beers she’d had over the last couple of months.

  “A couple of beers are no big deal. I’d be more worried about the pills you took.” The comment was meant to put her mind at ease, but I could tell by the wide eyed stare she wore that I’d just given her a mountain of new things to worry about. I doubted her occasional Xanax and Ibuprofen would do any significant damage, but I knew my medical opinion wouldn’t offer much reassurance. Unsure how else to proceed, I did my best to take her mind off of it with two of her favorite things: slow, sweet sex and a walk down to her favorite Chinese restaurant for orange chicken and some crab rangoon.

  I barely slept a wink on Sunday night. Molly and I had agreed to start making the rounds the following day. We’d decided to only tell our family and closest friends what was what. We wouldn’t announce anything to the world at large for another month, since twelve weeks was some magic pregnancy safe zone. I texted my sister and asked if they were free the following night. She texted back that they were and I told her to bring the family and meet us at The Salt Lick, our favorite restaurant, at five p.m. The place was close to my sister’s ranch, and I figured Molly might be a bit less nervous about telling my sister if she got some pork ribs and potato salad out of the deal.

  Knowing our “secret” was about to be revealed brought the entire situation into focus. Anxiety started gnawing at me, and I left a voicemail for Dr. Greene’s scheduler asking if I could push up my weekly appointment. I had a feeling he’d be eager to see me once I told him what was up.

  After tossing and turning, I finally crawled out of bed at five thirty and started preparing for my day. I figured it couldn’t hurt to get a head start on the workday, since the jobs kept rolling in. I was lacing up my steel-toed boots when Molly came out of the bedroom. Her hair was wild from sleep, and she looked adorable. She bent to kiss the top of my head on her way past me into the kitchen, and I caught the scent of her soap and minty mouthwash.

  “What are you doing up, little girl? You sick again?

  She shook her head with a nonchalant shrug. “No. The munching on crackers before getting out of bed thing really worked.”

  “I always said I wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating crackers.” I joked and her bawdy laughter shifted my mood from anxious to amorous.

  “The doctor was so right about taking the vitamins the night before. I feel way better today than yesterday.” She turned back to the refrigerator and took out the eggs.

  “I didn’t wake you, did I?” I asked, troubled that she was up. Stacy and Sanchez had texted her the day before to say they were back from California, so I knew Molly didn’t have to be anywhere.

  “No. I couldn’t sleep for shit. I thought I’d do some baking.” She yawned as she preheated the oven and started the coffee pot.

  “Careful with that stuff. Only one cup, okay?” I kept my tone light. I was torn between not wanting to sound bossy and worrying about how she’d react when she later learned about the dangers of caffeine.

  “Yes, dear.” She parroted like a 1950’s housewife. Her cheeky smile seemed to imply she was kidding. “Actually, I was planning to bring a couple of thermoses down for you and the boys since you still have that shitty old coffee maker downstairs.”

  “Huh. Obedient, barefoot and in the kitchen! Is it my birthday?” I cracked, crossing the room to kiss her goodbye. She crinkled her nose and reached out for my nipple as if she planned to twist it off. I easily captured her hand and backed her against the refrigerator, pinning it above her. My lips were on hers and her enthusiastic moan against my mouth got my pulse racing.

  “Obedient, my ass.” She replied between wet kisses and her spirited response was impossible for me to resist. I fisted her hair at the nape of her neck while my other hand slid inside her robe, grabbing a handful of pert breast. Her hands traveled down my back to grab my ass and she pulled me roughly against her. Her eagerness caused the blood to rush from my head to my groin. I picked her up and sat her on the nearby counter, kneeing my way between her legs. The gasping sound that escaped her made me want to take her back to bed, or perhaps just bend her over the counter.

  Sadly, I did neither, since the pre heat alarm on the oven dinged and Molly pushed me away. I was tempted to press things, maybe throw her down on the couch and take her. She loved that kind of aggressive shit and she had me pretty worked up. I regretted not doing it an hour later as I replayed the groping session. I tried to shake of the intense memory as I balanced on a ladder while staining a 6 foot tall hutch. Falling because my balance was thrown off by my rock hard erection would have been disastrous.

  Even though I had the music turned up fairly loud, I heard Francis and Mac come into the shop through the front door. They were already bickering back and forth.

  “Keep on telling yourself that, Mac. Statistics don’t lie.” Francis scoffed and I instantly knew they were arguing about football. Since I’d told them they could no longer discuss politics in my presence, it was their new go-to.

  “Joe! Talk sense into this man, would you? Fran seems to be under the impression that the Cowboys are going to have a shit team again this year.” Mac’s eye roll brought an instant smile to my face. Molly’s brother looked a lot like her. He had the same dark hair she did, but he had far more of it on his face than on top of his head. That was only because he wore his hair high and tight. It was his twin, Mason, who suffered from male pattern baldness. He’d been thinning in the back since he and Mac’s twenty first birthday. Mason had a chip on his shoulder about it, so Mac and I pointed it out whenever we could, of course. Mason wasn’t running off to get hair plugs or anything. He just wore a cowboy hat ‘round the clock in hopes that no one would notice. Sometimes, I thought Mac and Molly looked more alike than Mason and Mac did. But the twins sure as hell acted alike. I’d gotten into more trouble with those t
wo in that first year that we met than I had in previous sixteen years combined.

  “That’s not what I said.” Francis sat down his keys and his leather planner on the front counter and made his way back to join us. He completely outclassed Mac and me in his pressed slacks and his starched collared shirt. “I simply said the Saints were going to totally smoke Dallas.”

  “Which is basically the same thing.” Mac snorted, earning an ‘oooo’ from me like Mac had landed a scathing burn. Francis laughed good-naturedly.

  “You Texans.” He chuckled with a pleasant grin. He gestured with his thin arm dramatically, and his gold incisor sparkled in the morning sun. “Mass delusions, I tell ya.”

  Mac wandered over to inspect my progress on the custom hutch while Francis went back up to the front counter and logged onto his email. He picked up the phone receiver, presumably to check voicemail. Mac and I had moved onto our next project, a bamboo pie safe with tins salvaged from a Victorian saloon, before Francis had completed his daily ritual. He was frowning and shaking his head as he made his way back to the work area once more.

  “Well, unless the two of you plan to work sixteen hour days six days a week, I think we need to hire another carpenter.” He informed us, and proceeded to give a verbal report of all the requests for custom restorations and builds that had come in over the weekend. We were already estimating that we were booked out a month as it was.

  “Or we could just raise our rates.” Mac rubbed his hands together with greedy villainous laughter and I grinned. It felt great to be wanted, but we needed to keep up with demand.

  We were kicking around a few names of guys we knew who’d be both good enough and ballsy enough to take the job, when I heard the creak of the backstairs. Molly came into view. Her hair was in little pig tails dangling over each shoulder and she wore loose, light clothing. Even without a stitch of makeup on, she was luminous. I noticed she was carrying two thermoses and hurried in her direction.

  “Hey, there sweetheart!” Francis called, beating me to her side as I rushed to her assistance. “Stopping in to add a little beauty to our otherwise dreary day?”

  Francis had been a Molly fan since the first day she fed him. She was rather partial to him, too. He’d been homeless when we’d met, squatting in the courtyard of a dilapidated hotel that the crew I was working with had been restoring. Molly’s food truck showed up one day, and Francis instantly became her number one fan. Being the softie that she is, Molly fed him not only lunch, but bundled up leftovers for him before she closed up shop each night. He’d come a long way in rebuilding a life for himself. I’d given him the apartment across from mine when we had to dismantle his makeshift home near the end of the hotel restoration. My income apartment had been empty since I bought the building and it was too damn cold for him to be outside. Since he’d been a salesman before he started sleeping in abandoned buildings, I offered him a job. The rest, as they say, is history.

  Molly graced Francis with a grateful smile as he took both of the thermoses from her.

  “Hey, yourself, you dirty flirt. How’s Kelly liking the new school?” She asked.

  “So far so good.” He smiled. Francis’s daughter, Kelly had relocated from Detroit just in time for the school year to begin. After months of emails and phone calls, she’d come down to visit with her dad for a couple of weeks over summer break, and had evidently fallen in love with Austin. She taught first grade, and had easily landed a job at a nearby elementary school.

  I’d been taken aback when Francis had introduced me to her. Kelly was a petite, doe eyed brunette who came off as painfully shy. I was surprised by her quiet demeanor, since Francis had once told me that Molly reminded him of her. Molly was about as gregarious as they came, and could make friends in a morgue.

  “Y’all have coffee cups down here, don’t ya?” Molly retreated toward the staircase.

  “Yep.” I moved to the sink to wash my hands.

  “Good, ‘cause I need to bring down your breakfast and I can’t carry both.” She vanished out of sight. She returned a minute later with two plates of mouthwatering muffins and rolls.

  “What smells so good?” Mac came out from the other workroom as the scent of Molly’s fresh treats wafted throughout the shop.

  “Cornbread and bacon muffins and a little something I like to call a ‘Sticky Pig’.” She replied, handing Mac the plate of muffins.

  “The muffins are amazing.” I chimed in, remembering them all too well from our first ‘morning after’. “I want to try this ‘Sticky Pig’.”

  Molly held out the other plate to me and I took one of the giant rolls, trying to keep all of the gourmet bacon bits from toppling off onto my clothes. The aroma already had me salivating.

  “It’s a lot like a cinnamon roll, but with real maple syrup folded into the frosting and candied bacon sprinkled on top.” She explained as I took a huge bite. As with everything she made, the salty and sweet concoction was inexplicably delicious. Francis took one and turned to Molly.

  “What’s the occasion? You never bring us breakfast.” He tasted the roll as if savoring a fine wine.

  “Oh…Joe didn’t tell you our news?” Molly’s blue eyes flicked to me mischievously and I knew all hell was about to break loose. “We’re pregnant. With twins.

  Mac spit coffee across the room in a spray fighting not to choke.

  “Damn it! Don’t say shit like that when I’m drinking.” There was a smile on his face and I could tell he thought she was yanking his chain. Francis grinned, but looked thoughtfully between the two of us. His gaze swept over Molly’s loose purple blouse, then my face, and he broke into a huge smile.

  “Congratulations!” Francis stepped up and Molly grinned as he enfolded her in a friendly hug. Turning to me, Francis shook my hand. Mac looked between Francis and Molly for a moment before the smile fell from his face. He turned to me with a confused expression that was almost comical.

  “Wait. She’s serious? You knocked her up? What the hell, man! Were you or were you not told to buy rubber bands?” I could tell he was teetering precariously between outrage and amusement and decided to give him a nudge in the right direction.

  “We…had a wardrobe malfunction,” I trailed off, feeling the blood rush to my face. Mac stared at me for a few seconds and then doubled over with laughter. Tears leaked from his eyes and he held onto the worktable to keep from falling over. I started laughing at the sight of his ridiculous display, and Molly and Francis just exchanged looks of disbelief. Mac struggled to pull in gasps of breath. Molly gave him an annoyed side glance and walked past him to peck me on the cheek.

  “Trust me, Mac. Joe has no trouble filling up a condom. In fact, he buys the large ones. And if you ever read the literature you’d know that they’re only about 97% effective.” Mac’s eyes practically bugged out of his head and he looked like he was going to have a fit.

  “Ugh! Too much information. I do not want to know anything about anything you two do or do not do in the bedroom. Remember I just ate.” He gave Molly an incensed look, grabbed a Sticky Pig, and hopped up on top of the workbench. Looking back and forth between the two of us he shook his head.

  “So does mom know yet?” An evil grin split his face. “Or granny?”

  “No,” Molly said, smacking him on the arm. “And don’t get any wise ideas. We’ll tell people in our own time. Got it?” Mac gave a gaping, and nauseatingly sweet roll filled grin and nodded.

  “Your funeral. So does this mean you two are getting hitched?” The look Molly gave him would have killed a lesser man. Turning to me in confusion he glared. “What? My sister’s not good enough for you?”

  “I’ve already asked her and she turned me down flat, Mac.” I replied, refusing to look in her direction. I watched as Francis’s eyes shifted to Molly. I’m pretty sure he saw something on her face that gave him some insight, because he tried to catch Mac’s eye. Mac ignored him and wheeled on Molly.

  “Are you serious? All of a sudden you don’t wa
nt to marry him? Shack up with him? Yes. Have babies with him? Sure. But get married? Hell no! That’s madness! You practically stalked him your Freshman and Sophomore years. I swear, you need to have your head examined.”

  “Hey, now.” I narrowed my eyes at Mac, my voice sounded cautionary, and dangerous.

  Molly’s eyes blazed like a blue flame and she stepped toward Mac, but Francis moved between them. The rage on the old man’s face snapped Mac’s mouth shut like a trap.

  “Think before you speak, Mac! Show your sister the respect she deserves. Molly’s quite capable of making her own decisions. Family is supposed to support you, not tear you down.” Something about the way he said it made me think he wasn’t just talking about the current issue with Molly. Mac looked between Francis and Molly and raised his hands in front of him in surrender.

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Open mouth and insert foot. You two are grown-ups, I’m sure you will figure it out. Kids have a way of making things more complicated…and somehow a lot simpler all at the same time.”

  He hopped off of the table, grabbed a cup of coffee and another Sticky Pig and retreated to the far side of the workroom. Francis put a hand on Molly’s shoulder and then returned to the front counter. She folded her arms and looked at her feet. I pulled her to me and held her. She was stiff for a moment and then she melted against me. I felt her give a little shudder as if she were fighting against tears.

  “Mac is an ass. Don’t let him get to you.” She shook her head and sniffed.

  “He’s the shallow end of the pool. I’m in for a world of shit when granny gets ahold of this. She will probably knit me a scarlet letter sweater for my next birthday.” I grinned but the miserable way she looked at me took the joke out of her statement.

  “I told you already, we could get married.” She put her hand up to stop me.