“I never get tired of this view,” I say. “I’ve missed it here.”
“It’s only been three weeks.”
“Felt like three months.”
She squeezes my hand.
We go back inside and she slathers normal butter on one slice of the toast and peanut butter on the other and mashes them together into a saturated mess, just how I like it. I take my signature sandwich and devour it over the sink. It’s so much better when she makes it.
When I finish, I tidy up the counter.
She watches with a wry look. “Finished, inspector?”
“Yes. Take me to bed.”
We walk to her room—a pretty, girly space with white velvet drapes and a queen-size bed with a puffy stack of pillows that I immediately want to nestle into after my long day of work and travel.
I grab Molly with both arms and pull her down onto the duvet. “Come here, kid.”
She lets me wrap my entire body around hers and squeeze her like I’m an overly exuberant squid. Her body feels small and soft and heavenly beneath mine.
“Thank you for having me,” I say into her hair. And I mean thank you for loving me. Thank you for the honor of welcoming me into your life.
She laughs. “My pleasure, Miss Manners.”
Still no mention of Dezzie. I wonder if I should bring it up. But Molly seems relaxed. I don’t want to ruin her mood.
I drown her in more kisses from her eyes to her throat. She squeals and pushes me off.
“You’re crushing me!”
“I can’t help myself. You’re so crushable.”
“You’re so cheesy.”
I yawn. “I’m so tired.” It’s eleven p.m. in Los Angeles, making it one a.m. in Chicago.
“Are you going to conk out on me, Rubenstein?”
“No. I’m going to take a shower in your adorable bathroom. And then I’m going to conk out on you.”
“I’ll get you a towel.”
I enjoy washing my hair with Molly’s shampoo, the bottle of which identifies the name of the familiar, intoxicating scent of her hair—neroli. I slather myself with her eucalyptus soap, which floods the shower with the scent of spa treatments. The luxuriousness of her bath products makes me question my own affinity for drugstore brands that profess to smell like “man.”
I come out of the bathroom with a towel around my waist, releasing a cloud of fragrant steam into the hallway. Molly is waiting on her bed. She’s changed into a white, gauzy, floor-length nightdress that reminds me of a virginal Victorian maiden about to get corrupted by a sexy ghost in a candlelit attic.
“You smell like me,” she observes.
“I know. I can barely resist myself.”
She gestures at the night table on “my” side of the bed. (Molly is dogmatic about sleeping on the left, no matter where we are.) “I got you some water and Advil PM, in case you’re too wired to sleep.”
She knows me well.
“Thank you, my queen.” I hang my towel over a hook on the back of the door and climb naked into her bed.
I turn to face her and run my finger along the lace cuff of her nightgown. “Am I allowed to see what’s under your Jane Austen getup?”
“The lady is feeling a bit chaste tonight. Do you mind?”
The uncomfortable thought flickers up again that she might still be pissed about Dezzie. I’m always harassing Molly to talk through her anxieties. It’s bad form on my part not to broach this, even if I’m a little scared to.
“That’s all right,” I say. “But, Molls?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you still upset? Over my not being able to represent Dezzie?”
She stiffens. “A little,” she admits. “But I do understand. I think?”
“I would do it for you in a heartbeat if I could. For both of you.”
“I know. I don’t want to be unfair to you. I guess it’s just this terrible reminder of all the ways things go wrong. Even for people who were happy.”
I hold her tighter. I know this is bringing up everything that happened with her dad.
“And I was thinking about how your whole life is dealing with stuff like this,” she says. “And telling myself, okay, maybe this is the universe’s way of showing me that your job is a positive thing, that I don’t have to feel guilty about it, that you can help my friend. But when you said you couldn’t, it was like of course not. How stupid of me.”
