Chapter Three
Molly
“I’m taking off now Cassie, okay?” Cassie was a barista at the university coffee shop. The same where I was now working too, and where she was training me. I had only just started a few days before. Today had been my third day of training, and I was allowed to touch the blessed espresso machine. I didn’t do too badly. I mixed up a mocha with a caramel macchiato once, and I completely forgot to steam the milk for one drink, and I made the next one so hot that the professor I made it for burned his tongue. Hopefully he won’t decide to sue.
“Okay Molly. I’ll see you tomorrow. You did great today.”
“Thanks!”
Cassie is a great teacher. She’s patient and she has a knack for explaining things so even a coffee idiot can understand. She was a lousy liar though. We both knew I hadn’t done great. But, tomorrow I intend to do better. As I walked out the door and headed in the direction of the dorms, I decided that the reason I hadn’t gotten those drinks exactly right was because I was thinking about the football game. Not so much in a good way. It was more along the lines of, “I can’t believe I agreed to go to this stupid football game.” I mean I…really…can’t…believe it! I hate football, I always have. My grandma and I never watched football, so when I got to high school and decided to go to the games because, well, that’s what you did in high school, I realized that I had no clue what they were doing out there. Also, football is usually played during the coldest months of the year, and outside to boot…it just makes no sense to me. I hate being cold, and I couldn’t figure out why people would sit through something as miserable as a blizzard to watch a silly game.
Now baseball…there’s a sport that makes sense. It’s played outdoors as well, but during the spring and summer when normal people want to be outdoors. It’s also a hell of a lot easier to understand. One could even go so far as to say that it’s self-explanatory. But football sucks, and although I won’t admit it to Megan or Jake, I only agreed to go because I actually want to see Brock again. It’s crazy, I know. I don’t want a boyfriend; I categorically do not. But there’s just something about this guy. Maybe I just want to get to know him better to find out what it is he’s always amused about? Or hey, maybe I just want to see him. I’m human, right? He’s hot, so there you have it.
I got back to my dorm, and Megan had left a note. It said, “Gone to pick up Jake and Brock.” I pulled things out of my closet, trying to decide what to wear and glad that Megan wasn’t here to see me. If she saw me going through my clothes acting like I was getting ready for the senior prom, she would take that to mean she was right and I really did like this guy. She would never believe that it was more curiosity than anything. I just don’t know that much about guys my age. We could call it research.
It wasn’t that I was a dork in high school or anything when I was supposed to be practicing for the real world. Actually…before I got sick, I was pretty popular. Things just got weird after that. The summer before my junior year, about the time Grandma thought I was old enough to date, I was diagnosed with a tumor on one of my kidneys. They went in to take the tumor, but found out that it had damaged the kidney too badly to save it, and they’d had to take the entire kidney out. I was a little freaked out by that at first, but the doctors assured me that it was fine, and anyone could live on only one kidney.
After they took it out, they did a few rounds of chemo just in case. I lost my hair and everyone at school knew I had been sick. Grandma bought me a wig and I would wear it every morning to make her feel better, but before I got to school I would take it off and put a scarf over my head. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she had bought me a wig in bold nineteen-eighties style. Everybody still tried really hard to be nice; I guess I have to give them credit for that. It was weird though, an awkward kind of nice. People who had never spoken to me before would give me that piercing look and say, “How are you, Molly? Really?” Again, they were just being nice, but it annoyed me.
In my senior year, just as my hair had finally grown out enough so I no longer looked like Peter Pan, they found a tumor on my left kidney…as in the only one I had left. So most of that year was spent with more chemo and radiation. The tumor was stubborn, and although it was small and it seemed to grow slowly, it just wasn’t going to go away. That was the reason I decided to go to school here. My doctor had found out that they were having a lot of success in their experimental treatments of my kind of cancer. So here I am…a guinea pig with one missing kidney and one bum kidney. I do my best to live and act normally; that’s why I don’t want anyone here to know except Megan. She’s never treated me any differently. She was just always my friend and things never got uncomfortable.
But if I were to have a boyfriend, I don’t think this would be something I could keep hidden forever. I mean at some point when I was sick from the medications or refusing to eat ice cream because the dairy doesn’t sit well with me, he was liable to ask questions…wasn’t he?
I pulled on my red sweater and my favorite pair of jeans. Looking at myself in the mirror I thought, “Good enough.” Then I threw on a knit hat my grandma made me and grabbed my red coat and I was ready to go. I stuffed all the other clothes back into the closet so that when Megan came home, she would never know. And speaking of the devil, she came bounding in just as I tossed in the last pair of jeans and closed the closet door.
“Hey, Molly. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready. Where’s Jake?” What I really meant was; where’s Jake’s friend? But it may have been rude to phrase it that way.
“He’s in the car. He says that Brock was doing something, but he was going to meet us there. I hope he doesn’t flake.”
“Oh well, if he does it’s no big deal,” I told her. I was trying to sound casual but Megan knew me too well.
“Sure,” she said with a grin. “That’s why you look so cute, because it’s no big deal.”
“Shut up,” I told her.
“Okay,” she said, still grinning. “Let’s go.”
I followed her out the door, wondering what the hell I was doing. I was also wondering what Brock was doing. Did he change outfits three times before he left too? I laughed at the thought.
“What’s so funny?” Megan said.
“Oh nothing,” I told her.
I got into the back seat of Megan’s Honda Civic and I said hello to Jake. He immediately said, “Brock’s coming. He was finishing something up, but he’ll be there.”
“Yippee!” I said, sarcastically…I hoped.
“He likes you, Molly.” Jake said.
“How nice for him.” That time the tone was acerbic, I was sure of it.
He turned around in his seat as Molly pulled away from the curb.
“You know, Brock could have any girl he wanted.” Jake said, suddenly incensed with the need to stick up for his friend. “It’s a compliment that he likes you so much after you only met once.”
“But of course, I’m thrilled,” I told him with a grin. I knew that I should be nicer to Jake. After all, he was Megan’s knight in shining armor. It was fun to poke at him though. I always made sure not to pierce the armor…
The football stadium was only a few blocks away, but it was going to be super cold tonight, so Megan had wanted to drive. We were all regretting it now, however, as we made our way around the lot for the third time. Finally she decided to park on the street. We could hear kick-off taking place as we hurried towards the entry gate. There was a sudden roar of a motorcycle, and then Jake stopped walking and waved. I looked in that direction and saw Brock, on a red Harley. Of course he had a Harley. It wasn’t enough that he was gorgeous, he could sing, he could play the guitar and he seemed really nice, he had to have a Harley too. I watched as he swung it into a small space reserved for motorcycles and parked. As he had on stage singing, sitting at the taco stand, walking me home, and watching as I went inside the dorm, he looked amazing. I could feel my heart actually speed up in my chest. I was afraid that it was beating so fast and so hard that if you looked directly at it, my sweater and coat would be moving in and out too. This was ridiculous.
We stood and waited for him to saunter over in his black leather jacket and dark shades that I personally didn’t care for. I preferred the blue eyes. When he got closer and pulled off the shades, I physically jumped. I suddenly worried that he could hear my thoughts. How messed up would that be?
He and Jake did their stupid guy bump thing, like maybe they didn’t just see each other before they left the house. Then he looked at Megan and me. I don’t know if it’s my imagination or not, but those blue eyes seemed to linger on mine a little longer than they had on Meg’s.
“Hey Megan, Molly.”
Megan and I both said hi, and we all headed for the entrance. The game was well into the first quarter by then and the stadium was packed. Our seats were pretty good ones, but they were in the middle of a row and I think we slightly pissed off a few of the people we had to step over and push past. As we got closer to where we’d be sitting, I felt a hand on the small of my back, helping to guide me. It was Brock’s hand, and my silly brain thought that I could actually feel his body heat searing through my coat and sweater onto my back.
I dropped down into the seat next to Molly, and Brock took the one on the other side of me. He grinned at me then, and again I had to wonder what was always so amusing to this guy. Maybe when you were gorgeous and young and healthy and musically inclined, you just never had any reason to not be happy.
I feigned watching the game for a while, because just having him sitting so close with his arm brushing lightly against mine left me afraid to open my mouth, not trusting what might rush out. Sometimes my brain forgot that the opening of my mouth was the key to engage. Finally, leaning close enough that I could feel his breath on my face Brock said, “You look cold.”
Again, stating the obvious, but at least he was trying. “I’m freezing,” I said, trying to smile through the tightness of my face. The sun had just started to go down and a cold wind was kicking in. I felt ashamed that I was still glad I came, however.
“Do you want some hot chocolate?”
I thought about that. Chocolate wasn’t really on my diet, although the nutritionist did tell me that I could indulge every once in a while as long as I didn’t overdo it. I also like the idea that he cared enough to offer. “That sounds good, thanks.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I watched then as he risked his life, once again crossing in front of the dedicated fans. Brock smiled at them all, and I realized then that females weren’t the only ones affected by his blue eyes and boy-next-door grin, and I also realized as I watched him, that he knew it.