The Bridal Bet

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Turning away from him, Molly found her voice. ‘Well, thank goodness someone knows what we’re doing.’

By the following weekend Molly’s nerves were shot to hell and back. The whole town was talking about the wonderful romance between Ryan Callaghan and that ‘pretty wee O’Brien girl’. And Nick Scallon had been to visit her again in the shop.

Things weren’t quite going the way she had expected—not that she’d known what to expect in the first place. And then there was Kate. Kate, whom she saw every day and who quizzed her every moment possible.

Saturday proved to be no different.

‘So, how’s it going, then?’

Molly sighed and shook her head. ‘You ask me this every day, and every day I tell you the same thing—fine.’

Kate sat down beside her and looked her in the face. ‘If it were going fine you wouldn’t look this bad. You look exhausted, Molly, and you can’t keep telling me it’s “fine” and look so unhappy. Aren’t things working out between you and Ryan?’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s just—’ She struggled to find an excuse and couldn’t. Not this time. ‘I’m confused, I guess.’

‘About you and Ryan, or about Nick Scallon?’

Molly laughed tightly. ‘I thought I liked Nick Scallon but I was wrong about that. The more I see of him the more—I don’t know—smarmy I find him.’

‘Mmm. He is a bit too slick, if you ask me.’ Kate smiled sympathetically and rubbed her friend’s arm. ‘And Ryan?’

‘Now, there’s a whole ’nother story.’ Her fingers rubbed her temples. ‘Where should I begin?’

‘He kiss you again?’

Did he ever. ‘Oh, yeah. He did that all right.’

Kate smiled broadly. ‘Good grief. And you just don’t know what to do about that, do you?’

Now, there was an understatement. Even without the whole story, as usual, Kate was close to the mark. ‘We’re not the same any more, and I hate that. I miss the fun we used to have. I just don’t know how to get it back.’

‘On a scale of one to ten?’

Molly looked confused. ‘What?’

‘On a scale of one to ten, how did the kiss rate?’

‘If you’re going to make fun I’m leaving, Kate, I swear.’

Kate shook her head. ‘No, I’m completely serious. I need to know how you rated the kiss. It gives me an idea of the scale of your problem. Anyway, you can’t leave. It’s your shop too.’

Molly blinked at her friend in amazement, then shrugged her shoulders and thought for a moment. On a scale of one to ten. She’d thought about their last kiss far too much over sleepless nights, so it didn’t take long to rate. Her tone was as deadpan as her face when she spoke.

‘About fifteen.’

‘Damn it, I just always thought it would be.’

‘Kate! This isn’t helping.’

‘Sorry.’ She looked more serious. ‘You ever been kissed above an eight before?’

Deadpan again. ‘No.’

‘So now you’ve got the oldest of problems to deal with here. Do you chance losing your friendship for what will probably be the most amazing lovemaking of your life? Or do you hang onto the friendship with it possibly never being the same again because you always wonder whether it would have been the best lovemaking of your life?’

‘Correct me if that’s not a lose/lose situation you just quoted there, Oprah. I thought you were supposed to be helping.’

Kate nodded. ‘I am. I was just thinking out loud. In fact, here’s another. Do you love him?’

‘What did you say?’ Molly couldn’t believe what she’d just been asked. ‘Did you just ask me if I love him? What the hell kind of question is that? It’s Ryan we’re discussing here, not some guy I’ve just been out on a blind date with!’

Kate held her hands up in front of her. ‘Okay, okay, calm down. I know you care about him; I’ve always known that. You were like some loyal terrier when you first found out I had a crush on him. What I mean is do you love him love him. You know—the big one.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’s kissed me twice and you expect me to fall head over heels? It’s Ryan. I can’t fall in love with Ryan. It would be like—hell I don’t know—like falling in love with a big brother.’

‘Ryan’s not your brother, Molly.’ Kate walked over and hugged her friend as best she could with eight months’ worth of baby in the way. ‘You want my advice? You go with the flow and let things happen naturally. If you two are meant to be together then there’s nothing you can do to stop that except lie to yourself. He’s a great fella, Molly, and if you’re not meant to be then it’s the biggest test of your friendship you’ll ever have. All friendships have to change and grow, and when you think about it it would change when you marry other partners anyway. So just wait and see, and stop killing yourself over this.’

The words echoed through Molly’s head and she wondered what Kate would think if she knew the whole story. It was a bit difficult to let things happen naturally when everything they were doing was such a lie to begin with.