“North Carolina.” Molly nodded. “I had a feeling you were from the South.”
“Why, ’cause of my accent? It’s pretty faded.”
“Oh, it’s definitely there. But I like it.” Molly grinned.
When they reached his walk-up on Roebling, Jake was relieved to find the apartment relatively clean. He sensed Molly absorbing the boyish details of his place—the cheaply framed Led Zeppelin poster on the wall above the navy sectional, Hale’s PlayStation controllers tangled on the floor in front of the sixty-inch flat-screen.
Molly sank down on the couch, and Jake handed her a glass of whiskey over ice. He took a sip from his own tumbler, let the Johnnie Walker burn the back of his throat. He crouched beside a box of vinyl records in the corner that he’d never bothered to organize, digging out the album he needed. Then he placed the record on his beloved Crosley turntable—the one he’d found for five dollars at a neighbor’s estate sale in high school—and lowered the arm. The sound of a familiar song filled the room, blaring through a pair of old-school speakers framing the television.
I took her out, it was a Friday night
I wore cologne, to get the feeling right
The song brought a heavy nostalgia that permeated the room, and Jake watched Molly’s mouth work its way into a knowing smile.
She turned to him. “Oh my god. I can’t believe you have this on vinyl.”
He sat beside her on the couch—not too close—and they sang the words together, the volume of their voices amplifying at the line: Nobody likes you when you’re TWENTY-THREE!
Molly sank back into the cushions and laughed deeply, the sound coming straight from her heart. “You were right, Jake. This is a great fucking song. Especially because I’m twenty-three.”
“Me, too,” he said with a smile. “But only for another month.”
When it ended, she asked if they could hear the song again. And he said yes, they could hear it as many more times as she wanted. And then he brushed a strand of wheat-blond hair off her face and told her she was beautiful, especially when she laughed, and it was the first and only time in Jake’s life when he loved someone like that—so suddenly and assuredly, without needing time to tell, without questioning it at all.
Chapter Eight
Molly
May 2022
The last weekend in May is gorgeous in Flynn Cove. The trees are full and lush with blossoms, late spring in full force. Molly has always loved this time of year, and she’s glad when Sabrina texts her to ask if she’ll be at the Memorial Day parade. When Molly says that she will—Stella has been talking about the parade’s bicycle decorating contest since last year—Sabrina suggests they meet there.
The village of Flynn Cove spans just three blocks, but there’s a lot packed into those streets: the post office, the fire department and police station, an old-fashioned deli, a hair salon, a movie theater, two restaurants, an Episcopal church, a gourmet market and café called Gwen’s, a high-end kitchenware store, and two retail shops—Southern Tide and an overpriced boutique that sells three-hundred-dollar sweaters and monogrammed baby gifts.
Today, the main roads in town are blocked off for the parade, which is crowded with families and at least a hundred decorated bikes. Molly likes the parade. It’s one of the only annual events in Flynn Cove that doesn’t seem to revolve around the country club, where she and Hunter—to the shock of people like Meredith Duffy and Betsy Worthington—are not members. Sometimes Molly thinks they should just bite the bullet and join, but it’s outrageously expensive, and Hunter doesn’t golf much, and so what’s the point, really, other than to prove something? To shell out thousands of dollars to prove that she—literally—can belong?
“Mom.” Stella tugs Molly’s arm, pulling her out of her thoughts. “What do you think?”
Molly glances down at her daughter’s bicycle. Red, white, and blue streamers weave through the spokes of each wheel and wrap the entire frame of the bike, covering the normally purple part. Hunter has fastened a giant blue pinwheel to the front basket and two shiny red cheerleading poms to either end of the handlebars.
He wipes his hands on his Carhartt shorts and grins. “Pretty good, huh?”
Molly crouches next to Stella on the street, smoothing her pigtails. “This looks like first place to me,” she praises, despite the dozens of identically adorned bicycles in the street around them.
Then a voice calls her name, and Molly turns to see Sabrina striding toward them. Sabrina waves in greeting, flashes her megawatt smile. Straight white teeth.