Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
They have it under control, but Bella meets my eyes and pulls her phone from her pocket. A reminder.
I head to my office and pull my own phone from my purse, wondering if I’ll even be able to find what she’s talking about.
But I don’t have to search, because my phone has blown up with notifications all leading back to Austin’s last Instagram post.
Blowjob Molly, doing her thing. Thanks for everything, @MollyMcKinleyJB #happeningatJacksonBrews
With shaking hands, I press play on the video. It’s only thirty seconds long, but by the time it’s over, I feel my world in pieces around me. I close my office door and shut off the lights. Then I curl into the corner and I cry.
Brayden
I was hoping Molly would have a chance to step away from the staff after dinner was cleared, but I haven’t spotted her since my speech. Though I’ve left the majority of the details of running this place to her, I do know enough to understand that there’s a lot to be done. Tonight, the staff doesn’t just need to clean up from this plated dinner for one hundred and fifty; they’ll need to do the prep work for the tasting room’s lunch menu for tomorrow, and prepare for the catering events in the week ahead too.
I understand she’s legitimately busy, and yet as the guests spill onto the dance floor and I’m left to contemplate my beer alone, I still feel like she’s avoiding me.
Shay takes the seat beside me and crosses her legs. “Are you okay?”
“Sure. I’m fine. Wishing my girlfriend were out here, I guess, but good.”
Shay flinches and looks away.
“What is it?”
She pulls her phone from her lap and puts it on the table, nudging it until it’s in front of me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I unlock her phone and see she has Instagram pulled up and a post from Austin on her screen.
The caption makes my blood boil, and I want to find the little punk and knock him out for using that horrible nickname. Hell, I already wanted to do worse for what he did to her this afternoon.
The first time I watch, I don’t really know what I’m seeing—Molly, standing just inside her office, talking to Jason Ralston, who’s in her doorway. Molly looks at the camera or whoever’s holding the phone, then pulls Jason inside her office and shuts her door. Then it’s just . . . the door.
I frown at my sister, and she swallows. “It has more . . . effect if you can hear them.” There’s an apology all over her face, and she shakes her head. “We don’t know when he took this video.”
I hand Shay’s phone to her and push my chair back, heading outside to be alone. If this dread gnawing at me is any indication, I want to be alone in the cold when I watch—listen—to this.
The first time I do, my stomach plummets to my feet . . . lower. Molly pulls Jason Ralston in her office, and then she’s moaning. I can hear the sounds she makes until they’re interrupted by Austin’s snicker on the other side of the camera.
I don’t want to believe it. He could have added those sounds into the video. But I know Molly. I know her moans and her pleas. I know the sounds she makes when she’s turned on and nearing climax, and I recognize her noises as clearly as I recognize her voice.
I knew she was seeing Jason. Maybe I didn’t know they were sleeping together, and maybe the idea of her letting him touch her here makes me insane, but I knew they were on a date just last week. This video could have been—
Tuesday. For just a beat in the middle of her moans, the camera pans to the daily schedule on the white erase board outside her office, and I know this video is from Tuesday. But which Tuesday? On Tuesday four days ago, I had her alone in her office—kissing her between her legs, making her writhe until she came against my face. Did she pull Jason in there before or after me?
I close my eyes, thinking about how she acted in front of Sara at the restaurant Monday morning—about how happy she was to pretend there was nothing between us just in case I wanted my old girlfriend back. I agreed to her boundaries. Her rules and restrictions on what we could be, but I never imagined . . .
I’m thrown back ten years to Sara and her professor, to finding out in the most embarrassing way that she was sleeping with him behind my back.
“I’m so sorry.”
My head snaps up to Molly, standing coatless in the cold again, her arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes are bloodshot and her cheeks are mottled pink. In the streetlight illuminating the parking lot, I can see a streak of dried tears running through her makeup.