Until You Met Me

Feeling the light touch of Gerard’s fingertips skirting across her stomach, Molly’s lips curved upwards into a soft smile before she finally let her eyes flutter open, finding Gerard staring down at her, a soft smile of his own brightening his features. It wasn’t a first. In the handful of days that had passed since Molly had first spent the night in Gerard’s bed, she had returned to it every night, but the novelty of it hadn’t warn off, meaning that almost every morning, she had woken up to the sight of Gerard smiling at her, seemingly just as in awe of where they were as she was.

There was no denying that it was still a little surreal. The idea that if she just tilted her head slightly, she could kiss him, and there was a strong chance that Gerard would kiss her back was one that would take a little getting used to, but slowly she was getting there. She still had questions. She wanted to know how they would tell people, or if Gerard was as concerned as she was that people might not love the idea as much as they did, but she had resolved to push them out of her mind, wanting to enjoy them for a little while before things changed.

“Were you trying to wake me?” Molly mumbled, stretching sleepily.

Gerard nodded his head as he leant over, pressing a kiss against her shoulder. “It’s nearly nine” he replied “You said you’d meet Ava for coffee at ten” he added.

Molly gently ran her fingers through his hair as she let out a soft yawn. “You remembered me telling you that?” she asked.

Gerard’s lips curled into a soft smile against the skin of her shoulder. “You complained about it enough at dinner last night” he quipped “Why set it up if you don’t want to go?” he added as he rolled away, settling against his pillow again.

“I do want to go” Molly replied.

“Didn’t sound like it” Gerard said.

“I do” Molly insisted “It’s just...this will be the first time I have seen her face to face since I told her that I was seeing someone. She is going to have questions, and I am not entirely sure how I am supposed to go about answering them” she admitted.

She didn’t want to lie. As much as she wanted to keep what was happening between her and Gerard between the two of them for a little while, she didn’t want to find herself in a position where she was telling lies to the people she cared about, and it meant that she didn’t quite know what she would say to Ava when she inevitably asked for details. It was unavoidable. Molly’s announcement that she was seeing someone had come out of nowhere, and despite her insistence that it was new, and that she didn’t want to say too much, she knew that Ava would ask, and she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to lie, but she was equally reluctant to burst the bubble that she and Gerard were in.

Gerard blinked sleepily. “You told her that it was new” he said “You told her that you were keeping your cards close to your chest because you don’t want to get too far ahead of yourself. That’ll have to do” he added.

Molly playfully scoffed. “You’ve met Ava, haven’t you?” she pressed.

“Unfortunately” Gerard grumbled, his lips slanting upwards into a teasing grin when Molly nudged his ribs.

“I need to go” Molly quipped as she leant over, pecking his lips a couple of times.

Gerard watched her as she padded around the room, picking up her things. “If she guesses that it’s me, don’t lie to her” he said “I mean, the odds are pretty slim. I think she thinks I am a naive idiot who can’t see what is right in front of me, but if she does, tell her. It’ll only make things worse if you don’t. Be vague, don’t lie” he added.

Molly nodded and flashed him a warm smile before she padded out of the room, allowing him to lean into his pillow, a warm smile on his face.

~#~
“I know you said not to, but can I ask about him?”

Molly nodded her head, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. She had been waiting for it. Since she had greeted Ava outside of the cafe that they were sat in, she had been expecting the question to come, and she could only hope that she was ready for it. She had spent a while thinking about what she was going to say. She had come up with a few vague details that she could offer to Ava without necessarily lying, and she hoped that it would be enough to hold her friend off for a little while. She wanted to tell her, to share how excited she was to finally have her feelings for Gerard off of her chest, and to know that he felt the same way, but she also wanted to enjoy their new relationship for a little while. She knew that once other people knew, they would have to face questions about what they were and where they were headed, and it was something Molly wanted to wait.

“What do you want to know?” Molly asked.

Ava grinned. “A lot more than you’re going to tell me” she quipped.

Molly shrugged, her cheeks flushing a light shade of pink. “It’s just new” she admitted “I will tell you everything, but I don’t know everything about it yet. I want to have it a little more figured out” she added.

Ava nodded her head. “I understand that” she said “I’ve been with Jack for over a year, and he only met parents a few weeks ago. I get wanting to make sure things are good before you start introducing him to the people in your life. I just want to know a little about him. You sounded almost giddy on the phone” she added.

Molly let out a slightly bashful laugh. “I wasn’t that bad” she mumbled.

“You were” Ava quipped “But it was good. I haven’t heard you that giddy since the first time you met Tiago” she added.

Molly’s expression flinched a little, something which caused Ava to tilt her head. “Is it Tiago?” she asked.

“What?” Molly spluttered.

“It’d explain why you’re being secretive” Ava quipped.

“I did not get back together with Tiago” Molly insisted.

Ava held up her hands with a smile. “It was just a question” she said “I had to ask. He might have realised that he let the best thing that ever happened to him go” she added.

Molly shook her head, picking at the lip of her coffee cup. “I think if he missed me, that would have happened by now” she quipped.

“Do you want him to miss you?” Ava asked.

Molly shook her head, but it wasn’t as quickly as Ava had expected it to be. Frowning slightly, she watched Molly for a moment before she shook her head, sipping on her own drink. “Tell me how you met your new friend” she announced after a moment.

Molly lifted her head, her slightly troubled expression clearing as she smiled. “It was at a bar” she said “It was actually after my date with Dani. We got to talking, he was commiserating with me about how it had gone. He just kept saying the right thing, he made me smile, and so we made a date. It has been a couple of weeks now, but it’s going well” she added happily.

Ava smiled as she listened to Molly talk and watched her smile, but she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the momentary hesitation in Molly’s denial about Tiago had caused. It had been messy. Tiago had been adamant that Molly’s feelings really laid with Gerard, and after it was over, Molly had admitted as much, but it didn’t mean that she hadn’t loved Tiago, or that there was no chance that a part of her still did.