Until You Met Me

Letting her shoes slip out of her grasp, Molly sunk back against the front door, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to fight off the headache that had been pulsing in her head since Tiago had appeared at her table. She couldn’t shake the buzzing in her ears. From the moment that Tiago had announced Ava and Sofia’s doubts about her and Gerard, her head had been buzzing with static, and as much as she tried to downplay it to herself, to convince herself that it didn’t really matter what they thought of Gerard, she hadn’t been able to shake the disappointment that she had felt when neither Ava nor Sofia had been able to tell her that Tiago had it wrong.

She knew that people were wary. As well as things between her and Gerard were going, there was no escaping the fact that there had been moments when it had looked like things weren’t going to work out, and she knew that she couldn’t blame her friends for worrying, but she could blame them for not sharing her concerns with her. Tiago had known. Ava and Sofia hadn’t shared their worries with Molly, but they had shared them with her ex-boyfriend, and having him point it out to her had stung more than hearing that they worried about her and Gerard. They had liked Tiago, but Molly didn’t understand why they had confided in him.

Rubbing her forehead, she exhaled a quiet sigh before she blinked her eyes open, jumping slightly when they landed on Gerard who was stood in front of her, watching her with a small frown on his face. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I heard you come in” Gerard answered “And I was going to say something about you being home a lot earlier than I expected, but then I saw you. I didn’t want to make you jump” he added.

Molly’s expression softened into a slightly reluctant smile. “You used to make a sport out of making me jump” she quipped.

Gerard's lips quirked upwards. “What can I say?” he replied “I’ve grown up” he added.

Molly shook her head, still smiling.

Gerard's eyes searched her face, his expression shifting back into a small, worried frown, before he took a step forwards, the tips of his fingers gently tilting her head back when she tried to duck it. “Have you been crying?” he asked quietly.

Molly wanted to say no, but she knew that Gerard would see through it. With a soft sigh, she nodded her head slightly. “It’s nothing” she murmured “I just...I got into a bit of thing with Ava and Sofia. But it’s fine” she added.

“A thing?” Gerard asked.

Molly ducked away from him, padding through the hall. “We fight sometimes” she quipped.

“What did you fight about?” Gerard asked, following after her “You were supposed to be celebrating our engagement. How does that end up in a fight? Are they jealous of how great a fiance you have?” he added, his voice caught between impish and unsure.

Molly’s steps faltered slightly, something which caused Gerard to stop, his head tilting. “Was that right?” he asked.

Molly shook her head. “No” she said “It was just...Can you just be my friend for a second?” she asked. She knew that she had to tell him about Tiago, but she didn’t want the reaction that she normally got from him. She just wanted him to listen, without thinking like her anxious boyfriend.

Gerard's forehead creased a little, but he nodded his head. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Tiago was there” Molly admitted “He was being obnoxious, and I...I put him in his place, but not before he had the chance to throw out the fact that Ava and Sofia have always had doubts about you. They think that we’re too different, that there’s nothing we have in common, and they have always thought that our friendship was going to burn out, so god only knows what they think about our engagement. I thought they were as excited as I was, but it turns out that they have been making contingency plans for if this all blows up in my face” she added, letting out a humourless laugh.

Gerard flinched at the sound. He had always hated that laugh.

“They told Tiago that they were worried” Molly continued “Not me. Tiago” she added.

Gerard inched towards her, gently wrapping his arms around her before he lowered his head, kissing the crown of hers softly.

Molly hesitated, but only for a second, before she sunk into the hug, exhaling a quiet sigh. “Does it worry you?” she whispered.

“That we’re different?” Gerard asked.

Molly nodded, pulling away slightly to look up at his face.

Gerard shook his head. “We’ve made it work for twenty years” he quipped.

“Gerard...”

“I know it isn’t the same thing” Gerard interrupted, cutting off Molly’s objection “But I think if we were going to run out of things to talk about, it would have happened by now. Would I like it if you wanted to be at more of my matches? Sure. Do I sometimes nod and smile at you when you’re talking about maths? Yeah, I do. I have done that since we were kids. I still don’t know why you find maths as interesting as you do, but you do, and I kind of love that look you get on your face when you talk about it. We are different, Molly, and we don’t have a lot of overlapping interests, but we work. Pop told me once that there was no reason for us to still be in each other’s lives, but we are. Sometimes things just work, and I like to think that we are one of those things” he added, flashing her a slightly nervous smile.

Molly’s eyes searched his for a long moment, looking for any sign that it was something he was just saying, but didn’t really mean, before she finally nodded her head, a soft smile blossoming on her features. “I really needed to hear you say that” she mumbled, burrowing back into his arms.

Gerard kissed the top of her head again. “You know I am always going to be here to tell you things you need to hear” he murmured.

Molly tipped her head up, pressing her lips to his briefly. “I love you” she whispered.

Gerard's lips quirked upwards into an impish smirk, but whatever joke he had thought of, he didn’t say. Instead, he took a hold of Molly’s hand and led her towards the stairs, mumbling that they could talk about Ava and Sofia in the morning.