Pushing against Molly’s hip with my own to get her to move out of the booth, she slides out and stands next to the table to wait for me to follow. Returning my wallet to my back pocket, I grab her hand and slide my fingers through hers, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Come on, let’s go tell your family the happy news.” I smile, tugging her towards the door. “I can practice my apologetic looks and fake happiness over this pretend blessing on the ride over and you can tell me more about your family.”

When we get out to the parking lot, I add a little more decency to the D. in my name by holding the passenger door open for her, quickly realizing I might have pushed it a little too far when I made a grand, sweeping gesture with my arm and called her m’lady, going by the annoyed snort and eye roll she gave me.

Making a mental note that she doesn’t seem to like being treated like a princess, I round the hood of the car and get in behind the wheel, looking over at her as I pull my car keys out of my front pocket.

“So, what’s the first thing I should know about your family?” I ask, sticking the keys in the ignition.

“Don’t do all that mushy, girly stuff like hold my hand or open doors,” she begins. “My family will know you’re lying right away because I’m not into all that PDA shit,” she begins. “When my dad starts cracking his knuckles and talking about how he trained as a kickboxer for twenty years, don’t show any signs of weakness. But if he gets his gun out of the hall closet, run.”

Silence fills the car for a few moments until a high-pitch, screeching noise hits my ears and I realize my fingers are still clutched tightly to the key in the ignition and I’ve continued to turn it in a daze even though it started twenty seconds ago.

“Heh, heh,” I laugh uncomfortably, yanking my hand away from the key to clutch the steering wheel. “That’s hilarious, Molly. Good work trying to scare me out of doing this.”

She laughs as I put the car in gear and pull out of the parking lot, her laughter letting me know she really was kidding and her father isn’t going to try and kill me.

“You can’t blame me for trying,” she says with a shrug as I pull out into traffic and head in the direction she points. “My dad’s never taken a kickboxing class in his life, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Well, that’s good to know. If I couldn’t fight that little shit, Tommy Knittle, there’s no way I could take on a pissed off father who thinks I knocked up his little girl. I’m a baker, not a fighter.

We both share a laugh until she suddenly stops and looks over at me. “But seriously, you can run, right? Because he really does have a gun.”

I can still bake with a gunshot wound, right?

Chapter 5

– Thug Mug –

Molly

As Marco follows my directions home, I throw out a few random facts about my family on the way, doing my best not to freak him out too much. I mean, aside from the whole gun thing, but I feel like I would have done him a disservice by leaving that part out. It’s bad enough I let him think I was pregnant, even if was only for thirty minutes tops before my conscience got the best of me. I don’t want him to be completely blindsided by my family when he’s doing something so amazing for me, but maybe I said too much. He stopped talking and started looking like he might throw up about ten miles ago. Maybe telling him about how my Uncle Drew and Aunt Jenny never shut up about their sex life is where I lost him. Or it could have been when I tried to explain what a Brony is and promised him I’d never let Ava and her boyfriend Tyler force him to wear a horse tail. It was probably when I said that stupid shit about not liking PDA. Normally, I cringe if a guy tries to kiss me or hold my hand in public, but when Marco does it I want to rip his clothes off. Which is why it’s probably for the best that he stop doing it altogether. My family doesn’t need another reason to be freaked out.

“Turn left at the next stop sign,” I tell him, twisting my neck to stare at his profile as he flips on the blinker and slows to a stop.

He’s so good looking it’s almost sickening. With his Italian genes that give him a gorgeous olive complexion, thick dark brown hair he keeps short on the sides with a messy spike on top, and so many muscles it’s a wonder he doesn’t bust out of every shirt he puts on, it’s very hard not to drool in his presence. The fact that he told me he likes me should make me feel better that my crush isn’t one-sided, but it just makes everything worse. It makes me act like a girl around him – a stupid, giggly, shy girl who forgets how to speak when he smiles at her. I might be known as the quiet one in the family, but I’ve never been shy until I met Marco Desoto. Now, not only do I have to worry about what’s going to happen with my family in the next couple of weeks and if I’ll be able to pull this whole thing off, I have to worry about Marco witnessing all of it and hoping he still likes me when it’s over.

My phone vibrates in my hand and I stop gawking at Marco long enough to look down and see I have a Facebook notification. Opening the app, I laugh out loud when I see what the notification says and who it’s from.

“What’s so funny?” Marco asks, taking his eyes off the road long enough to see that I’m looking at my phone.

Since he’s finally talking again, and no longer looks like he’s going to yak all over the dashboard, I figure I might as well share this with him and give him a good laugh to ease the tension of what’s about to happen.

“So, remember that douchebag I mentioned at the diner? Alfanso D., the supposed cookbook author? I called him out in front of all of his adoring fans, and he just replied to my comment.”

“HE WHAT?!” Marco shouts, the car swerving off the berm and onto the gravel before he hastily rights the wheel and gets us back onto the road.

He gives me a quick look of apology and mutters something about a cat in the road before continuing. “There’s no way he replied. Are you sure? Maybe you’re confused.”

I laugh, wondering why the hell he looks so freaked out when we’re not even talking about my family, but some idiot on Facebook.

“I’m definitely not confused, and yes, I’m sure he replied. Here, listen to this,” I tell him, clearing my throat and reading the pathetic comment. “‘Dearest Molly, I am deeply sorry if anything I said angered you. Please accept my apology and know I will do my best not to make such offensive comments going forward.’”

It’s even funnier reading it out loud so I do it one more time, but make my voice high-pitch and very feminine this time.

“There’s no way this guy wrote that thing himself. I bet the comment I made about cutting the cord from his mommy made him go running right to the poor woman and he made her type this,” I chuckle.

“His mother tries to text people using the TV remote. I doubt she’d know her way around Facebook,” Marco mutters.

I look at him questioningly and he laughs. “I mean, I’m assuming that’s how his mother is. You know, because he’s a douchebag and all that…”

Figuring he’s probably right and that the mother of Alfanso Douchebag has got to be as dumb as he is, I point out the next street Marco needs to turn down and which house is mine before looking back at my phone.

“He even put a heart and smiley face emoji at the end of his reply. How sad is that?” I ask. “This guy definitely has a small penis. Or no penis at all.”

Marco pulls the car to the curb, mumbling under his breath so quietly I can barely hear what he says. The only words I catch are anaconda penis and something about sisters wishing they’d never been born, but before I can ask him to repeat himself, I look up and realize we’re in front of my house. My hands start to sweat and my stomach flip-flops all over the place as he turns off the ignition and we sit in silence.