Only You

Chapter 71: A Fight

It was Friday evening. Liz was getting ready to pick Chloe up from campus and take her out for dinner. As she was running around the house, she heard a knock at the door.

"Hey," Liz said as she swung the door open. Then furrowing her eyebrows, she asked, "Are you looking for Molly?"

Molly and Nick had plans to be at her house at six o'clock sharp. He was a few minutes late, but that was only because he stopped to pick up flowers for her. He had not bought her flowers since they started going out and figured now was a better time than ever.

"Yeah," he answered, hesitantly. "Is she not here?"

She shook her head. "No, not yet. You want me to give her a call?"

"Uh, no. I'll call her." He held back his yawn, exhausted from going to sleep late, then being woken up by a six-year-old having a nightmare, and then having an intense workday gutting a house.

"You going out?"

"Yeah. Chloe and I have an anniversary to celebrate."

"Wow," he smiled. "You two enjoy."

"Thank you." She then disappeared to her room for her shoes.

As Nick went into the kitchen to find a vase for the flowers, he got a message. He looked at his phone, expecting the message to be from Molly, but it was regarding a payment from Richard. He quickly opened the message that had caused him stress over the past week and saw he was finally paid for last month's work, but then realized he wasn't paid anything for the extra time he had put in.

He sighed. "Why can't you just pay me, Richard," he mumbled to himself.

He shook his head, knowing he'd have to talk to his boss next week. He put those thoughts aside though for a moment and went to call Molly.

"Reach her?" Liz called out.

"No." He hung up the phone after he reached her voicemail. He was about to try again, beginning to feel slightly concerned, but then Liz got a call.

"Hey baby, I'm about to head out." She looked at Nick in the kitchen. "Have you seen Mol by any chance?"

There was a moment of silence as Chloe told Liz she had seen their friend in the library not too long ago, studying with Charlie. Quietly, Liz told her girlfriend, "Can you go see if she's still there? Tell her Nick's here. Yes. And talk to our friend, please. He's swimming in dangerous waters."

Nick heard the whole conversation, despite the sudden softness of Liz's voice, and he knew Liz was talking about Charlie.

"Chloe saw her just a little while ago in the library studying, which explains why she didn't see your call. Knowing your girlfriend, she probably lost track of time. You got competition against those textbooks of hers. But Chloe is going back there now to see if she's still there."

He couldn't help himself. "She studying alone?"

Liz paused for a second. "I'm not sure. Didn't see her myself," she added a short-lived smile. "She usually does though."

"Yeah." He forced a smile back.

"Well, I'm going to head out. Make yourself comfortable."

"Thanks," he answered except he felt anything but comfortable. Every minute that passed, his thoughts became more consumed by Charlie and his increasing presence in Molly's life.

Molly ran into her house. "Sorry I'm late. The clock in the library stopped working, and I didn't realize it until Chloe came. I'm putting my stuff down and then we can start our movie night."

Nick sat on the couch, listening to her explanation but couldn't keep the frustration from building up. He watched her rush into her room with her bag and then come back out with only her phone. She sat down next to him and smiled.

"Hey," she kissed him.

"Hey," he forced a half-smile. "How was studying?"

"Long."

"Were you studying with anyone?" he asked.

"Yeah, Charlie."

"Charlie."

"My friend. Tall. Blond. The guy I was scared you were going to beat up that one Friday night."

"Just Charlie, I meant."

"Yeah."

"Yeah," he repeated.

"Something on your mind, Nickie?" she asked, confused.

"Why does he study with you?"

"I don't know; we have the same professor, same class, oh yeah, and the tests," she half-joked but was already getting half-defensive by the sound of Nick's suddenly irritated voice.

"You didn't use to study with him," he threw out.

"His grades have been taking a beating, and he could use the extra help."

He averted his eyes so that he was no longer looking at her. In a low voice, he said, "You can play the movie."

"What's up with you?"

"What's bothering me?" he asked her.

"Yeah."

"Why are you being so naïve, jeez Mol," he blurted out, almost raising his voice, yet not.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, defensively.

"This guy, who likes you, all of the sudden needs help with studying, essay proofreading. He's texting you more and more often. I don't know how that Friday didn't send singles off in your head. Do you have to wait for him to make a move to realize that he's trying to get with you?" he snapped.

"What?" she snapped back.

"I think I should go, Mol," he sighed. "I had a long enough day."

"Excuse me?" she replied sharply. "You're not going anywhere. You're not going to dump whatever you just dumped on me and leave. You have a problem with Charlie, tell me; don't just let it build up until you can't hold it in and get upset at me because I didn't realize he was bothering you."

Nick rolled his eyes, annoyed. Molly has never seen him like this. He was always calm, and if he was angry, it was never directed at her.

"Molly, a girl is going to start working for Richard. She's fine-looking. She asks me to help her familiarize herself with what we do. Would you say something to me? After all, it's nothing, and you'd probably make a big deal of nothing and appear to be jealous. But then she and I start spending more and more time together, and you just can't, for the life of yours, understand how I could be more oblivious. And you start thinking, am I actually the oblivious one here?"

Molly stared at him. He stared back but only for a second. Suddenly realizing how everything exploded, he swallowed. His eyes softened.

"Molly," he sighed as he noticed her eyes welling up.

"I get your point; I honestly do. I would have loved to talk to you about it if you weren't such a jerk to me right now, making me feel stupid," she looked at him with a stone-cold expression. "Now, this message is for my best friend, Nick," she said with quivering lips. "My boyfriend just really hurt me."

She got up to go to her room before he could say anything. Her door shut and locked.

He shook his head and slammed his fist against the armrest. Sliding further down into the couch, he looked up at the ceiling. "Fuck," he stated harshly.