Chapter 15

"Shut up. Shut UP!!" Molly screeched into the phone the next morning.

Keira held the receiver away from her ear and waited for her friend to stop screaming.

“I know, I know. Molly, oh my God…what was I supposed to do?”

“How about say NO!” shouted Molly.

“I couldn’t turn him down, everyone in the whole entire place was staring at us! I didn’t want to humiliate him in public, on top of everything else. Oh my God, oh my God, what am I going to do?” Keira wailed. “Damn him, he probably did it in public just so I wouldn’t be able to say no!”

“You should call him right now. Go see him on his lunch break and tell him that you’re having second thoughts and you don’t want this to go any further. Do it before he has time to tell his family and all your other friends."

Keira groaned. “He’s gone for the weekend, Molly. He had to go on a press run in Tennessee.” Rob was a print production specialist and was responsible for overseeing the printing of his company’s catalog. “I can’t break off our--" she could barely bring herself to say the word "--engagement over the phone.”

“Hmmm, that’s true. That would be a really shitty thing to do. Maybe you should--" Molly’s voice cut out for a second. “Hold on, Keira, someone’s beeping in, let me see who it is.” There was a pause as Molly checked her caller ID screen, then let out a yelp. “Holy shit, Keira, it’s Richie!! He’s calling me!! Oh my God – what do I do?”

Keira shook her head. Like I need this shit right now. “Answer it?” she suggested dryly.

“Oh right, good idea. I’ll call you back." And Molly hung up.

***

Ten minutes later Keira’s phone rang. It was Molly again, all out of breath and acting like a teenage girl who’d just been invited to the prom by the most popular guy in school.

“Okay, Keira…now, I know that you’re going to want to say no to this, but I also know that your fiance is out of town and you have nothing better to do….so I’m going to ask you anyway.”

Keira groaned. What now? “I don’t think I want to hear this, Molly.”

“I know you don’t, but I’m not afraid of you. So here’s the deal: Richie just told me that the band is playing a small show at a local bar tonight as a favor to the owner, who’s a friend of Tico’s. It’s very small, and only close friends and family of the bar owner will be there. Richie wants to know if we want to go.”

Keira stood there in disbelief. Did Molly really expect her to make a decision like this right now? Of course not, because Molly wasn’t going to let her decide.

“Please say you’ll come with me, Keira, please? You can leave right after the last song if you want to. I’ll pay for your cab ride home. You don’t even have to talk to Jon.”

“Good, because I don’t want to talk to him. Molly, I can’t believe you’re asking me to put myself in this situation again, knowing everything that I told you.”

There was a short pause, and then Molly blurted, “Keira, why don’t you just admit it to yourself? You never got over him, did you? What’s that old-fashioned saying…you still ‘carry a torch’ for him.”

Furious now, Keira said, “Molly, if you’re trying to convince me to go with you tonight, this is NOT the way to go about it.”

“So you’re saying that there IS a way for me to convince you, then?”

Keira howled in frustration. “Damn it, Molly, remind me again why I’m friends with you.”

Molly laughed. “I’ll pick you up at 8:00. I gotta go find out if George can drive us.”