Let's Make Up

Ice-cream

John stared at Molly, unsure of what to do. He shook his head at himself, ran both his hands through his hair with a nervous energy, cursed under his breath and again told her that he was sorry. Molly approached him, placing her hands on his chest, and looked up at him. He was usually so cool and level headed but his heart was pounding and he felt concerned that he had no idea what was happening.

"You know...I did tell you to kiss me." Molly said while smiling convincingly at him, "I'm not upset about it. Was I a bad kisser?"

He was dumbfounded by the question and angry at himself, while knowing that he was still hungry for more.

"Of course not." He said with a strict voice.

She started smoothing her hands up and over his shoulders to his neck.

"Then why are you so upset?"

He could tell his mind was starting to go blank. All he could muster up were thoughts of her soft lips and heavy breaths.

Her hands were now playing with the peppered waves at his hairline. He had been overdue for a haircut but he didn't mind the length, especially with Molly's fingers twisted in it. There was hardly any space between their bodies and he looked down at the lack of proximity then back up into her eyes which were studying him. Molly ran her fingers over his jaw and cheeks softly.

"I like that you didn't shave this morning. The scruff suits you. You could grow it out even and still look really good." Her voice was still clouded with need after the kiss they shared, and she was making him go crazy with an insatiable desire.

"I didn't have time with you tearing things apart down here." He reminded her as he took her hand away from his face and gently tried to make room between them by taking a step back.

"Johnny." She said with an unmistakably disappointed expression.

"Yes?" He answered with a whisper, hoping he knew why she looked hurt.

"I know it was inappropriate. I got a little too into it, but I'm also not going to wish that it didn't happen. "

"Molly..." He tried to interject but wasn't allowed.

"Let me finish." She told him while putting a finger to his lips, making him look like a scolded puppy.

"After tomorrow, things will change and I'll be back to needing a place to stay. I'll be alone and have all my worries again. This time with you... this whole day, even when your ex came around like a jerk, when I got to have fun and eat pizza with you, it made me feel so normal and even... wanted." She sighed, "It's been a long time since I felt that way."

"God damn it."

John pulled her tightly against himself, lifted her chin and kissed her deeply. She was so light and limp in his arms and the way she kissed him back had the same feeling as drinking hot chocolate on a cold day or sitting beside a campfire toasting marshmallows. Molly bit his lip softly and he was no longer sat at the campsite, he was the fire, feeling the heat growing between them.

With a low moan he pulled away from her again.

"It feels normal now, but when we're just inches away at the office, what will you think of me?" His eyes flickered with the same intensity of their kiss. "I'll always be that guy who brought you into his house and ended up taking advantage of being a nice guy."

"Do you think you're taking advantage of me, Johnny?" She asked him, still wishing to continue.

She was the only person to call him by that nickname and not get his hackles up. For some reason he found it incredibly inviting when she said it. John usually hated when people got overly familiar or used it in a mocking tone. Even when he was a kid, he had never gone by Johnny, but when Molly said it, he felt like it was his given name and that any idea of it being a diminutive, childish, or emasculating was all in his head. He wanted her to call him Johnny all the time whether it was in a candid conversation or screaming it out, he wanted it all.

"How do you know what gets me worked up?" He asked her, clearly turned on by just holding and kissing her.

"I don't." She said, kissing from his cheek to his ear and whispering, "But I want to."

She reached for his arms and put them around her waist. It wasn't subtle or smooth at all but he loved the gesture and the feel of her, so he kept them there and just looked at her silently for a while as if he was deep in thought.

"What are you thinking about?" Molly asked him.

He blinked himself back and reverted to his usual handsomely serious face.

"Ice-cream."

"What?" She laughed in surprise after having such a whirl-wind of emotions and tension.

"I was trying to cool off and I guess my brain took it literally." He shrugged.

"What do you mean?" Molly tilted her head.

"I already told you I've got a sweet tooth and I can't tell you why, but you just keep making me crave ice-cream or smores or something. Maybe we could go get some?"

She didn't know John had a spontaneous side to him so she laughed even more.

"Ice-cream?"

"Yes." He said, "Ice-cream."

John drove them to the same diner they first met in for Molly's interview because he said they'd be open late and served sundaes. The same waitress found them a booth and got their orders going. Molly wondered if she worked from open to close or maybe just had rotating shifts. As if John could read her mind, he told her that the woman's husband was the owner of the place and that she, Brenda, as he called her, worked there most days to keep an eye on the place. He had grown up close to the husband, Tom, and gone to school with him, though John was a few years younger than him.

"Are you still friends?" Molly asked him.

"We're polite, but I lost a lot of people after Helen and I split."

Poor John, she thought, and remembered Brenda asking if Molly wanted her to stay close by when John had arrived for the interview.

He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat a bit.

"You mentioned your ex cheated as well. Do you want to talk about it?" He sounded concerned, using his HR voice, but it was mainly out of his own curiosity.

She leaned back in her seat and thought about it before answering.

"We had a relationship that looked like June and... Johnny." She said, flicking her eyes up at him while saying the name. "Johnny Cash, that is."

He inhaled deeply waiting for her to continue. "But...?"

"But... we had a weird Elvis Presley and Priscilla type thing."

"Meaning what? Both couples are pretty infamous." He said.

"Well, it's easier to say it that way. Julie is a performer. A singer and actor." She explained, "I started out as his makeup artist by accident and I fell in love with him. Everyone knew us and we looked like we were perfect on the surface."

John felt a surprising amount of envy flare up at her word choices.

"We started dating so young but because he kissed other women all the time for roles, it became habit and also became more than that. Just like Elvis, he wouldn't touch me because he'd kissed other people and probably felt guilt but couldn't sort it out in his own head. He would promise me time and time again, but eventually, I left anyway. I just sortof ran away. "

Molly looked down at the table and started fidgeting with some creamer cups in a nearby bowl.

"There's more than that. I was crazy jealous, you know? I would get upset having to do the makeup for the women on set that I knew he was fooling around with and would purposefully mess up. All it did was end up giving me a bad rep since I wasn't getting hired for my skill much after that. There would be full sections of film that needed to be redone because only afterwards did people notice that a girl's shade was wrong or that there was too much flashback and it became distracting."

She tucked some hair behind her ear, a subconscious act, but John liked it when she did it since he could see more of her face that way.

She continued, "Julie would tell me to stop f*****g up on purpose and I'd counter by yelling at him to stop f*****g strangers. It was so much back and forth, and honestly, I'm still embarrassed about everything. The stupid thing is, we were like magnets. After every fight we'd kiss and makeup and since he kissed me so rarely on his own, I felt that it really meant something and it would just kill me all over again."

John was listening so intently that it made her blush.

"I'm sorry for ranting so much. Like I said, I was so young when we met and Julie was the only guy I'd ever seriously dated."

For an instance John doubted her story upon hearing she only went steady with one man. He couldn't imagine her being so attractive and only being with one person, but it also made him respect her more. He was flattered for having shared such intimate kisses with her earlier and thought that must have meant that she saw something special in him. He wanted to know more without going overboard. Although he was aware that he was being inappropriate by inquiring, she was very forthcoming and that reassured his curiosity.

"You keep calling him 'Julie', I don't think I've ever met a man with that name."

She gave him an amused smile and said,

"Well, Johnny, as you might have already noticed, I'm a pet name kind of person. It's short for Julien."

John considered the name 'Julien' and felt that it sounded a little pretentious. He put their names together: Molly and Julien, Julien and Molly, thinking that their names didn't pair well together. He thought to tell her that, and continue discussing, when Brenda arrived back with their order of sundaes and a refill of water, saving him from anymore embarrassment. John looked at his ice-cream that was topped with dripping chocolate fudge and was certain his first comparison was accurate. Molly's thick dark hair looked so luscious against her bright skin and her lips had felt so good against his own, the same way a comfort dessert would. With the first bite of the cold treat, he knew he was completely infatuated.