A/: Thank you for your reviews and your kind comments, Chapter 4 is a work in progress, so will be as soon as poss. Hope you enjoy this.

Chapter Three

"I will find out you know" He was smirking "Eventually"

"Keep on tellin' you, mate, nothin' to find" Molly giggled as he narrowed his eyes and then grinned at her "Don't matter what you think or how hard you look . I. Don't. Know. Him, well, I do now, of course, but I didn't used to, ask him if you don't believe me"

"I have, but I'm not sure I believe him either"

"Well then, not much I can say is there?"

She'd been standing right next to him where he'd perched his bum on a bar stool, one leg hooked round the leg of the stool and the other down on the floor so that she'd been only been a few millimetres away from him when he'd insisted that she had to sit on it instead of him and had lifted her up when she couldn't quite manage to hoist herself with any degree of elegance so that she was now enjoying the novelty of being almost on the same eye level, at the same time as enjoying being slap bang in the middle of a noisy group that didn't include Jamie. He'd gone missing in action apparently, but his not being there meant she was far more relaxed than normal so that she could have a really good time teasing and laughing and giving as good as she got instead of being worried about what he was thinking all the bloody time. It wasn't that she didn't miss him being there, well, not really, it was just she was having a real laugh ….. .

This was the fifth time in less than two weeks that they'd all gone out together so it was rapidly becoming a sort of habit and the Bossman still kept on and on about how he was going to find out what the secret was behind 'pool-gate' as she and Lauren had christened it. He kept on shaking his head and looking at her with this sort of grin on his face and saying that he didn't believe in that much luck or co-incidence either and that he was going to get at the truth if it bloody killed him.

Smurf, as per bloody usual, started banging both his fists down on the bar in a sort of mock serious drum roll sort of way, and had then started shouting about how he thought Fingers should pay them all their money back till there'd been an official enquiry conducted by the boss, something Fingers didn't even bother to answer, he didn't even bother to turn his head round to look at Smurf, just put his hand behind his back and gave him the usual one finger salute. Smurf was still seeing Lauren or thought he was, and Molly still hadn't found anything in particular to like about him, not that she'd tried that hard because as far as she could see he was still a cocky little knob with nothing going for him, as well as being a bloody poor loser. He obviously hadn't forgiven her for him losing all his money in an ill-conceived bit of showing off, but they were just about keeping it civil, mainly by ignoring one another completely.

Molly didn't want to know the details of whatever it was that was going on between him and Lauren because she didn't know how Lauren could, the thought of it made her want to gag, but she also couldn't believe how bloody stupid and blind he was. He kept on telling everyone over and over that he'd never known the Bossman join in quite so often when they'd had evenings out, apparently he usually said not a chance, describing it as a fate worse than bloody death, so that Molly was incredulous at Smurf's naivety in not recognising what was right under his nose and couldn't help wondering why the others didn't bloody tell him because it was perfectly bleeding obvious what the attraction was. She'd come to the conclusion in the last couple of weeks that however noisy and relentless the piss-taking was, they were actually quite kind because it wasobvious that Smurf was living in an alternative bloody universe where he was totally convinced of his own irresistibility so that he couldn't see what was happening in front of him and he probably wouldn't have believed them if they had told him.

Lauren, freshly blonded and highlighted kept on flicking her hair about and tossing it over her shoulders, she still had Bossman firmly in her sights if not quite in her grip yet. She'd talked about him all the bloody time at work, had got hold of this little tiny snap of his face from somewhere, fuck knows where, but she'd put it right next to the dress and the flowers in the middle of her wedding 'mood board' that she kept hidden behind the filing cabinet. She'd insisted that she had to fill Molly in on every single tiny little last detail of the meal out that she'd managed to score from the tall, dark and bossy one, in fact the only thing Lauren wouldn't tell her was whether or not she'd actually managed to plant her flag and end the evening in his bed. She just kept on smirking and putting her fingers up to her mouth, pretending she was zipping it shut, although Molly was pretty sure that that was some sort of bullshit. If she had managed to shag him she would of come roaring into work with the biggest grin on her gob while she shouted it from the bloody rooftops. Lauren didn't do secrets.

-OG-

Molly peered at her reflection and pulled a face, frowning as she chewed at the corner of her bottom lip. She was deeply unhappy with the way she looked but this was the third time since she started to get ready that she'd changed the skirt she was wearing because no matter how hard she tried she couldn't find a little outfit that she'd forgotten all about hiding away somewhere in the back of her wardrobe, one that would magically suit her and make her look all sexy and gorgeous, the way she wanted. Whether she liked it not and it was definitely a case of 'not' what she had on would bloody well have to do.

She was having enormous difficulty in believing that the day had finally arrived, the one that she'd almost given up on as a bad job because she'd thought it was never going to happen, but today, after all the time she'd spent imagining it, dreaming about it, trying to conjure up some fool-proof bloody scheme to get her own way, it was finally happening and instead of being delirious about it she was twitchy and hyper and wasn't even sure it was what she wanted any more.

She was nervous to the point of worrying about ending up with sweat rings so that she put her hands under her top to feel her armpits again and wondered whether to change the black top for a white one because sweat wouldn't show as much on something light. She knew she was being bloody ridiculous and that it was just an evening out like any other and it wasn't like this was the first time she'd spent the evening with him, more like the hundred and first, but it was the first time that it was a date, a real date.

Three days after the evening he'd gone missing from the pub the three of them had been eating in Pizza Hut and just for once they'd been minus Smurf, but also minus Dee who'd apparently kicked Jamie into touch. She'd come to her senses and dumped him, well that was according to Lauren, or been dumped by him, according to his version, but it didn't look much like he cared either way as he'd finally got round to noticing her and had asked her to go out with him on a date. And not just any date either, a Saturday night date, the most important night of the week for a date or so she'd always thought.

He'd got tickets, she had this small suspicion that he'd bought them for him and Dee and didn't want to waste them or go on his own, but still …. so he was taking her to the Cineworld place to see Suicide Squad apparently something about a bunch of out-of-control superheroes or something like that that the critics had rated and which he'd gone on and on about really looking forward to seeing, whereas Molly thought it sounded like complete shite. But at least if they went to the cinema he wouldn't expect her to do a whole load of snogging, they were far too old for back row of the cinema stuff. It was really hard for her to actually admit it, even to herself, but she didn't really know any more how she felt about ….. well, about all of it, she didn't know whether she was full of excitement and anticipation and that was why she felt a bit sick when she thought about it, or whether it was because she was bloody dreading it. One thing she did know was that any sort of sexy stuff could be a bit of a problem.

For some reason she just wasn't sure it was what she wanted, in fact if she was honest right at that moment she couldn't think of anything she wanted less. She was shit-scared that she seemed to have gone off him a bit, which was weird when for as long as she could remember she'd been lusting after him and wanting this, dying for it, but now that it was finally going to happen it all seemed to have gone somewhere else, just like that, and she had no fucking clue whether it was permanent or if the feelings would come back.

If it was terminal then Lauren was going to be very, very pissed at her, and that was putting it mildly. Molly was crapping herself at the thought of telling Lauren, she was going to fucking kill her. In spite of her habit of calling him twat-face or fart-bag, they were close and she reckoned she'd been putting in a whole bunch of effort, working her bloody socks off to get him to see Molly was the perfect girl for him. Although Molly hadn't really given it a lot of thought before, well, it had all looked so bleeding unlikely to happen, now she wasn't that sure that she wanted to be with someone whose sister had had to 'work on' him to make him fancy her.

-OG-

More than an hour into the film and she couldn't have told you whether it was any bloody good or not. Jamie seemed to be really enjoying it, but she hadn't got a scoobie if it was great or the total shite she thought it might be because she couldn't force herself to focus on it long enough to find out. She was far too tense to just relax and follow the action, for starters she was dead worried that he might pounce on her at any second so was concentrating on working out what she'd do if that happened, at the same time as longing to take her hand back from where he was holding onto it, apart from anything else it felt all sweaty and horrible. It didn't help that people sitting round them were irritating the fuck out of her, rustling papers unwrapping sweets or coughing and clearing their throats, blowing their bloody noses and the couple sitting bang behind them kept on whispering to each other so that she was dying to turn round and tell them to shut the fuck up because some people had paid good money and were trying to watch, which wasn't even true in her case.

She wanted to jab Jamie in the ribs and tell him she thought there should be some sodding law against people going to the cinema when they had colds or if they wanted to eat sweets or have a bloody chat, but she couldn't because unlike her he was watching the film that he'd paid for while she kept on being distracted by thinking about how she'd rather be out with the others than sitting in the dark with him.

The others were all going to some Karaoke place which Molly had thought sounded like it could be a real laugh. Okay, so she couldn't sing a bloody note herself, couldn't sing in tune to save her life, but she loved watching and listening when other people made total tits of themselves. The lads had been ripping the piss out of Bossman, saying that he was always the first up because he thought he was first cousin to Elton John, so that he'd thrown his head back and roared with laughter before saying he didn't think anything of the kind, he bloody well knew he was so that they'd all laughed. Although to be fair they'd all agreed he was bloody good, very nearly as good as he thought he was.

She'd immediately accused them of being a bunch of bloody arse crawlers, so that he'd laughed again and agreed with her, making her giggle when he said that on the other hand they only said it because they knew what was good for them. Now, as she sat in the dark next to the man of her dreams, she couldn't help wondering if they were having a good time without her and whether he'd got up and had a go yet, and if he had, what it was he'd sung and whether he'd sung it with Lauren, because she also had a nice voice, well, she could hit the right notes and hold a tune anyway.

-OG-

Eventually, and after what felt like a bloody lifetime the credits started to roll, so that along with the rest of the audience they began the rush for the exit, everyone in the place was trying to be first out the door to avoid the crush in the foyer.

"Did you enjoy it? I thought the critics were absolutely right for once, it was a good film, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, was"

He had his hand on her shoulder as he steered her round the outside of the crowd who were milling about on the pavement as she tried to pack some enthusiasm into her voice and said a silent and heartfelt prayer that he wouldn't ask her opinion about any particular bits of the film, she hadn't got a fucking clue what it had all been about, just that it had been far too sodding long.

"It's early, what would you like to do now? Shall we go for a drink, or are you hungry, do you want to go and get something to eat?"

"Nah I'm not hungry, I don't mind what we do" She smiled at him and then tried to look as though something had just that minute occurred to her "I know, let's go and join up with Lauren and the others at this Karaoke place"

"You wouldn't" He paused "Prefer to go and have a drink somewhere on our own, just the two of us, somewhere quiet?"

"Nah, you're alright, it sounded like it could be a whole load of fun"

Shit, that sounded so lame that she was swamped with real feelings of guilt so that she was cringing and feeling incredibly mean because he'd sounded like he was disappointed, and it wasn't his fault that things had changed, well, that she'd changed. She'd been bloody nuts about him for just about forever and a few weeks ago the thought of him inviting her to go for a quiet drink on their own somewhere would have made her think she'd died and gone to heaven, but if there was one thing she was certain of right now it was that she didn't want to go for a drink on her own with him, in fact, she couldn't think of anything worse.

"We'll have to get a taxi, it's a fair old trek from here"

"I'll pay, you paid for the tickets"

Even as she heard the words coming out of her gob she was saying another little silent prayer begging for him to say 'no', she hadn't got nearly enough money to pay for a bloody taxi so that if he took her up on the offer she'd have to give him an IOU and then go without food till the end of the month.

"Wouldn't dream of it"

Molly smiled and thanked him sweetly as he started trying to hail a cab, despite her pride she didn't insist or argue the toss, he not only had a better job than her so that he had far more money, which wouldn't be hard, but unlike her, he lived at home and the hippie-dippies wouldn't let him starve.

-OG-

They could hear them well before they could see them, they were camped on the far side of the bar nearest the stage and were by far the noisiest bunch in the whole room, they were whoop-whooping and cat-calling, and doing that two fingers in the mouth whistling as they stamped their feet at their very own tall, dark-haired answer to Elton John as he belted out "Don't go Breaking my Heart" to Lauren who had her hand on his arm as she sang the Kiki Dee bit almost with her tongue hanging out as she looked at him and tossed her blonde hair which was shining under the lights.

She looked incredible, her skin-tight black dress had this very low cut top and a skirt that was more like a belt than anything else but it really suited her. She was showing off a hell of a lot of cleavage and long slim legs making Molly feel this stab of envy as she stood at the back in the shadows and watched her, well, watched them both. He was right, he could sing, he could REALLY sing so that he sounded bloody brilliant and Molly just stood and watched and listened, and accepted that the reason she felt a bit shit was because all the bloody dreams she'd been carrying about for so long had all just … gone … so that she wanted to put her head down and cry, while Lauren looked like she was finally going to get to plant her flag, they looked every inch like they were a couple.

-OG-