Previously…
– Rosie walked into the grand opening of The Wild Lady just in time to see Elly kissing Travis, but Travis vowed that he wants to be with Rosie, and she resolved to be with him, too. 
– Things grew heated when Tim suggested that Jason drop his suit for custody of Peter.
– After leaving the grand opening, Brent impulsively stopped at Molly’s house.

“Brent… What are you doing here?”

Molly Taylor stands in the front doorway of her home, staring out at her ex-husband. Behind him, moonlight traces the silhouettes of the tall evergreen trees against the deep blue of the sky.

“Are the boys okay?” she adds with sudden desperation.

“Everyone’s fine. I was driving by and saw the lights on,” Brent says, fumbling slightly over his words. Now that he is here, out of the car and face-to-face with her, he feels rash, crazy. “I thought I’d see if you were feeling okay.”

She furrows her brow. “Feeling okay?”

“Your mom said you skipped the grand opening of The Wild Lady because you were feeling under the weather. I was worried you were still feeling crappy from the smoke inhalation.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She brushes a piece of her dark hair out of her face. “I’m fine. I wasn’t in the mood to go, that’s all.”

“Oh. Well, I feel dumb… but I’m happy you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Molly crosses her arms in front of her body; she wears a black zip-up lycra hoodie over a tight-fitting pink t-shirt that makes it impossible for him not to notice her cleavage.

Awkward tension whirls around them like the gusts of wind from an undeniable storm.

“I was thinking we should talk,” Brent says, “after… everything.”

Molly’s eyes flicker down toward the floor. “Yeah.”

Another few seconds of quiet tick by at a torturously slow pace.

Brent begins to speak: “About what happened–“

“There was actually another reason I didn’t go tonight,” Molly cuts in.

Brent stops mid-thought. “What?”

“I was all set to go,” she explains, “until Conrad came to pick me up.”

“And then what happened?”

“I couldn’t put it off any longer.” She sighs as she looks him in the eyes. “I broke up with Conrad.”

---

Jason Fisher pulls his car up beside the curb and shifts into park.

“You didn’t have to drive me all this way,” Sabrina Gage says as she unbuckles the passenger seat’s seatbelt.

“It’s no big deal,” Jason responds, turning slightly toward her. “And you did me a favor by joining me tonight.”

“You did me a favor by inviting me out! That was a lot of fun.” She falls quiet and then becomes more somber. “I’m sorry things got rough between you and your brother.”

He lets out a sigh. “It is what it is. I knew this custody suit would piss some people off. And I know Peter is Tim’s grandson…”

“But if you genuinely believe you’d be a better parent to him than Spencer and Natalie, this is what you have to do.”

“Right.” He smiles gratefully. “Thanks for being on my side. It’s reassuring to feel like someone understands.”

“I do understand. And I’m here for you.”

Sabrina shifts in her seat, locking eyes with him. Jason feels a sudden charge in the air, but he has no idea if he is reading the situation correctly.

“So,” Sabrina says after several more seconds of uncertain silence.

Jason begins to lean toward her, but he hesitates, and again he wonders if he is misreading things.

“I can’t thank you enough for coming tonight,” he says. “We’ll have to do it again.”

“I’d like that.”

“So would I. And I guess I should get home and to bed. It’s gonna be an early morning in court.”

“Okay. Yeah.” She grins awkwardly at him as she reaches over and opens the passenger side door. “Thanks again for the ride.”

“My pleasure.”

“And good luck tomorrow. Let me know how things go, please.”

“Of course.”

She hesitates and then finally steps out of the car.

“Goodnight, Sabrina,” Jason says.

“Goodnight.”

As she closes the door, Jason drops his head forward. He was sure that he felt something in the air between them, but when he second-guessed himself, it seemed as if the moment had passed. And then it felt even more awkward.

Cringing at himself, he watches Sabrina let herself into the front door of her apartment and then puts the car back in drive.

---

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go to my place instead?” Rosie Jimenez asks, clutching Travis Fisher‘s hand as they hurry down the hallway of his apartment building together.

“Nah. Landon said he’s out driving,” Travis replies. Not wanting to let go of Rosie’s hand for even a second, he wriggles his front door key into the lock and twists it. As he pushes the door open, he immediately hears the sound of video games emanating from the living room TV.

“I thought you were out driving,” Travis says flatly as he stares at his roommate, parked comfortably on the couch with his Playstation controller and a bowl of popcorn.

“I was. Now I’m not,” Landon Esco says with a shrug, his gaze still on the screen.

Travis and Rosie exchange looks.

“I texted you 20 minutes ago,” Travis says.

“And I was in my car 20 minutes ago,” Landon responds. “You asked if I was home.”

Rosie squeezes Travis’s hand and laughs. “Hi, Landon.”

“Hi, Rosie.” Then he does a double-take and drops the controller. “Hi, Rosie!”

“Good to see you,” she says.

“You, too.” With no subtlety whatsoever, Landon raises both eyebrows intently at Travis.

“We can totally go to my place,” Rosie says.

Landon picks up the controller. “Don’t leave on my account.”

“I’m not wasting any more time,” Travis says. “‘Night, Landon.”

“‘Night! You kids have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Travis leads Rosie quickly out of the living room and toward his bedroom door. As soon as he closes it, they are kissing again, hands all over one another’s bodies.

“We really did waste too much time,” Rosie says, pausing between kisses as her fingers hurriedly unbutton his shirt. “I’m sorry for being the cause of that.”

“Stop apologizing.” He smirks at her as he wriggles out of the shirt, causing Rosie’s hands to move to his firm, bare chest. “It’s only gonna waste more time, and we have way better things to do.”

He hungrily kisses her again as they tumble onto the bed.

---

“Broke up with him? Why?”

Molly remains silent, looking out at the night, even as complex emotions play out in the depths of her brown eyes. Brent waits anxiously for whatever she might say.

“You’re right,” she says. “We should talk. Come in.” She steps aside, letting him into the house.

As they move into the living room, Brent is overcome by a sensation that he hasn’t had — or at least acknowledged — in some time: how strange it is that this is the very house that they bought together, the house that they turned into a home, and yet Molly’s life has gone on here while it no longer belongs to him.

“I’ve been feeling so confused since I got out of the hospital,” she explains as they linger over the matched loveseats, neither moving to take a seat. “Since that night, really.”

Brent hesitates and then says, “Me, too.”

She lets out a sigh. “So you understand.”

“I…” He swallows hard. “I don’t know.”

“The things we said that night, Brent… the things that happened. I know we were trapped, thinking we were going to die, but that’s when you’re most honest, isn’t it?”

He flattens his mouth into a line before finally nodding.

“And I can’t forget about it,” Molly tells him. “That’s why I ended things with Conrad. He’s a great guy, he really is, but what I had with him — it will never compare to what you and I had. What we have.”

“Molly. Are you sure–“

“Yes. I ended it with Conrad because I know that I need to be with you.”

---

Jason replays his goodbye with Sabrina over and over in his mind during the drive home. He is still cringing to himself as he presses the button on his rearview mirror that is programmed to open the garage to his house; he lingers in the driveway as the door lifts. The car glides into the garage, its headlights casting a harsh glow on the packed shelves on the front wall.

He kills the engine and presses the button to close the garage door again — but this time, nothing happens. He glances back, able to see the illumination of streetlights out in the neighborhood as the door remains open.

After trying the button again, to no avail, he climbs out of the car to check the garage door — but before he can even get to it, something rises up to strike him. He feels himself falling, his vision suddenly out-of-focus, before it all fades into darkness.

---

“Goodnight,” Alex Marshall whispers before easing the bedroom door closed. He moves softly through the small bungalow, not wanting to wake Trevor, who is finally asleep, or Chase, who has blessedly been asleep for a few hours after being sick and cranky all day long. The summer flu that swept through their household thankfully seems to be on its way out, and Alex couldn’t be more relieved.

He is just settling in to watch another episode of Big Little Lies when his phone vibrates atop the coffee table. He grabs it and checks the text notification; as he reads, his casual interest turns to confusion and concern.

Are you up? I need help.

Alex doesn’t hesitate before responding: Help? What’s up?

The response takes mere seconds: Can you come over?

Now Alex does pause. The request is so strange. Finally he works out an answer.

Trevor and Chase are asleep. What’s going on?

Three bubbles bounce on the screen for a moment before the words appear:

Please. I need you to come over. It’s urgent.

Alex stares at the exchange in confusion, his heart rate quickening.

---

Brent can hardly believe what he is hearing.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he manages to tell Molly.

“I had to,” she says. “It wasn’t fair to him. Not when I knew I’d be living a lie.”

Brent gulps. He looks around and sees so many signs of the life that they once lived together: the piano that they deliberated over buying, the framed photos of the twins throughout the years, the urn on the mantel commemorating the dog that Brent bought her when they first got together, who passed away several years ago.

“And I know that I have to be honest with you,” Molly continues. “We said it when we were in that trunk — and I know those were heightened circumstances–“

“To say the least.”

“Yeah. But I meant what I said, Brent. I meant what I felt. And I know you did, too.”

He breathes in sharply. He can recall so vividly the sensations of being locked in that trunk with her, thinking that they were both about to die; in those moments, he could see an alternate life, a life in which they’d never broken up. And, as much as he has tried, he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since.

“I’m with Claire,” he says, almost robotically. 

“I know. That’s why I almost kept this to myself, but… I had to speak up. I couldn’t not. And if you tell me that’s really and truly what you want, I’ll never bring it up again.” She stops and breathes in, a movement that Brent watches as if it is happening in slow motion. “But I thought we were going to die that night, and everything came into focus, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t say something.”

He feels frozen in place.

“If Nick Moriani hadn’t blown up that building,” he begins, tentatively.

“Then we might still be together. We were young and stupid, and our emotions were out of control, and we pushed each other away.”

“Yeah.”

“I know better now.”

“Molly…”

“I’ve said what I needed to say,” she tells him. “I had to. I’ll always love you, Brent.”

Those words have been churning in his mind for weeks, phantom proclamations that he has tried to ignore, tried not to engage with. But here they are, right in front of him, so alive and powerful.

The next thing he knows, he is grabbing her and pulling her close.

“I love you, too,” he says, and then their mouths are crushing together, their bodies pressing into one another, and they tumble onto the sofa, hands grasping wildly at each other.

END OF EPISODE 986

Are Brent and Molly making a mistake?
Should Jason have kissed Sabrina?
What is with Alex’s mysterious texts?
Discuss it all in the comments below!

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