Bad Penny

by Staci Hart

  “What happened?” She eyed me.

  “He fucking hit on me, that’s what happened.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And that’s … bad?”

  “Yes! I mean, no, but, yes! He and his girlfriend broke up, and he picked me up and set me on the bar and touched my leg and — ugh!”

  That stupid look in her eye was back, the one that said she had me right where she wanted me. “You had the white whale in your clutches, and you didn’t snag him?”

  I took another drink, this time more moderate. “Yep. I had Moby Fucking Dick in my harpoon sights, and not only am I uninterested, but I’m … what is this feeling?” My face fell. “Is this what it feels like to feel offended?”

  She laughed — that asshole.

  “Oh my God,” I groaned as I plopped onto a stool next to her. “I’m broken. Bodie broke me, and now I’m ruined.” My chest ached, and I slammed the rest of my tequila to burn the pain away. “I don’t want to do this, Ronnie.”

  Veronica smiled at that, just a little, just enough. “Well, well. I’m not gonna lie. I kind of hoped this would happen.”

  I sucked in a tiny breath and gaped at her. “Did you fucking set me up?”

  She shrugged. “I had a feeling you needed a push. I mean, you definitely needed a shower, so even if that was the only thing that came of tonight, I was going to call it a win.”

  I set my glass down with a clink and glared. “You dick.”

  But she reached for my arm, her eyes caring even if she was a douchebag. “Pen, you said you didn’t want to do this, Cody, tonight, boy-hunt, whatever. So what other choice do you have? You want Bodie, right?”

  “Yeah, I do.” I didn’t know why I wanted to cry, but I did. It had been at least ten hours. I was due.

  “Then what are you gonna do about it?”

  A tingle worked across my skin, either from the tequila or the realization of the truth.

  I couldn’t go back because Old Penny didn’t exist anymore. Old Penny had lost her heart to Bodie.

  He had changed me, rearranged me, and as I sat in that bar with an empty glass in my hand, I knew I’d never be the same. Even if I’d fucked it up, even if I’d lost him forever, I’d learned something very important.

  I wanted to trust someone else with my heart.

  Bodie had shown me what it was like to be with someone I trusted, someone who cherished me and whom I wanted to cherish. He’d taught me that letting someone in was a risk, but the reward was immeasurable. I’d let him in, and I’d gotten hurt because I’d fought the feeling. For a second there, I’d fallen into him and let myself go, and that second had been so glorious, so perfect, that all I wanted to do was get the feeling back. I wanted to get him back. I wanted to give him everything in the same way he’d given everything to me.

  I loved the way he made me feel, loved his mind and body and soul, loved the way he cared for me, the way he’d let me breathe and given me exactly what I’d needed, even when it hurt him. Even when I hurt him.

  The truth of the matter dawned on me like a ray of sunshine, illuminating what I’d known all along.

  I didn’t want to trust just anyone with my heart. I wanted to give my heart to Bodie.

  It was already his.

  Right then, I knew I would do whatever it took to get him back. Even if it didn’t work and even if there was no way back to him, I had to try. I had to fight for him.

  The sweet relief of decision knocked all the weight off my shoulders so I could breathe again, and that pilot light in my ribs fired up, igniting me with purpose. And as an idea came to me, I only hoped he would give me one last chance.

  22

  BAIL

  Bodie

  I dropped my hands into the ocean on either side of my board to wet them and ran them through my drying hair. Jude and I had been waiting on a decent wave for long enough that I was ready to call it.

  I sighed and glanced down the line of surfers — all sitting on their boards off Rockaway Beach looking bored — then at the beach, dotted with sunbathers. It was my first session in New York, and if things had gone differently, Penny would have been one of those dots on the beach. She would have been my dot on the beach.

  I imagined her letting me teach her how to surf, imagined her on a board laughing, and my mood sank even further.

  “Ugh, man. Quit being so fucking mopey.”

  “This sucks. Let’s just go.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Quitter.”

  “Bro, this is bullshit. We rode the subway for an hour to get here with boards and wetsuits, and it’s nothing but closeouts. I told you to check the fucking reports, man.”

  “I did,” he said with a huff.

  “Liar. Nobody’s getting a decent ride today. It’s not happening, so why the fuck are we still sitting here? I mean, I appreciate you trying to cheer me up and all, but the longer we sit here, the more pissed I am.”

  “You’re just bitchy because of Penny.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  He held up his hands. “Look, I’m not judging. I’m just saying.”

  “I’m not calling her, dude,” I said for the hundredth time.

  “I don’t see why not. We were busy before, but we did it. It’s over, so now you can figure out what you want to do about her. It couldn’t hurt to just talk to her.”

  I rested a hand on my thigh and turned to him, making a face. “Seriously? Because if I talk to her and she says the right thing, I’ll be right back where I started.”

  “Why’s that a bad thing?”

  “Because I don’t know if I can trust her. Don’t you think I want to call her? Don’t you think I want to go right back to the way things were? Because I do. I want to so bad, I can’t even stand it. But the problem is that there is no going back, and I don’t know if Penny’s capable of going forward.”

  “What if she is and you just don’t know it?”

  I sighed and shook my head. “I dunno, man. I don’t know if I’m ready to put myself through that again. I’m scared of her. I care too much not to be scared. Maybe I just need a little more time. Space.”

  “Yeah, because that’s going so well for you.”

  He wasn’t wrong. I’d been reserved and in my own head ever since the concert, even worse since she’d come over with tacos.

  I ran a hand over the smattering of stubble across my jaw. “I almost call her every day. I just don’t even know what to say or how to handle her. I don’t know what she wants from me or if I can even give it to her anymore. Because if she wants to pretend like we don’t care about each other, I’m out. I want her. I want her for keeps, and I’m through playing games.”

  “Then you need to tell her.”

  “Man, you don’t fucking get it. I can’t just tell her. I can’t guide her through this; she’s got to figure it out and let me know. If I tell her what I want, who’s to say she won’t agree without really understanding what I’m asking of her? I can be patient, but I can’t teach her this. I can’t tell her what to do or what she wants.”

  “Don’t you think she deserves the chance? She’s waiting on you.”

  “Yeah, well, she shouldn’t,” I said, my throat tight as I lay on my belly and paddled away, angling for a wave that wouldn’t last more than six feet, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to participate. I just wanted it all to go away.

  I popped up onto my feet and rode the wave until it folded in on itself. When the barrel disappeared, I bailed, diving off my board and into the ocean, opening my eyes underwater to watch the wave roll away from me upside down, taking my hope with it.

  23

  WHAT PART OF Σ=Λ(∇·U)I+2ΜΕ DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?

  Bodie

  The whiskey in my hand was cold, but it went down warm as I walked around the party the following night, trying to have a good time and failing miserably.

  Jude had the idea to throw a party to celebrate our dreams coming true, and maybe if I’d lived in New
York for more than a month, I would have been having a better time. Maybe if I knew anyone in New York besides Jude, Phil, and Penny, I’d have someone to talk to. But Jude was busy working the crowd, Phil was busy with Angie, and Penny was, of course, not there.

  I paced through the people scattered all over the roof of our building, a common space strung with lights and dotted with islands of chairs. Everyone seemed to be having a good time — we’d even sprung for a DJ who spun actual records and a bartender who we’d tipped extra to get everybody tanked.

  I walked to the edge of the patio, looking toward Central Park, the strip of darkness cradled in the light of the city with Penny on my mind, as she always was.

  Jude and I had come home from Rockaway the day before with almost complete silence between us. Well, Jude had talked a lot, and I’d listened and responded when I was supposed to. But the whole way, I had thought about what he’d said, and when I had been alone in my room, I’d held my phone in my hand for a long time, thinking about calling her.

  Because he was right; she deserved the chance to tell me what she wanted, and I needed to know. I just didn’t know if I was really ready to hear it if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  And that was the real truth of it. It was easier to leave that door open and wonder than to hear that she didn’t want me like I wanted her.

  But Penny had bolted after all, and I couldn’t make her stay. In the end, she’d bucked me off and left me stranded.

  She was wild, and I should have known better than to try to hold on to her.

  Of course, the other thing about loving something wild was how it changed you. And I’d found myself changed for the better — having held her for a moment — and for the worse — the wounds from my grip on her still fresh and tender.

  A deep sigh did little to vent the pressure in my chest, and I turned to head inside, exhausted beyond measure.

  Jude was striding toward me looking suspiciously subversive, and my eyes narrowed. He’d been barring me from going downstairs all night.

  I held up a hand. “I’m going down. Don’t try to stop me.”

  He smiled. “It’s cool. I won’t. You’ve fulfilled your obligations tonight, so go ahead and mope all by yourself while we party until dawn.”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “That trick doesn’t work on me.”

  Jude shrugged. “Had to try.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder, and I headed for the stairs, lost in my thoughts, grateful to be alone as I trotted down to our apartment.

  Except when I walked inside, I wasn’t alone at all. And when I saw her standing before me, time stopped.

  Penny stood in front of our computers next to a blank chalkboard on wheels looking afraid and hopeful and absolutely beautiful. Her hair was purple again and spilling over her shoulders, her fingers toying with the short hem of her gauzy black dress that was sweet, almost demure, though she hung onto her edge with the deep V and strip of broad lace around her waist where her skin peeked through.

  My heart jumped in my chest like it was reaching for her, and my throat closed up, jammed with a hundred things I felt and wished for and wanted. A question was on my lips, and I opened them to speak, but she took a breath and beat me to the punch.

  “They call me Pi because I’m irrational and I don’t know when to stop.”

  A single laugh burst out of me, and she smiled, relaxing just a little as she stepped closer to the chalkboard.

  She drew a line with a shaky hand, then drew another perpendicular line in the center to make a right angle. “I’m not always right.” She drew another line at about the one hundred twenty degree mark. “And I know I’ve been obtuse.” Her final line was at around the forty-five degree point. “But luckily I’m acute psycho, which makes me a little easier to deal with.”

  I folded my arms and squeezed, heart thudding, smile on my lips, disbelieving as my eyes and ears sent signals to my brain that my heart had always known.

  “It’s all fun and games until someone divides by zero, which I did when I took you to that godforsaken concert and that zero came between us. But even before that, I should have told you something I was too afraid to admit,” she said as she drew two right triangles, backed up to each other to make a whole. “You and I are so right.”

  She drew a box on the chalkboard underneath the triangles with an anatomical heart inside without a single mistake, like it was second nature.

  “I can’t let you go, not without telling you how I feel, but I had to think outside the quadrilateral parallelogram to figure out how. Bodie, you’re like a math book; you solve all my problems. And like decimals, I have a point.”

  She turned and moved toward me with her eyes so full of questions and answers and secrets and love that it broke my heart and healed it. My hands fell to my sides, my breath shallow, when she stopped just in front of me.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was afraid, and I’m sorry I hurt you. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I want to return that gift. I want to be your everything if you’ll take me back. Because there’s no equation in my heart that doesn’t put you and me together and end in infinity. I’m all in, Bodie. All three hundred sixty degrees of me.”

  I took a breath and stepped into her, bringing her into my arms as my lungs filled with air, filled with her.

  “You are one well-defined function, Penny,” I joked quietly, holding her against my beating heart, searching for words. “This was all I needed — to know how you felt. If we’re going to work, you’ve got to tell me. You’ve got to trust me.”

  “I do,” she said softly. “Does this mean …”

  I gazed down at her, drunk on her, smiling. “You know,” I said as I brushed her hair from her face, “they say the best angle to come at something is the tryangle.”

  “Do they say that?” She smiled, her eyes shining as she leaned into me, her breaths short.

  “They do,” I answered, thumbing her cheek, searching her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you either, Pen. So I’ll take your three-sixty and give you mine. It was already yours,” I said against her lips.

  And with the smallest of shifts, we connected, breathing out relief and breathing each other into its place.

  Her lips were so sweet, the feel of her in my arms so much better than I’d been daydreaming about since I’d held her last. And all my fears fell away. All except one.

  Slowly, reluctantly, I broke away slowly.

  “You changed your hair again,” I said as I slipped a lock through my fingers.

  She nodded, smiling lips together. “It was a complete science experiment of pink-to-blue ratios, but it worked out. I really like this color after all. I think I’m gonna stick with it for the long haul.”

  “Penny,” I started, looking down at her, hoping this was it, that she was mine for good, “I need to know you’re not going to run when it gets hard. Because it will get hard, and I … I can’t hang around on the fence waiting to see which way you’ll go.”

  She nodded. “God, I hate that I’ve done this to you, that you’d question it. So I’ll tell you now, and I’ll prove it as we go.” She held my jaw in her hands and looked into my eyes. “I’m here to stay. I’m not going to run, and I know it’ll get hard. And you’re right; we can’t pretend like everything’s fine when it’s not. I can’t be afraid to tell you how I feel, and you can’t either. I promise to be honest with you if you do the same.”

  “I promise. But that’s not the only reason you bugged out.”

  She took a breath and looked down. “No, it wasn’t the only reason. I’ve never felt like this before, Bodie. For so long, I’ve suppressed all of this, hid from it, stopped it before it started, and now that I’m letting go of that, it’s like learning how to walk. And I want this. I want you. But I’m scared.”

  I cupped her cheeks and tilted her face up to meet my eyes. “I know,” I said softly, gently. “But I’m not going to hurt you, Pen. I want to protect you. I want to lo
ve you.” My chest tightened as the word passed my lips.

  “I want to love you too,” she said as the fear left her eyes, “and I know you won’t hurt me. All you’ve ever done is try to make me happy. So now it’s my turn.”

  And when she stretched onto her toes, when her lids closed and lashes cast shadows on her cheeks, when she pressed her lips to mine, I knew without a doubt that it was true.

  She opened her mouth and opened her heart, and I slipped in, holding her against me. She held onto me like she never wanted to let me go, and I did the same. Her hands found their way into my hair, her tongue sliding past mine, her back arching her body into my chest, bringing us almost as close as we could be fully clothed.

  She seemed to notice the same thing as she brought the kiss to a close and ran her hands down my chest, tilting her chin to watch them.

  “I missed you,” she said.

  I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I missed you too.”

  My heart chugged under her palm.

  “Should we go to the party?” she asked.

  I knew for a fact it was the last thing she wanted to do.

  I smirked. “How’d you know about the party?”

  She smiled back. “Jude. I had his number. He helped me set this all up.”

  “No wonder he wouldn’t let me come down,” I said with a laugh.

  “He told me they want the game, that you did it. You got the job. You chased your dream down and caught it, and I’m so proud of you. I wish I could have been here for you.”

  I held her close, full of gratitude and reassurance and utter joy. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

  She smiled. “We should go up and say hi.”

  But I bent to grab her around the waist, picking her up as I stood. “Not a chance.”

  She wrapped her legs around my waist and smiled, and I slid my hands up her thighs to her bare ass.