“Hey.” I slide from my hiding place, startling Penny enough to make her jump.
“Oh my God.” Her hand flies to her chest with a breathy laugh. “You scared me. What were you doing back there?”
“Lurking,” I say, with a reconciliatory smile. “I was hoping for a private moment to say I’m sorry.”
Her brow furrows as she blinks up at me. “For what?”
“For yesterday.” I angle my body closer to the wall as a pack of giggling pre-teen girls smelling of sunscreen and strawberry bubblegum surge past us toward the bathroom.
Penny shifts out of the way, too, casting a glance over my shoulder toward our table as we move. “Yesterday? Yesterday was great.” Her attention returns to me with a puzzled smile. “Wasn’t it?”
“Well, yeah. Yes. It was.” I press my lips together and rub them side to side as I study Penny’s face, looking for signs that she’s hiding her feelings. But her smile is warm and transparent.
Could I have been reading angst into a situation where none exists?
At least on her side?
“But, well, I—” I break off with a nervous laugh. “I mean, after the—”
“If anyone should be apologizing, it’s me,” she cuts in, tugging the elastic from her hair and smoothing it back into a fresh floppy bun.
I realize I’ve grown fond of that bun. I love her hair long and loose, but there’s something artlessly elegant about all that hair piled into a silky nest atop her head. And it bares her neck. Her beautiful, sweet-smelling neck that I could be kissing right now if I had stayed put after taking her against the wall.
“I feel terrible about leaving you on your own,” she continues. “If it makes you feel any better, my air mattress deflated sometime during the night and I woke up freezing with my back so sore I could barely move. Eddie had to push me into a seated position and Francis decided I’m old before my time and need to take up Tai Chi or Hatha Yoga or some kind of ‘old person’s exercise.’ Her words.”
“She’s a character,” I say, laughing. “But no, that doesn’t make me feel better.” I tuck a lock of hair she’s missed behind her ear, grateful for the excuse to touch her. “I could give you a massage later if we sneak away from the rest of the group a little early. I’m pretty good with my hands.”
“I know you are,” she says, eyes twinkling. “And you’re sweet. But I promised the girls they could have me until I need to run back to the cottage to get dressed.” Her forehead wrinkles. “I know they can be a little obnoxious, but they’re my sisters and in a few weeks, I won’t see them much. They’ll be at their dad’s house for the entire summer this year.”
“Okay. Sure. Sounds great.” I nod with more enthusiasm than I feel. “Then group fun day it is.”
“Great,” she says, beaming. “Thank you.”
She leans in for a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. The kiss is nice, but it’s not the kind of kiss I want and it’s over way too soon. Before I can get my arms all the way around her, she has already pulled away.
“Just embrace the crazy and you’ll have a great time.” She turns to go, but stops and spins back to me, adding beneath her breath, “And ignore Nanny Helms. She’s always like this when she meets someone new. It’s not personal. She’ll warm up to you. By the end of the day, she’ll be offering to mend your socks and telling you all her favorite fart jokes.”
I arch a wry brow. “Well, you know how much I love socks. And fart jokes.”
Penny’s eyes narrow as she shakes her head. “Oh, don’t even try. Don’t even try to play it cool with me, Prince. I know better. My farting emoji collection was one-fifth the size before I met you.”
I grin. “I’m a bad influence.”
“Clearly,” she says, lips quirking.
My throat goes tight. I want to say something about there being a difference between being a fun kind of bad influence and the sort of man who runs from his feelings. Even if she’s fine with the way things went down yesterday, I want her to know that I know that I fucked up.
And that I don’t plan on fucking up again.
But before I can find the words, she reaches out and loops her arm through mine.
“Come on.” She takes off across the faded carpet, leading the way back to our table. “We should finish up and take care of the check. We’ve got an appointment with a seamstress to measure the girls’ dolls for custom clothes in twenty minutes. Then we’re heading to a princess party at the new toy store and finishing up the girl-fest by getting our nails done.”
I swallow hard. “Sounds great.”
“You don’t have to come.” Penny chuckles. “If you fear that much exposure to the color pink, I completely understand.”
“I fear nothing,” I say, “except spending the day without you.”
Penny stumbles, but I shift my grip on her arm, catching her before she falls. Once she’s recovered her feet, she lifts her gaze to mine, studying me through narrowed eyes.
“What?” I ask, clearing my throat.
She shakes her head. “Nothing. I just…” Her tongue slips out to dampen her lips as she shakes her head again. “Just hope I won’t end up tripping all over myself at the party tonight. I’m such a klutz when I’m tired.”
“I could come with you. Ditch the stag party. I have no urge to hang out with Phillip and after all the exposure to estrogen today, I’ll be mostly girl anyway.”
She smiles. “You’ll never be mostly girl. And thank you, but—”
“Penny!” Eddie appears at her elbow. “Hurry up and finish your bagel or we’re going to be late.”
“But I’ll be fine,” Penny finishes before letting Eddie tow her away.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of little-girl-centered activities that are unexpectedly…pleasant.
Francis and Eddie are fun kids and the princess party features a pretty cutthroat cell-phone-photograph scavenger hunt. After years of undergrad scavenger hunts through the city, I’ve got the skills to lead our team to an easy victory over the competition, earning the twins a twenty-dollar gift certificate to their favorite bookstore and me honorary uncle status. Afterward, I sit between them at the nail salon and let them each pick out a color for me—Eddie on the left hand, Francis on the right. They choose pink with white hibiscus flowers and black with red skulls and giggle pretty much constantly while I’m getting manicured and Nanny Helms looks on with a healthy dose of judgment.
Despite Penny’s promises, the older woman hasn’t warmed up to me, but I don’t care. Penny’s smile as she sits at the pedicure station, watching Francis, Eddie, and me gossip while we get our nails done is worth every minute it will take me to get the nail polish off before the bachelor party.
And as we leave the salon, when she wraps her arm around my waist and says, “Thank you, Uncle Bash. They had an amazing time,” I realize that I had an amazing time, too.
Sharing Penny is almost as much fun as having Penny all to myself. It’s like watching a baseball game at the stadium instead of at home alone. Sometimes it’s nice to share your passion and enthusiasm for something you love with people who get where you’re coming from.
Something you love…
As Penny and I say our goodbyes and start back to the cottage, the words haunt me. We’re quiet on the drive. I don’t know what Penny’s thinking, but I’m thinking about that piece-of-forever feeling that almost brought me to my knees while I was buried inside her yesterday.
It isn’t what I felt back when Rachael and I were together, but Penny isn’t Rachael. She’s sweeter, deeper, and she just…gets me. With Penny, I never have to explain why I find something funny or hide my soft underbelly. Rachael wanted all alpha male all the time, but Penny accepts me for who I am, whether I’m taking control in the bedroom or making dumb jokes or getting my fingernails painted with her little sisters.
That means something. It means a lot and I intend to pay very close attention to the way I feel the next time I’m making love to this woman
.
Hopefully, in the very near future…
As soon as we shut the door to the cottage behind us, I reach for her, pulling her close. She comes to me, but instead of wrapping her arms around my neck, she presses her palms flat against my chest, holding me at a distance.
“We don’t have time for this,” she whispers.
“I realize I’ve impressed you with my staying power, Miss Pickett, but I am capable of pulling off a quickie.” I press a kiss to her throat, where her pulse is already beating faster. “And don’t worry. You’ll still come at least twice.”
“I’m not worried,” she says, sounding worried. “But I promised my mother I wouldn’t be late. I’m helping set up the party games.”
I pull back, studying her face. Her gaze is on the clock above the stove and her thoughts apparently far from me, but still I ask, “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” she says, lips curving in a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just have a lot on my mind.”
“Like what? You should tell me.” I cup her cheek in my hand, fingers dipping into her soft hair. “Then I can have it on my mind and free up more room in yours.”
“I don’t think it works that way, Sebastian.” It’s the first time she’s said my full name in a while and I find I don’t like the sound of it on her lips. It sounds formal, distant, like she’s pushing me away with a word.
“But we should talk later,” she continues. “After the party. Do you want first shower or can I go ahead and jump in?”
I nod toward the other side of the cottage. “Go for it. I’ll probably just change. I showered this morning.”
“Okay, I’ll be quick.” She moves out of my arms, crossing the space without looking back over her shoulder. When she reaches the bathroom, she closes the door firmly behind her, making it clear I’m not invited in to chat while she gets ready the way I was yesterday.
I stand in the middle of the quaint room where I first made love to Penny, feeling alone even though she’s in the next room, fighting the ugly feeling that unless I do something soon, my new lover may become my ex-lover before the night is through.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
From the text archives of Sebastian “Bash” Prince and Penny Pickett
From Bash: My client asked what your favorite flower was today and I realized I didn’t know. It made me think I probably need to get some background information on my fake girlfriend.
So what’s the favorite flower, buttercup?
From Penny: Stargazer lilies. Even though I’m allergic to them.
Bash: Tragic.
Penny: It really is. Ours is star-crossed, star-gazing love.
Bash: Lol. Favorite food?
Penny: As if you need to ask. Ice cream. Always and forever ice cream.
Bash: I really should have known that.
Penny: You really should have.
Bash: Favorite book, movie?
Penny: I have a hard time picking favorites with things like that, but I love anything sad with a happy ending.
I like to have my heart broken a little before it’s healed up again.
Bash: Hmmm…
Me too, I guess. Though I’ve never really thought about it that way before. I also enjoy films that mix jokes and blowing things up.
Penny: Of course you do. It’s the testosterone.
Bash: Guilty as charged. So what about music? Any guilty pleasures?
Penny: Ukulele. I can’t get enough. Especially if there’s a punk rock influence.
Bash: I think I just fell in love with you.
Penny: I figured it was only a matter of time.
Bash: Seriously, I love ukulele punk rock. I have every album Uke-clear Attack ever put out.
Penny: Me too! That’s so incredibly weird.
Bash: Maybe we’re soul mates.
Penny: Maybe. But if we are, you should probably know some of my uglier secrets, too.
Bash: Lay them on me. I can take it.
Penny: I’m afraid of birds. It’s not a full-blown phobia anymore, but when I was little, I used to have a panic attack every time seagulls flew over my head on the beach.
Bash: I can see how birds could be scary. I mean, with all the feathers and those beady little alien eyes.
Penny: And the claws. Don’t forget the creepy clawed feet.
Bash: Totally creepy. Agreed.
Any other dark secrets?
Penny: Not too many. Though I do have a hard time keeping my thoughts to myself sometimes.
Bash: No. No way. You?
Penny: You’re so good at sarcasm. Like, a professional really. You ought to give workshops.
Bash: Thank you. But you know what they say—those who can’t do, teach.
Penny: Indeed. And you certainly do.
Bash: I do.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The only thing worse than being forced to go to a bachelor party where you know no one except your maybe-soon-to-be-ex-lover’s ex-boyfriend is being close enough to hear your maybe-soon-to-be-ex-lover and her friends laughing it up while you try to play nice with slimy Hollywood types and a dozen overgrown frat boys.
The bachelorette party is taking place out in the garden at Penny’s childhood home while the bachelor party has been confined to the large basement, AKA Phillip’s “man cave.”
The moment I hear the term pass his lips, I decide to arrange to have myself shot if I ever have such a thing in my home. After the briefest “thanks for having me, congrats on your impending marriage” exchange possible, I disappear to the far corner of the room to play pool, as far from Phillip and the group of men watching the Yankee’s season opener on the big screen as possible.
I’ve just beat my third douche named Matthew along with one Kip and a Baxter Sloan—two names, don’t use just one or he’ll remind you that there are two—and am considering throwing the next game to have an excuse to sneak outside to spy on Penny when Phillip materializes from the shadows, a blond nightmare in a salmon polo.
“I hear Francis and Edna had a great time with you today,” he says, taking a pool cue from where they’re mounted on the wall.
“They’re easy to have fun with.” I silently curse myself for waiting a few too many minutes to make my escape. “They’re good kids.”
“They are,” Phillip says. “I don’t see as much of them as I would like, what with filming in the city and flying to the west coast for auditions. But we’re close. I’ve known them since they were babies. Penny and I used to take turns burping them when they were newborns.”
“Bet you had no idea you would be their stepfather back then, huh?” I ask with a shit-eating grin. After Penny’s performance yesterday, I’m feeling free to fuck with Phillip a little, now that’s it’s clear he has no power over his former flame.
He meets my shit-eating grin with a seemingly easy chuckle. “No, I didn’t. But love tends to surprise you. I bet it was like that for you and Penny, right? I mean, she’s that kind of girl.”
“What kind?” I take my time racking the balls, hoping he’ll get bored and leave before I’m forced to start a game with him.
“The kind that sneaks up on you,” he says. “She’s so friendly and easy to be around that you let your guard down. And then all of a sudden you realize that girl, the sweet, funny friend you used as an excuse to sit at Tawny Regis’s lunch table, is the one you really want to be with.” He smiles, his gaze going soft and distant as if he’s watching sepia-colored memories of high school aged Penny flit by in his mind’s eye.
“Not really,” I say, determined to derail this trip down memory lane as fast as possible. I’m not going to fucking reminisce with him, and I’m sure as hell not going to admit that Penny snuck up on me, too. The only thing I want to share with this prick is a knuckle-crushing handshake when I tell him goodbye. “But I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to discuss how I fell for Penny with you. No offense.”
“None taken.” His green eyes hone back in o
n my face, serpent-like in the dim light above the pool table. “But you have to admit she’s an acquired taste. I mean, the way she just says whatever she’s thinking. It’s like there’s no filter.”
“I find it refreshing,” I counter. “I’m pretty sick of all the bullshit in the world. It’s nice to be with someone who doesn’t traffic in it.”
He laughs beneath his breath. “That’s another way of looking at it. Though when you factor in the ornithophobia it’s easy to think there’s something more serious at work than eccentricity.” His grin hardens. “You know, if you didn’t know better.”
I nod, still smiling.
I see what he’s up to now. He thinks he can scare me away and prove that he knows Penny better than I do, all in one fell swoop. But if there’s going to be a “who knows Penny best” pissing contest, I’m going to win it.
I prop my cue on the floor and lean one hip against the pool table. “The fear of birds is pretty common, really. I was more concerned about her perpetually cold feet. It’s not normal to wear two pairs of socks to bed in the summertime.”
Phillip’s lips part, but I rush on before he can speak.
“And then there’s the ice cream addiction, but considering I suffer from the same weakness, I consider that one of the more adorable things about her. Kind of like the way she names things that get on her nerves, how she carries granola bars around in her purse to give to homeless people, and how excited she gets about camping out in the living room with her sisters.”
Phillip smiles. “I remember when we were in high school, one weekend we—”
1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Nine Page 85
