Touch of Fondness: A New Adult Romance (Stay in Touch)

by Joy Penny

  I know what my Spidey sense should tell me. An athlete’s hand towel. Probably used for mopping up sweat. About fifteen kinds of oh-my-god-gross. But Sinjin’s hand is on my thigh, dabbing the tea stains as casually as if the liquid had spilled on the floor or on the seat. His palm lingers on my thigh—true, there’s my pant leg and the washcloth between his skin and mine—but dear lord, his hand is on my thigh and I just about meld with the upholstery. He reaches his other hand out. “Let me.”

  I don’t know what he wants—I almost hand him my wad of tissues—when he grabs the book from my hand. He raises his eyebrows. “You’ve got Kleenex on your book.” He removes his hand and washcloth from my thigh and dabs at the book with it instead. “I’m so sorry.” I don’t bother telling him the book has already been soaked a time or two in the bathtub and there’s no more damage that little tea spill could really have done to it. I just watch him at work, like a doctor and his patient, treating each wrinkled page with as much care as if it were made of silk.

  “Wow.” Owen slides into the back seat and shuts the door. “You’re about thirty shades of red right now, June. What you’re thinking is probably illegal in forty-eight states.”

  I don’t bother asking where he came up with that number. I don’t bother pointing out that at nineteen, there’s probably some leniency for me to be fantasizing about a seventeen-year-old I used to sort of date. Instead I snort and grip the steering wheel, trying to fluff it off like the ribbing it’s meant to be. “If you’re guessing I’m thinking about murdering you right now for trying to embarrass me, I’d have to point out that’s illegal in all fifty states.”

  The freeze in my spine lessens a bit as Sinjin shifts backward to exchange a look with Owen. They chuckle. “Finals didn’t happen to give you a nervous breakdown, did they, June?” asks Sinjin.

  “No, but seeing this place again almost did.” I gesture at the bleachers and the two-story-brick-nightmare that is the high school I spent four years at far behind the field and the baseball diamond. I bite my lip as I look over. It’s not so nightmare-inducing when I no longer have to spend my days there. At least back then, I didn’t have to worry about so much. I didn’t have to worry about practically anything. I smile awkwardly at Sinjin. “Thanks,” I say reaching my hand out for the book. “That’s, uh, good enough. It’s nice seeing you.”

  “Oo, shot down, SJ. Shot down.” Owen taps his palms against the back of the passenger seat. “But just as well. This whole sister-slash-best-friend thing has always kind of creeped me out.”

  I clear my throat. “There was no sister-slash-best-friend thing, Owen.”

  I can’t help but notice Sinjin stiffen just a little out of the corner of my eye.

  Owen reaches up to pat him on the shoulder. “College boys, SJ. No competing with them. Not when they’re just a hallway away.”

  “There were no college boys,” I hiss. I turn around to face him, not sure whether to throttle my little brother or just play it cool by not assaulting him despite the ever-present desire to do so. A lecture about how much work college actually is—well, for some of us anyway, those of us who just don’t have time to date and mess around—is forming on my tongue when my purse starts shaking on the dashboard. I shut my mouth and hope my eyes are enough to convey the world of hurt Owen just escaped. I toss the book atop the dashboard and scramble for the purse, my hand resting on Sinjin’s as he reaches at the same moment. We smile at one another like we’d just been caught doing something very wrong and I let go so he can pass me the purse.

  “Thanks,” I squeak, my voice hardly registering the calm and confidence I meant for it to. I fumble inside and pull out my phone to read the all-important text waiting there: WHR R U 2? DINNER and what’s probably a frosty, shivering emoticon but looks more like a blue blob of water. It likely took Mom twice as long to compose that text as it did for her to make dinner.

  “It’s Mom,” I say, shoving the phone back into the purse. I grab Pride and Prejudice and shove that inside, too, tea stains or no.

  “Let me guess,” says Owen. “She sent you to pick me up so she can make a ‘Welcome home, June’ dinner. And she timed it so we’d start eating about one second after my practice ended.”

  “Pretty much.” I grimace and turn my head just slightly to give Sinjin a smile. “We should get going.”

  “Sure.” Sinjin takes the hint and nods, sliding out the door. “Mamma probably has her own ‘Welcome home, twins, make your own dinner’ planned.” I pinch my lips picturing Margot and Deana coming home to an empty house this afternoon. A gloriously relaxing empty house. Sinjin does this informal salute thing, like he’s saying ‘hats off to you.’ “See ya!”

  I grunt something back. Maybe it’s the “see ya” I meant to say. Maybe it’s some other language. My hands are kind of shaking on the steering wheel.

  Owen shuts the door. “Well, are you going to start the car or should I drive?”

  “Ha,” I say, snapping out of it. I toss my purse back on the seat so recently vacated by the walking reminder of a simpler life, a life where I could have a little crush without feeling like some perv and without worrying I’m wasting my time even expending brain cells on anything but the future and work and research. I shake my head and start the engine, looking behind me to make sure there’s no one I’m about to hit with my vehicle. “Mom told me you’re not driving until you’re forty-three.”

  Owen crosses his arms and leans back into the seat, squishing his damp blond curls against the headrest. “Mom’s just being anal.” He shrugs, closing his eyes. “Show me a junior in high school who hasn’t snuck out in the middle of the night with his parents’ car and a learner’s permit, and I’ll show you this little horned horse I’ve been keeping under my bed called a unicorn.” He snorts. “That is, an actual human junior. Not Spoon from two years ago, who wouldn’t come up for air from a book.”

  Is it too late to get back on the train to Chicago? I’m sensing I won’t be able to make it through the summer without ‘accidentally’ hitting my brother with a vehicle.

  Kiss. Marry. Kill. Nineteen-year-old June Eyermann has always known exactly which of her favorite Byronic heroes goes where. She’d kiss moody and possessive Rochester from Jane Eyre and marry prideful but repentant Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, leaving obsessive and spiteful Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights to be chucked off a cliff—but no. She couldn’t leave any of her heroes behind. She lives for her favorite fictional worlds.

  But June is about to get a serious wake up call when she returns home for the summer after her college freshman year. Stuck somewhere between feeling like a kid again under her parents’ roof and being forced to start acting like an adult with worries about her future career, June looks at the library volunteer position offered to her as a way to keep her sanity for the next few months before she can go back to school.

  What June doesn’t expect to find at the library is her favorite romantic heroes brought to life—all in the same man. Obstinate, prideful and even a bit rude, Everett Rockford shouldn’t exactly be “dating material,” even if June’s heart rate accelerates whenever she’s near him. But after discovering his enigmatic past and witnessing a few fiery moments of tenderness, June can’t help but see Rochester, Darcy and even Heathcliff in Everett. If she’s going to make it through the summer without becoming a tragic heroine in her own story, she has to separate the man from the ideals of fiction in her head. Because if there’s one thing she knows about Byronic love stories, it’s that they don’t always end happily ever after.

  Read A Love for the Pages, a NA contemporary sweet romance, by Joy Penny (an Amy McNulty pen name) today! Purchase on Kindle or read for free via Kindle Unlimited. Buy the paperback or audiobook and add it to your Goodreads to-read list today!

 

 

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