No Vacancy (The Aveline Series Book 2)

Chapter 48

DARCY

Cue the anxiety.

Cue the overthinking.

Cue the why would I have said that to Penn?

I didn’t know what made me blurt out my snuggling preferences with a guy I never, ever wanted to snuggle. I was going to blame it on the alcohol still leaving my body from the night before. It had to be that. It had to be the fact that my judgment was still clouded by the remnants of tequila, and my only reprieve was that Jonie brought our food in record time and didn’t give Penn a chance to respond.

I needed to remember to tip her way more than twenty percent for her impeccable timing. She was getting fifty.

Thankfully, Penn continued with the conversation as though I hadn’t just suggested he big spoon me. He either didn’t hear me or was so mortified at my confession that he decided not to embarrass me further by acknowledging it. Either way, I was about to tip him, too, for his service to my pride.

Penn asked me about the job at the clinic, and after I explained why I was working there instead of using my English degree, he then asked me one of the most common questions I received on dates.

Not that this was a date.

This was not a date.

“What did you want to do with your degree?” Penn asked, taking a bite of his omelet.

Everyone always wanted to know what I had planned to do with the English degree I had never used. I always made something up. I told them I had wanted to be a journalist, a professor, anything I could think of except the truth. Which was why I even shocked myself when I answered Penn truthfully.

I took a sip of my water, feeling better and better with every minute and bite of French toast. “It’s stupid.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

I swallowed, tilting my head. “I wanted to write a novel.”

To my surprise, Penn didn’t struggle to hide a smile or a laugh. Instead, he asked in the most nonchalant way, “Why haven’t you?”

I cut into another piece of French toast and stabbed the berries. “I don’t know. I guess I haven’t been inspired to write anything. I don’t even know where I would start.”

Penn thought for a moment, quiet and pensive. “I would think it’s like anything else. You just start. You start, and you take your time, and you see where it takes you.” He took a sip of his water.

“You make it sound so easy. Like I could just open up a document and start, and next thing I know, my name will be on Publishers Marketplace.”

Penn swallowed. “What’s Publishers Marketplace?”

I sighed. “Just a place where they put the deal reports when a book is sold to a publisher. I would love to see my name on it someday. That would be the real deal for me.”

“I can see it,” he replied.

“You can see what?”

“You,” he replied. “As an author. It fits you.”

My eyes darted from him to my plate. “I don’t know. It’ll probably never happen. I don’t even know why I told you that.”

My hand was on the table, minding its own business as Penn’s delicately touched the tips of my fingers. It was subtle and quick; a blink and you would have missed it.

“I’m glad you told me.”

I cleared my throat and picked up my fork with the hand he just touched. It just happened to be my left, but I was determined to make it seem natural. I was useless with my left hand, but I attempted to cut a piece of the French toast anyway and haphazardly place it into my mouth.

I wished he would stop staring at me. I wished he didn’t have those ice-blue eyes and that smile that made my stomach do somersaults and all the hair on my body stand up. I felt out of control, as if I stood up, my legs would wobble like Jell-O, and I would fall to the ground. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the hold he had over me and the fact that he had the upper hand. I wanted the control. I needed to make sure he didn’t get any grand ideas or think my guard was down enough that he could sneak in and take my dad’s store.

I had to remember why he was in Aveline.

And remember that it had nothing to do with me.

We finished breakfast and stopped outside on the sidewalk before parting ways.

“What are your plans now that you have your car back?” I asked him, curious if he had plans to stay in Aveline or if he was going to head home.

“I figured I’d stay around here for a little while.”

I tried to hide my surprise and the complexity of emotions that came with his statement. “Oh really? Why is that?”

Penn stuck his hands in his pockets. “Well, I still have a few days left for our deal, don’t I? I haven’t even tried to persuade you yet.”

I smiled. “I think saving me from a bar counts as persuasion, but the answer is still no way. I think there are so many other places to have a restaurant. You don’t need the store.” I was not budging. I would not budge no matter what, and it didn’t matter how blue his eyes were or how many muscles lined his back. The muscles that my brain had, unfortunately, decided to remember from that one encounter in his hotel room. I couldn’t remember my social security number, but by God, I could remember the way Penn’s lats flexed before he shut the door.

Or maybe they were his traps?

I never was very good at anatomy.

“But I still have a little time, right?” Penn raised an eyebrow.

“Huh?”

“For our deal?” he replied, thankfully having no idea I was picturing the way he looked without his clothes on.

I sighed. “I guess a deal is a deal.”

Penn and I had spent almost the whole week together, and I was beginning to feel an unlikely friendship of sorts forming between us. I couldn’t stop it, even though I tried my best to hate him. I tried to remember he wanted to take something that meant the entire world to me and turn it into something else. That he was in Aveline for the wrong reasons, and I needed to keep my distance from him. But none of that was the worst part anymore. Now, it was the fact that every part of my body was screaming at me to kiss him.

Which, for the record, was never going to happen. I would rather be caught in a snowstorm barefoot than ever put my lips on his. Even though he did look like he would be a really great kisser...

Penn clapped his hands and pulled me out of my daydream. “Great. Then how about we hang out again tonight. Or are you sick of me?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and squinted my eyes. “I am sick of you, but we can still hang out. I’m having dinner at my parent’s house tonight, though...”

I stopped myself in the midst of that sentence as the most brilliant idea crossed my mind. I was having dinner with my parents tonight, and if I couldn’t make Penn run away screaming from Aveline, there was one person who could.

My mother.

“Would you want to have dinner with my parents? Not as anything serious, just two people having dinner with a couple of older people who happen to be my parents. Like, I’m not asking you to meet my parents. Of course, you’ll meet them but—”

“Darcy, I would love to have dinner with your parents.”

I cleared my throat. “Okay, yeah. Cool. I can pick you up at five.”

Penn nodded. “Can’t wait,” he replied.

I held back a maniacal laugh due to the fact Penn had no idea what was waiting for him. Winnie Miller had been scaring off my dates for as long as I could remember. My mom wasn’t mean or nasty. She didn’t threaten them with a gun or to break their limbs if they hurt me. No, my mom was the scariest kind of mother there was.

Winnie Miller was what we called a smother.