6. Penelope
The fucking audacity of that guy.
The privilege. He thinks he can just, what? Have his dinner delivered to me, and I’ll bring it to him? Service with a smile?
Ugh. Why does he make my blood boil like this? It’s not a rational reaction, and I know it, but I also can’t help the zero to one hundred response that erupts from deep inside. The very sight of him is enough to trigger me.
He wasn’t the one who hit Dad, who set off a chain reaction of cards falling the way they have in my life, but he’s got the same face of the man who did, and I can’t get past it, even if I might want to because he smells like heaven.
I want him to hurt, to suffer like Dad suffered, his family suffer like we suffered. The urge to make him pay is so strong it’s hard to shake some days, even though I know his father is to blame and not Tate.
I take a steadying breath, but it does little to salve the simmer in my veins. Is there a chance the DoorDash person messed up the drop off? Sure. I guess. But do I want to believe that?
Fuck no. Staying mad at him means I stay in check and don’t cross that line. I couldn’t do that to Dad. I couldn’t betray him by falling for the son of the man who destroyed us.
Dad was right, the Myers men are all the damn same.
Arrogant. Presumptive. And without a care in the damn world for how their actions impact anyone else.
I rub at the knot in my chest.
It’s been years since Dad got hurt on the ice, more than two years since my parents got divorced after a long, hard battle through my Dad’s recovery, addiction, and their eventual bankruptcy. And it’s been six months since Mom got remarried to Mike. He’s a great guy, but I’m still coming around to the idea that my stereotypical American family got demolished.
And that asshole next door’s Dad is the root cause.
My heart’s hammering so hard I almost miss the familiar strum of a guitar playing in the next room. No. I’m a strong, independent woman, but I will turn to a puddle of goo for that beautiful man and his guitar.
I shake my head and start humming something, anything, the first damn thing that comes into my head to block out the melodic notes meandering through the dividing wall separating me and the man whose kiss I still dream about.
After a moment of humming, it hits me. He’s changed what he’s playing to match what I’m humming.
Shit. I’m in trouble. A text flashes on the screen of my cell from my twin brother, Oliver. But I don’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with him and his drama twin today, so I swipe left.
No, thank you.
I shoot off a text to my cousin, and best friend, Karlya asking when she’s next coming to town. She’s a free spirit, the kind of person you might not hear from for months but when you hear from her it’s like no time has passed at all.
When I put my phone down and it starts ringing, I can’t help but roll my eyes. Oli’s so damn needy. But when Tate strums another chord on his guitar, suddenly talking to my brother doesn’t seem like a bad idea. It would keep me busy enough that I don’t burst into song with the enemy next door. I need to hold the line.
I pick up my phone, but it’s not Oliver’s name on the screen, it’s Dad’s.
“Hey Dad.” I flop down on my bed with a sigh. My roommate isn’t home, she’s rarely home. She got herself a boyfriend on the football team, and she spends most of her nights over at the frat house with him. Not that I mind, it gives me a little more space to decompress after classes.
I never thought being a speech pathologist would be easy, but boy, it’s beyond exhausting and makes me feel super grateful for Vanessa, the woman who helped me learn to speak as a child.
“Hey, pumpkin.”
Twenty years old, and Dad still calls me pumpkin. We went through a rough patch for a while. Okay, longer than a while, but since Mom married Mike, he’s been making a concerted effort to rebuild relationships with both Oli and me.
It’s easier for Oli, he’s a hockey player just like Dad was. And despite the agony of Dad’s career careening off the ice in a fireball ending, he gets to live vicariously through my straight-a-student, already-drafted-to-the-NHL super-brother.
Oli walks on water and can do no wrong. He adjusted to my parent’s separation much better, and faster than I did, too. If there was a Golden Child award, well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be the female half of our dynamic duo receiving it.
“What’s up?” I lean back against the headboard of my bed, heart still thrashing in my chest from my encounter with the boy next door.
Sure, he might be Satan’s spawn but he has the prettiest freakin’ eyes I’ve ever seen on any human in the entire world.
Ever.
They haunted my dreams for months after we made out at the Halloween party. And I admit, they almost lured me back into his sphere of influence, but shortly after I met Tate, Dad needed another surgery on his back. Seeing Dad lying in a hospital bed in such a fragile state stopped me from thinking with my ovaries. Barely.
A tiny, small, minuscule part of me wonders if Tate might be different from his dirty, cheap-shot hitting father. But I can’t take the risk he might be everything his father is.
And no amount of staring into Tate’s gray-green eyes could take away the pain his family has caused mine. I know I’m blaming him for the sins of his father, guilt by association, but I can’t extract one from the other. I can’t.
I can’t kiss the son while the father destroyed not only my father, but my whole fucking world.
Dad says something that makes me pause.
“Wait, what? Go back.”
He chuckles. “I said I got a job. A janitor at Mercy. It’s not statistician extraordinaire, but it’s a start, right?”
Pride swells in my chest, and tears trickle down my cheeks as I nod even though he can’t see me. “It’s definitely a start, Dad. Congratulations. I’m very proud of you.”
It’s been a long and painful road for him, for all of us, but mostly him. He lost his career, his livelihood, his identity, then his house, his family, and his sobriety all over the course of a few years. He’s the strongest man I know.
And despite our complicated relationship, I truly am proud of him, and in awe of his perseverance, strength, and tenacity. It got dark there for a while. Again, for all of us, but him more than the rest. If I’d been in his shoes, I’m not sure I’d have found a way out the other side.
We chat for a little bit. Our conversation still feels kind of stilted, forced sometimes, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to talk to him about. We’re in two different worlds, in two different spheres, and we spent so much time apart I’m not sure how I’m supposed to talk to him anymore.
But I’m trying. We talk about Oliver, my cousin Karlya—her mom eloped to Vegas and got remarried for the third time, and Dad’s parents’ ailing health.
“How’s school?”
Loud. Exhausting. And your arch enemy’s son lives next door to me, and oh yeah, a year ago I had my tongue down his throat at a Halloween party, my bad.
Yeah. No. That’s not going to go down well at all. So I simply go with, “Fine. Good. I mean, I’m acing statistics.”
In a former life he was going to be a statistician before he chose to play professional hockey. He majored in math with a minor in computer science, so, while it’s not my favorite, he can relate to my flare for numbers. It runs in the family. Oli’s a wicked math nerd too.
“You get that from your old man.” The pride in his voice makes my eyes fill with tears all over again.
“How’s your psych class? Enjoying that any more than you were?”
“I think I’ve found my stride. I’m not flunking it anymore anyway.” Which is a relief, because having a blemish on my excellent academic record has been something of a pain point for me recently.
“Good. That’s my girl.”
There’s a long pause. He swallows. “Got any plans for the weekend?”
I never tell him that I still go to watch hockey games without him. That’s something he and Oliver do together when Oli’s in town from Wisconsin, something I’m never invited to participate in, something I don’t feel like I can insert myself into.
But I love the game. So I go when I can. Which means watching Tate be amazing on the ice and getting off to the memory of him kissing me. My body heats. He’s still playing his guitar next door. I’ll give him credit where credit’s due, he’s persistent.
“Nothing of consequence.”
“No boys on the scene yet?”
I swallow down a groan, but I don’t hold back my eye roll. “Nope.” The less said about that, the better. How is it that parents always know the exact thing to ask to maximize discomfort from their kids?
Another lingering pause. I can tell he wants to ask about mom, but also doesn’t. He still loves her, still wishes things were different, and still resents her for moving on with her life when his fell apart.
My relationship with her often feels even more strained than with Dad, but with my college work load, it’s hard to process trauma, heal, and work on repairing relationships with both parents. I’m doing my best.
It’s another ten minutes of small talk before I feel like I can hang up on him, and when I do, he assures me we’ll talk again soon. I heave out a huge sigh when I hang up, like the pieces of me I was holding back can finally breathe.
Each call with him, each interaction gets better, but it’s still challenging. I shoot off a text to Oli calling him a butthead and telling him to check in when he comes up for air. He swore going to different colleges wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but I miss him. Seeing him every day was annoying, boys are annoying, but now he’s in a different state... half of me is missing.
When my phone rings again, my stomach tightens. Did Dad forget to tell me something? Or is Oliver picking this very moment to catch up?
I pick up my phone to find an unknown number staring back at me. “Hello?”
“I’m downstairs with your food.”
A cloud of red mist descends over my body. Bolting upright in the bed, I grit my teeth. That piece of shit next door has done it again. It’s barely been an hour. A fucking hour. And he’s already ordered another round of food for me to deliver.
Not this time, bucko. You just bought me an early dinner.
Clearly, it’s deliberate.
Hockey players might be bottomless pits that constantly shovel food in their mouths but I saw the amount of pie Tate ordered from Megan in Get the Fork Out. He’s deliberately being a jerk, he got a rise out of my reaction the first time, and he figured he’d do it again just to spite me.
I’ll show him.
I make my way down to the door, tip the guy—because it’s not his fault the person who ordered my dinner is a cock—and bring it back upstairs, pausing to snag some silverware and napkins on my way past the kitchenette on my floor.
There’s no restaurant name on the plain, white plastic bag, but the smell that meets my nose as I walk makes my mouth water. It’s like dinner Christmas without the gift wrap. I have no idea what delicious treats I’m about to enjoy, but the first box houses pad Thai.
My favorite.
I fucking love Thai food, and he picked a winner.
I waste no time digging in, savoring the delicious nutty taste as I chew slowly. Thai food is amazing. Thai food stolen from an asshole sociopath neighbor—who may not be any of those things but I’m definitely not entertaining that thought for a single nanosecond—is the best meal of my life.
The chicken is juicy and tender, the beansprouts still have a great crunch to them despite the steam in the container, and the sweet salty tang of flavor exploding in my mouth with each bite is divine.
I make extra loud yummy noises as I eat, on the off chance that someone can hear me through the wall. “This is just so good.” I’m praising my food out loud. The guitar playing stops. So I make more delicious noises.
It’s another few minutes before there’s a knock on my door. I don’t rush to answer it. Cradling the pad Thai in one hand, I saunter to the door, pulling it open with noodles still hanging from my mouth for dramatic effect.
If there’s any doubt as to what I’m eating right now, the guy’s an idiot.
“Where’s my—?” Tate takes one look at my face, and a myriad of emotions flicker across his face. Surprise, anger, hell, I think part of him is even impressed that I had the balls to follow through.
“You stole my dinner.”
I shrug. “Oh.” I flutter my eyelids, sucking in the noodles with a loud ‘pop’ like I’m the main character of the Lady and the Tramp movie. “This is yours?” I wave the box under his nose so he gets a whiff of the intensely delicious smell emanating from the tub. “I figured someone sent me dinner. Especially since you had half the pie in Cedar Rapids delivered only an hour ago.” I lean heavily into the cynicism of him having already had food sent to him.
“It was... uh... for my teammate.”
I don’t believe him. His excuse is weak, at best. There’s no way it was for anyone else, and the mirth dancing in his eyes tells me I’m right.
Another shrug as I shovel a mouthful of food into my mouth while he watches my mouth with envy. “I guess they delivered to the wrong dorm room. How careless to get it wrong twice in one day.”
He narrows his eyes before wagging his finger at me. “You know that’s mine.”
“I do?” My voice goes up at the end, like I’m wholly clueless about what he’s talking about. “It came to my dorm.” Another bite. I chew slowly like I’m making a point. “You should be more careful when you order your food.” I wiggle my fork at him.
He takes a half-step toward me, and the fork becomes a potential stabbing implement.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you.” I gesture with my chin for him to move back.
“I want my food.”
“And I wanted you to stop being annoying, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?”
He folds his arms. I’d love to say his corded forearms don’t affect me at all, but it would be a big fat lie. And if I didn’t hate him—which I remind myself three more times that I most certainly do—I’d be super tempted to sink my teeth into his deliciously full biceps.
Might do it anyway, but for different reasons.
His eyes harden. “I want my food.” His voice is cold and level as he repeats himself.
“And I want a different neighbor.”
He shakes his head before running his palm over his jaw. “What the fuck is your problem, Pitstop?”
I hold up my hand as a stop sign. “You don’t get to call me that. My name is Penelope. Or neighbor. Or.” I cant my head. “Better yet? Just don’t fucking talk to me.” I swing the door toward his face. I won’t lie, part of me hopes it smacks him square in his perfectly imperfect nose, but he catches it, pushes it open, and steps toward me.
“Want to know what I think?”
Yes. “No.”
He smirks like he knows I want him to keep talking. “I think your problem is that you like me, Pitstop. That’s what I think. I think you freaked out when you kissed me in our sophomore year, and I think you ran scared, and you know that if you kissed me again, if you lowered your defences, you’d risk getting hurt.” He looks so fucking smug, so pleased with himself like he worked out the secret to an ancient riddle he’s been trying to solve for years.
“Is that so?” The temptation to dump my stolen dinner on his head is overwhelming, but I’d have to clean it up, and I’d probably end up eating the noodles from the floor because they’re just too delicious to waste.
“It is.” He nods, confidence rolling off him in waves. “And I think you need to get over yourself and give me a shot.” He grins. And good God it’s a beautiful sight. But he’s so fucking arrogant, I just want to stab him in his goddamn face. Does he really not know what his dad did?
I press the fork into his chest and walk at him, moving him back a step at a time until he’s outside my door again. “Of course you think this is a ‘me’ problem, and that all life’s mysteries stem back to you. I hate to break it to you, Casanova. This isn’t about you.”
Except it kind of is.
“And not everyone has to like you, want you, or acquiesce to you.”
When he doesn’t react, I continue.
“That means concede to you.”
He rolls his eyes. “I know that.”
“Good. Because this isn’t that. I don’t secretly hold a flame for you.”
Liar. You want to tear his clothes off and fuck him right here in the corridor.
“I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to kiss you. And I certainly don’t want to do anything more with you.” Liar. Liar. Nipples on fire. I do want to kiss him, and I most definitely want to do more with him. I just can’t get past the guilt holding my body hostage when I think of him as anything other than my enemy.
For a split second, Tate’s mouth drops open, then snaps closed. His eyes harden again, and a muscle feathers in his face as he grits his teeth. My poor guy doesn’t seem to get rejected very often. And from the screams of his relatively frequent bedfellows, I can see why.
From what I can tell, he’s very talented with his... stick.
“Then what the fuck is your problem?” He smacks his palms off his legs in exasperation, and the tone of his voice, desperate to understand almost makes me crack.
I equal his movie-star grin with a wicked smirk of my own. “Since you’re so smart, you figure it out.” And I slam the door in his face.