Chapter 11
As Tuesday bleeds into Wednesday, and Wednesday into the rest of the week, Penny and I fall into a routine. Each morning we walk to the studio together and work our asses off to make every song the best version of itself. Her band works harder than I’ve ever seen a band work, even rewriting their parts when necessary to match the exact sound I envision for my music. After recording wraps each evening, I grab a quick shower and let myself into her house to start dinner.
Since my first day with her, I’ve noticed that Penny doesn’t know how to slow down. It’s like she always has to be doing something—whether it’s fielding emails or working on social media posts. From the start, she told me she doesn’t have a spare moment in her day—and I’ve witnessed it firsthand. But gradually there’s been a shift, and she sits with me, engaged in our time together.
On Tuesday, Penny asked if I’d like to eat again at the diner, but I declined. I’m perfectly happy having dinner in her quiet kitchen each night. In fact, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. I’m filled with a dogged determination to get to know her better, and I love this one on one time with her. Like I promised, I feed her delicious meals and she opens up to me little by little. I’m aware the wine was what had her loose-lipped on Sunday because it’s clear she holds her cards close to her chest.
I know exactly what it looks like when a person has carefully erected walls around themselves. I’ve built mine up just as high and just as wide, but I’m determined to break down some of hers.
Now it’s Thursday, and we’re once again seated at her table, trading stories back and forth. Over chicken parmesan, Penny tells me that after she got her MBA she took an entry-level position at a record label in Nashville.
“Basically, I was a glorified coffee runner,” she clarifies. “I was determined to forge my own path without my dad or granddad’s help. I kept my family name a secret and worked my ass off. But no matter how hard I worked, my male co-workers got the promotions.”
Penny didn’t work at the same label I’m with, but if her experience was anything like what I’ve witnessed, she was doing a lot of coffee runs while old men ogled her ass when she wasn’t looking. The thought makes me physically sick to my stomach.
“Well, that explains why you kept it from me the first day I recorded.” I think back to the look on her face when I realized it was her picture on the wall of owners.
“Yep. I mean, I did get this position because of who I am. But on the days when I can get out of my head about it, I remind myself that I’m damn good at this, ya know?” Penny stabs her next bite of noodles with a little too much force. “The studio had what I refer to as a dry spell. Very few people were recording here, and the band was lucky they all made money off royalty checks. I’ve worked incredibly hard to get everything back to how it once was.”
I tilt my head. “Why a dry spell?”
Penny’s chest expands on an inhale, and she lets it out slowly. “The best way I can describe it is I think Dad lost his reason for being.”
She doesn’t elaborate, clearly speaking in shades of gray, and I can tell she’s ready for a change of subject.
“All right.” I set my fork down to get her full attention and she looks up from her dinner with one eyebrow arched. “Rapid fire questions. No time to think about it, just answers. Hidden talent?”
A shy grin spreads across her face. “I can say the alphabet backward.”
“Well, go on, let's hear it,” I say, motioning with my hand for her to show me.
Penny sets down her fork and sucks in a lungful of air. After a brief pause she begins:
“ZYXWVUT, SRQPONM, LKJ, IHG, FED, CBA. Me with sing you won't time next, CBA’s my know I now!”
When she finishes I slow clap for her, and she nods her head, flourishing her hand in a bow.
“Wow, Penny Miller. You’ve really outdone me in the talent department with that one. All right, your turn, fire away.”
She looks up at the ceiling screwing her face up, then back at me. “An animal you’re scared of?”
“Easy. Emus,” I reply, without having to think twice.
A laugh bursts from her. “Emus? I thought for sure you’d say something like snakes or sharks. Why emus?”
“This rapid fire isn’t very rapid fire,” I tease. “When I was a kid my aunt and uncle took us to one of those drive-thru zoos. The ones where you get a bucket of food and you drive in your car. The animals come right up to you. You ever been to one?”
“Not yet,” she responds, an amused smile dancing across her lips.
“Well, you’re supposed to crack the window and toss the food out, right? My sister was in the middle and she reached across me to toss her handful out. Her elbow caught the window control and it rolled all the way down. That damn emu stuck its entire head into the car, long neck and all, pecking into my bucket. When it raised its head, I swear to you, his beady eyes met mine and saw into my soul.” I fake a shudder at the thought, and she throws her head back laughing causing me to join her.
Once we’ve pulled ourselves together, I toss her another question.
“Tell me something on your bucket list.”
“Scotland,” she responds. “My family has Scottish heritage, and I’d love to go visit it. Plus, Outlander made it look so romantic.”
I’d give anything to be able to admit to her that sitting right at the top of my bucket list is a family. The American Dream. A wife, 2.5 kids, and a dog. My mind conjures an image of what those kids might look like, and a flash of red hair on the little girls sneaks in before I can shut it down.
“Where’d you go, there?” she asks, clearly noticing my mind drifting.
“Nowhere. Just thinking of my next question.” I shake my head back to reality. “Okay, this is a big one. Only one right answer. ‘Tennessee Whiskey’—Chris Stapleton or David Allan Coe?” I pin her with a look, but she doesn’t miss a beat.
“Chris Stapleton. Hands down,” she says, and I raise my hand to high-five her.
After a few more rapid fire questions, Penny suggests we make brownies. She stands to grab a box mix from her cabinet and together we mix it and pop it in the oven, setting the timer. We clean up the mess we made, and right as I’m heading from the bathroom back to the kitchen where she sits, I notice a closet door left slightly ajar. I peer in and see dozens of jigsaw puzzles.
“Hey, wanna put a puzzle together?” I ask over my shoulder while I dig through the boxes.
Penny walks up behind me, and I turn to face her, holding one still in its shrink wrap. Since she loves Schitt’s Creek, I picked one that’s a cartoon of Moira Rose with all of her wigs hanging on the wall behind her.
When she sees which one I’m holding, her entire face lights up, and right then and there, I know I’d buy her a puzzle every single day if it means I get to see this look on her face.
“When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time alone,” she explains, motioning toward her closet. “Whenever musicians were in town, Mom and Dad would have them over. Josie’s grandmother wouldn’t let her come over if musicians were here. She called it the devil’s music.” Penny laughs quietly. “So I had to find ways to entertain myself. My nana bought me a puzzle and I was hooked. I’ve been collecting them ever since.”
We dump it onto her dining room table and start sifting for the corners and edges. As we search, we pick up where we left off earlier, giving pieces of ourselves to each other.
She tells me about the time in middle school when Jackson invited her over to watch a movie at his house, but her dad said no because Jackson’s parents weren’t home. He wasn’t comfortable with her sitting alone in a boy’s house without adult supervision.
“So, how’d you get away with it?” I ask, popping one of the wigs into place on the puzzle.
The grin that spreads across Penny’s mouth is mischievous. “We got him on a technicality. Jackson and I were dead set on watching his new DVD of Talladega Nights . We moved the TV to his front porch with the longest extension cord we could find. My dad only said I couldn’t go in his house. He didn’t say anything about the front porch.”
“Penny, Penny, Penny.” I shake my head, teasing. “All this time, I’ve thought you were Little Miss Rule Follower.”
She rewards my teasing with a sly grin, her eyes moving across my face before darting down to my lips and eventually settling on the puzzle piece in her hand.
“When your family wasn’t working the studio, what did y’all do together?” I ask.
She stops what she’s doing to consider my question for a few seconds. “Fishing. Most of the time they didn’t record on Sundays. We’d load up Dad’s truck and head for a day of fishing. Sometimes he’d fish and Mom and I would splash around in the water.” Penny’s eyes go hazy, like she’s reliving the memories in her mind. “I need a childhood story from you now. Give me the best one you’ve got,” she says, breaking the moment.
“When I was a kid I tended to sleepwalk. Well, one night I dreamed that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were in the pasture behind my house. Somehow, without breaking my neck, I opened my window and climbed out. I guess I wanted to meet them. My uncle found me curled up by the front door sound asleep the next morning.”
“Oh my gosh!” She laughs, her eyes widening. “Do you still sleepwalk?”
“Nah, I guess I outgrew it.”
We continue fitting puzzle pieces together quietly, when I nod toward the piano against the wall. “Do you play?”
“I do,” she says simply, her response hanging in the air.
“How’d you learn?”
Penny’s face falls imperceptibly, but I catch it. “Hey, no, it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.” I say gently, resting my hand on hers.
She worries her bottom lip but then takes a deep breath and lets it out. “It’s okay. My mom taught me to play. I have more memories than I can count of us sitting right there on that bench, playing whatever song I asked her to teach me. I don’t think I’ve told you. She gave piano lessons. Practically everyone in Singing River took lessons from her at one point or another in their childhood.”
She gets up and goes to the piano bench, patting it for me to sit beside her. When I do, she takes my hand, laying it on top of where hers is on the keys.
“We sat right here every chance we got while I learned the difference between sharps and flats.” She moves our fingers to play F-sharp and B-flat. “Eventually, we moved on to chords. Sometimes, I’d play the melody while she played the chords until I got better at using both hands and my fingers were long enough to reach all the octaves.” With her right hand, she pecks out a quick, familiar melody.
“Did she ever play at the studio, or was it always Ed?”
She nods, holding up one finger before heading toward her stairs. A few seconds later, she returns with a CD and a pink boom box covered in NSYNC stickers.
With trembling fingers, Penny carefully lays the CD in the player and presses play. “The musician wasn’t a well-known singer,” she says, taking her seat beside me on the bench. “She played covers and had saved up enough money to book a session. My dad told me that Mom always preferred staying in the background, but Ed was out of town. He and Pops convinced her to play keys, just the once.” She rests her hand back on the piano and we fall silent.
The first few chords of “Always on My Mind” fill the room. The singer’s voice is crystal clear, and the piano accompaniment makes it even more breathtaking.
As we listen, Penny’s lower lip starts to tremble and a single tear tracks down her cheek. Reaching up, I brush it away with the pad of my thumb and our gazes catch and hold. I hope the look I’m giving her speaks what my heart is saying. I see you. I hear you. You’re not alone.
Finally, I tear my eyes away, dropping my hand to curl around hers. When the song ends I sit quietly.
“That was my dad’s favorite song. We always debated whether Elvis’s version or Willie’s was better. But I prefer this one.” She taps the top of the boom box. “My sweet mama on the keys, playing for an unknown singer who saved up every last penny to record here.”
The silence is deafening, and when I glance up she’s studying me. Her eyes latch onto mine and her throat works on a swallow. All I’d have to do is move forward a hair’s breadth and my lips would be on hers. By the sound of her shaky breaths she knows it. I’d give about anything to see what her lips feel like on mine and what sounds she’d make. It would take every ounce of control to stop there, but I’d do it.
Beep, beep, beep.
The oven’s buzzer sounds, causing us to jump apart like two teenagers caught in the act.
“We should—” Penny stops to clear her throat. “We should get some TV time in before bed.” Her eyes dart to the living room and then back to mine.
“If that’s what you want,” I reply.
She shakes her head, a sad smile tugging at her lips. “It’s not, but it’s what I need to do.”
With one nod of my head, I head to the kitchen to get the brownies, leaving the puzzle out to finish later.
Honey has gotten so used to my presence that she’s created her own nightly routine. Once we’re settled on the couch, she hops onto my lap to make biscuits, spins around, and curls into a ball.
Every night, somewhere around the fifth or sixth episode, Penny drifts off. After that first night, when I left her on the couch, I realized she sleeps like a log, so I started carrying her to her bedroom instead. Tonight is the same as I scoop her up and lay her onto her bed, tucking the blankets up to her chin. I probably look like a creeper standing there taking in how her long lashes create shadows against her cheekbones and her auburn hair fans out on her pillow.
Grabbing her paper and pen, I jot down another note for her to find in the morning and lay it on her nightstand. I lean down, pressing my lips to her forehead before slipping out to my room. In such a short time, I’ve found myself growing more and more attached to this woman.
I’m not entirely sure what’s building between us, but it’s certainly more than friendship, and I have a feeling she knows it.
* * *
Once I’m settled against the headboard of the bed, my thoughts tumble over themselves, but one rises above the rest. Penny. She’s everywhere, invading every corner of my mind.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to shake the image of her, but it's impossible. Even when I close my eyes, she's there. She’s looking at me with her mouth tilted into a smile at something I've said, those brown eyes of hers dancing. All I can think about is how badly I want to devour her mouth and grip her round ass so hard she gasps into me.
Fucking hell, this is torture. But it’s not only her body I crave. It’s everything about her. The strength I see in her even when she’s clearly struggling. The way her eyes linger on mine long enough to make my chest ache, and the way she makes me want to do better, be better. I know Penny feels it, too. She said we had to keep it professional, but I didn’t miss the flicker of doubt in her eyes.
With a shaky breath, I scroll to the photo she took for her contact in my phone the first night we met. My fingers reach under the waistband of my boxers to grip my cock, imagining it’s her hand instead of mine.
My balls tighten and with a few more strokes her name slips from my lips on a groan as the pleasure in my spine unravels, leaving me aching for so much more with her.