3. Penelope
3
PENELOPE
O h my god. I just saw Nick Snow naked. I mean in a picture, not in person, but still. My heart is racing at a million beats per second. I’ve dreamed about seeing him naked since I learned that cooties weren’t a thing and that you could actually have a crush on a boy.
I know the man is off limits, my brother would kill me if I touched him, well more so if he touched me. So, this will be the closest I will ever come to seeing Nick in the flesh but oh my god. The man looks like he is carved from stone. I didn’t know what he was hiding underneath those clothes, but I knew he was hiding something. And it wasn’t just that six pack of rigid muscles on his stomach. Or the way his shoulders and biceps popped. No, it was the thing between his legs. And he wasn’t even hard. His cock was what they talk about in romance novels. It was huge, by far the largest I’ve ever seen. Not that I have seen that many.
Oh my god, Penelope. Focus .
I can’t even listen to myself because even if I close my eyes all I see is that giant dick hanging between two muscular thighs.
I bite my lip hard hoping to knock some sense into me but all it does is make me clench my own thighs thinking about what it would be like to feel Nick against my body, inside my body.
I need to get it together. Because if my dad doesn’t answer, I think I may be stuck here a while in this now awkward house. One glance outside has me confirming my suspicions as the snow is starting to fall hard, blanketing the driveway in a thick layer. I can’t even see the tracks from when we drove in earlier.
I grab the landline off the wall and hurriedly call my father again, but it just goes to voicemail.
Damn it.
I dial my mom next hoping she can at least get ahold of Dad and tell him to come pick me up since she is just as bad as me about driving in the snow.
“Hello?”
“Oh, thank God, Mom.”
“Penelope? Whose number are you calling from?” she asks me.
I sigh and lean against the wall. “It’s a long story, Mom.”
“It usually is,” she says with a tinge of disappointment in her voice.
I purse my lips at that. My parents are usually always disappointed in me. Ever since I made the decision to skip college for a year to explore the world. Then one year turned into two. Two into four and now I am here, living with them again. With no plans for my future.
“Well, you see, Mrs. Marshall asked me to deliver an order to Mrs. Perez, since Mrs. Perez couldn’t make it to the bakery because of the weather. And so, I didn’t have much of a choice, and you know how I am when it comes to driving in the snow. And I was doing so well, you would have been proud of me! I almost made it to her house, but then of course a bear came running down the street and drove me right off the road and into a snowbank. Don’t worry, I am totally fine. But my car is stuck. Anyway, I had no service and couldn’t get ahold of you or Dad, so I thought I was going to die in my car, but then a stranger came and stopped to make sure I was okay. Well not a str—”
“Penelope, can you get to the point?” she asks me, stopping me from rattling on like I was.
“I’m getting there, Mom. Anyway, it wasn’t a stranger at all, but Nick as in Nick Snow, Wesley’s best friend. Did you know he was living here?”
“Oh, how is Nick doing? I ran into him at the grocery store the other day. What a lovely young man. I was surprised when he moved back here about a couple years ago, I heard his father wasn’t doing well.”
That’s news to me. From what I remember of growing up around Nick, I thought he never liked his dad.
“Well anyway, he is the one who found me on the road, and he lives just a few minutes away from where I was. So, I am at his house right now. But I was wondering if you could ask Dad if he could come pick me up.”
“I’m glad you are safe, honey, and not with some stranger, but I don’t think your father is going to be able to pick you up.”
“Why not?” I pout.
She laughs with a demeaning tone into the phone. “Sweetheart, the forecast is calling for six feet of snow. There is no way your father is driving in that weather.”
“But it’s not so bad right now.”
“You shouldn’t have even been driving in it!”
“Mom, it was barely snowing when I left. Besides, I didn’t think the weather was going to be that bad.”
“The forecast just changed in the last hour, Pen. The storm is merging with another one, and it’s going to be bad. It could be a couple of days of snow. I mean you knew it was going to be bad. Don’t you remember your father saying we needed to stock up on some food the other night?”
I vaguely remember that because I didn’t think it mattered at the time. This is what I get for not paying attention to things.
“Now I hate to tell you this, and I know that Nick is a wonderful guy, but I think you are going to need to stay there.”
“Mom,” I groan.
“Oh honey, it’s not that bad. You grew up with him. He is practically family. I am sure he will be more than accommodating to you.”
I do not want to think of him as family after just seeing a photograph of his Adonis form, cock and all. And when she says accommodating all I can think about is how accommodating he could be if he fucked me with that massive dick hanging between his legs.
Get those thoughts out of your head, Pen!
“I am not going to ask him if I can stay here, Mom. I haven’t seen him in six years. This is going to be so awkward.” Because it already is.
“Let me talk to him. I am sure he will be more than willing—”
“I am not going to have you talk to him, Mom,” I cut her off. “I’m an adult. I can do this.”
I didn’t mean to say that last part aloud.
“I know you are an adult. And this is an unfortunate situation, but I am sure you two will make the most of it. Maybe catch up since you haven’t seen him in so long. I mean you were always chasing after him anyway.”
Great, even my mom knows about the crush I had. I thought I had kept that a secret between me and my friends.
“Fine,” I whine into the phone sounding like the child she probably thinks I am.
“Well just give us a call to let us know everything is all right.”
“Yeah, sure, Mom,” I say in defeat.
“We’ll talk soon, honey.”
She hangs up the phone, and I not so gently slam the phone back into its holder on the wall.
“I take it your no one is coming to get you?”
I jump at the sound of Nick’s voice. “You scared me,” I say, holding my hand to my chest.
“Sorry. I thought you knew I was standing here.”
I shake my head.
“So, no luck with the parents?”
I shake my head again.
“You know it’s really not a bother if you stay here. I’m just glad you aren’t in your car. You never would have survived the storm in there with just a box of macarons.”
“Two boxes.”
He laughs. “Either way. It’s better that you’re here.”
I nod. Because I am not so sure it is. Not when I can feel that crush I had years ago on this man resurfacing. Especially because he was just a boy back then, but now, now Nick is all man, and I don’t think I am going to survive being in close quarters with him at all.