4. Penelope
4
PENELOPE
A wkward silence takes over again. Nick runs his hand through his hair, and I can just tell he feels as awkward as I do. Flashes of the naked picture of him enter my brain, and I try not to look at his sweats again. I really do. But I can’t help it. This man is seriously packing.
He hesitates before he speaks. “I’m just going to go check the generator in case we lose power.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
He walks away quickly, and of course my eyes go right to his ass as he makes his way to the doorway that leads to the garage underneath the house.
I wring my hands in front of me not sure what to do. I really don’t know how long I am going to be stuck here with him, but if anything Mom said was true about the storm, it could be a few days. And I don’t think I can survive the awkwardness for a few days.
Why did I have to snoop around his art studio? I could have just looked at some of his photographs and called it a day. But no, I needed to be my nosey self and try to get a glimpse of who Nick Snow is now. He definitely isn’t the kid from high school I remember, nor is he the young adult who had Thanksgiving dinner with us that one night six years ago. He’s a totally different person now, and I hate that I want to know him so badly.
My schoolgirl crush is coming back.
I groan out loud. Why is this happening to me?
I try to stop listening to the thoughts in my head and make my way around his living room. It’s barely decorated, no art on the walls, no knickknacks on the shelves. It’s like he is just renting the place, waiting to leave.
I walk into the kitchen, not really sure what I am looking for. But then I see a glass cabinet in the corner filled with an array of booze.
Well, this is one way to break the awkwardness, I think.
I find a bottle of whiskey and then peruse the cabinets until I find some glasses and pour myself a strong pour. I am not even a whiskey girl. I’m more of a fruity cocktail girl, give me something with ten pounds of sugar and I will drink ten of them. But straight booze, not really my thing. But I highly doubt Nick has anything to make a strawberry daiquiri, so I’ll settle for whiskey. No way am I drinking straight vodka.
I gag as I bring the glass to my lips, the smell of the liquor strong. But I don’t think and just throw the glass back. I nearly choke as it slides down my throat in a burning river.
I cough as my eyes water, but I don’t back down and pour myself another glass. This time I sip it, not needing to feel the rush of the booze hit immediately. I make my way back to the living room and sit in front of the fireplace again, picking up a book off the coffee table. This book is not my kind of book either. I much prefer rom-coms to the classics, but I highly doubt I am going to find some mindless smut sitting on the coffee table.
I flip through the pages of the book, trying to see if I can get into it while sipping on my whiskey when Nick walks back through the door, a smattering of snowflakes sitting in his dark brown locks.
He looks at me sprawled across the rug in front of the fireplace and then to the glass of whiskey sitting at my fingertips.
“Generator is good to go.”
“Great,” I respond.
He nods toward the glass in my hand. “So, are we drinking tonight?”
I look at the glass and then at him. “I guess so.”
“Thank fuck. I was beginning to think we were just going to stare at each other awkwardly.”
I bark out a laugh. “I mean it’s probably still going to be awkward.”
He shrugs. “I guess you’re right.”
“I did see you naked,” I tease.
His cheeks turn a light shade of pink. “It was a picture of me. Not the same thing.”
“Whatever you say.”
He sighs and then walks into the kitchen. I can hear him pouring a glass of whiskey and then soon he is walking back out with the bottle in hand.
“So…”
I set the book back down on the coffee table and turn to face him, crossing my legs over each other. “So…”
“We can watch a movie if you want.”
I shake my head. “I don’t really want to watch one. This is already awkward enough.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?”
“Have any board games?”
He sets his glass down on the coffee table and stands. “I actually think I might. Let me check the closet.”
I can’t take my eyes off him as he walks away again. His firm ass clutching the fabric of those sweatpants. Shit, I am in trouble. I know it. And alcohol isn’t going to help much at all in this predicament.
I tear my eyes away from him and stare out the window instead, watching the snow fall get heavier and heavier.
He walks back into the living room a couple minutes later with a game of Scrabble, Uno, and playing cards.
“Not much, but it should help us pass the time. I can also throw a pizza in the oven if you’re hungry. Or I can make us something to eat instead.”
“Pizza is fine with me.”
He nods and sets the games on the coffee table. “I’ll be right back.”
I place the card games to the side and open the Scrabble box and begin to set up the game. I am no whiz at Scrabble, and I am one hundred percent positive I am going to lose this game. Because Nick just seems scholarly. I know he went to school for photography, but he went to NYU. He is smart and sophisticated. Wise for his years. I am just some girl who is ready for her next vacation, hopefully somewhere on a beach. Like Bali or Vietnam. I am not someone who spent years in school learning big words, but I might as well give it my best shot. Besides, it’s the best way to waste time now because who knows how long we are going to be walled up in this cabin.
Nick comes back out a few minutes later and takes a seat on the floor in front of the couch.
“Scrabble it is, I see.”
I look up at him. “You are probably going to win. I am not very good.”
“I don’t know about that. This is kind of a luck of the draw game. Sometimes you get good letters and sometimes you get shit.”
“Well let’s hope we both get a good draw.”
We each grab seven tiles and line them up on our stands. I sigh as I look at my letters. X, M, O, U, I, L, Y. Well then, I guess I know what direction this game is going in.
I start laughing as I try to organize my letters into some sort of order.
“What’s so funny?” he asks me.
“I mean, you said it’s luck of the draw, and I definitely didn’t have luck on my side.”
He smirks at me. “I’m not sure I grabbed any better letters than you.”
“Oh, I don’t think anyone could have gotten worse letters than me.”
“We will see about that. Ladies first?” he asks with a hand gesture.
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth as I try to come up with some better word than MY, but that is literally all I can come up with.
“Well, if you are ready to see my stellar first word, I guess so.”
I lay down the tiles, and he bursts into laughter. “Okay so maybe you did get worse letters than me.”
I shrug as I wait for him to play his turn. Slowly sipping on my whiskey, even though it is going down a lot faster than I thought it would. I guess my acquired taste for it is hitting faster than expected.
I watch him lay down his letters to spell the word MAGE.
I grab two more letters from the pile since I forgot to grab them earlier and breathe a sigh of relief when I grab an S and a T. Hopefully, I can make some words out of this now.
We end up playing two games of Scrabble, Nick winning both unsurprisingly. I hadn’t even realized the sun set, and it was well past nine in the evening.
We were able to put the day behind us and forget about the awkwardness from earlier.
No more talk of naked pictures or thoughts of the monster Nick has hiding in his sweats. The closest we ever came to talking about cock was when I played the word in our game, both of us laughing over it.
Nick pours us more whiskey while I clean up the Scrabble game and put everything back in the box.
“So, what should we do now?” I ask him.
He sips his whiskey, and my eyes are immediately drawn to his throat, watching where he swallows down the booze.
So, the awkwardness has gone away, but the crush I have on this man is only getting worse with every glass of whiskey that we drink.
He runs a hand through his hair, and I can’t help but stare at his biceps flexing from the movement.
What I could really go for is a cold shower to wash away this damn crush.
“I usually am in bed reading at this point. Not usually up late. More of a morning person.”
I gape at him. “It’s like nine o’clock.”
“And early bird gets the worm.”
I shudder at that statement.
“You know, you may not be late to work if you went to bed early,” he teases.
I glare at him. “Some people are morning people, others are night people. I much prefer the nighttime over the morning.”
“And what do you do at night?”
“Things,” I mutter.
He laughs at me. “So absolutely nothing then.”
I stand up and poke him in the chest. “No, I used to be super productive at night when I was traveling.”
“Doing what?”
I grab my phone off the coffee table and pull up my photo albums since there is no service here, and I can’t show him my socials. “Editing photos and videos of my travel. I used to spend hours doing it at night so I could make the most of my days filming content.”
He raises a brow at me. “Social media star?”
I shrug. “I wish. I was getting there, really hoping to make it as an influencer.”
“Show me your socials.”
“Um no service, dummy, remember?”
“I guess I could have given you the Wi-Fi.”
I bug my eyes out at him. “Wi-Fi?! I thought you were trying to live off the grid here.”
He smirks at me, and his eyes sparkle with mischief. “Hardly. I do have my own business I need to run.”
I open my mouth to snap at him but can’t find any words.
“Show me. Let me see what you do.” He pats the seat next to him on the couch, and I hesitate. I’ve managed to keep my distance from him to calm the crush, but I just know sitting next to him will churn those butterflies in my stomach.
He gives me the Wi-Fi password, and I login to my Instagram to show him my feed.
“Pen in the Wild? I like it,” he says in reference to my handle.
I don’t say anything as he scrolls through my feed, looking at all the pictures and videos I’ve posted. I am shy of twenty thousand followers, which to some may seem like a lot, but isn’t much compared to the hundreds of thousands or millions some of the travel influencers I look up to have.
“You’re talented, Pen. This is really good content.”
My stomach flips at his compliment, and I am suddenly at a loss for words. Me, Penelope James, cannot find words over a compliment from the hunk of a man sitting next to me. One who smells like fresh air and winter snow with just a hint of musk.
My cheeks start to turn the color of a tomato as I watch him look through more of my content.
“You have something special here. It’s a shame you couldn’t keep at it.”
I frown. I hate thinking about how I wasn’t smart enough with my money and how I ran myself into debt trying to make it in some stupid career that only one percent of people could ever make it in.
I grab my phone from him and turn the screen off. “Yeah.”
He turns to look at me. “Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” I lie as I grab my glass and down the rest of the whiskey in it. I grab the bottle and pour myself some more. “We should play a game,” I say, changing the subject.
He gives me a look like he knows I am changing the subject, and he doesn’t look too happy about it. “What kind of game?”
“Something fun…” I trail off as I try to think of something interesting.
“I don’t like that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The look like you are about to tell me we should play truth or dare or something.”
I throw my head back in laughter because that is exactly what I was thinking.