13. Nick
13
NICK
I rinse out our coffee mugs as I stare out the window. The sun is out and shining, and minus the nearly six feet of snow on the ground, you couldn’t tell that there was a storm. The driveway is plowed, the street is plowed, and I am sure people are out and about getting ready for Christmas that is just four days away.
It makes me depressed to think about it. I have no plans and figure I’ll just keep busy by chopping wood and doing housework. I probably have some old film I never developed. I could always work on that.
Dad told me two weeks ago when I went to check on him that he didn’t want to see me. And our phone call the other day just proves he’s only keeping me around to get him booze and smokes.
Sadness eats at my chest thinking about it. I don’t want it to, but it’s there, the ever-creeping feeling of despair. You think after the last three days with Penelope, I would be happy. And I am. God that woman is something else, and I swear she was made for me. Never would have thought that years ago when we were just kids.
But it’s always hard around the holidays for me. I’m usually alone. Every now and then, I’d go to one of my brother’s houses for the holidays, but the last two years, I’ve been stuck here with Dad.
I wish I could just go to the James’s house and put on a smile. Be there with Pen and enjoy the holidays. But since Wes will be there, it’s a no go.
I know Pen is right, and I need to talk to him. But it can’t be now. Mostly because I need a few days to figure out what the hell I am going to say to him.
I set the breakfast dishes in the dish rack to dry and turn to find Pen staring at me. She’s in her clothes that I found her in on the side of the road, including those damn flip-flops.
“You ready?” I ask her. She talked to her dad earlier who offered to come pick her up, but I told her I would drive her home. I need to check on her FJ and see if I can pull it out with my truck or if we need to call a tow. I’m guessing after being buried for three days in six feet of snow, it’s going to need a tow.
Pen looks so sad as she looks at me.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to leave.”
I walk the few steps over to her and wrap my arms around her. “It’s just gonna be a few days, and then we can see each other again. Wes comes home tomorrow?”
She nods.
“Then I’ll call you tonight and whisper dirty things into your ear before you go to sleep.”
Her cheeks turn that soft shade of pink that I love. “You are not having phone sex with me when my parents will be sleeping a few feet away.”
“We’ll see about that,” I tease.
She groans and rolls her head back, but I stop her with my lips, capturing her mouth in an all-encompassing kiss that lets her know this is real. This fairytale isn’t ending. It’s just a short intermission.
When I pull away from her, I toe at her feet. “You know I probably have a pair of boots you can wear so you don’t need to walk around in flip-flops.”
She looks down at her feet and then back at me. “The roads are plowed. My feet will be fine.”
I shake my head at her. “I’m buying you a pair of snow boots for Christmas.”
“I have like three pairs at home. I just don’t care for them.”
“Until the day you get frostbite.”
“So dramatic,” she drawls.
I slap her ass. “Such a brat.”
She turns and presses her hands into my chest and flutters her eyelashes at me. “Do you want me to be a brat, daddy ?”
My cock twitches, and I know she is doing whatever she can to delay me dropping her off at home. I know she wants to stay another day. And I want her to too, but we both know she needs to go home. “Don’t even try to tempt me.”
She pouts, and I want nothing more than to kiss her dramatic pout off her face and fuck her into submission, but we do really need to go. It’s nearly one in the afternoon, and I have things I need to take care of.
“Let’s go,” I tell her.
She folds her arms over her chest and just stands in the kitchen blocking my way.
“Pen.”
She chews on her lip, and I see tears start to well in her eyes.
“Baby,” I whisper, pulling her into me.
“I just don’t want this to end,” she cries.
“It’s not ending. I know you think that time away might make us grow apart. But trust me when I say every second I spend away from you is going to feel like a thousand needles stabbing my heart. What we have is real Pen, and it’s not going to dissipate over a few days apart. I promise you that.”
She sniffles against my chest, and I squeeze her tighter to me. This is harder than I thought it would be.
I pull into her parents’ driveway, my heart clenching tight in my chest. After I promised her things wouldn’t change, I fucked her one last time. Because I couldn’t not do it. I need to prove to her how much she means to me and that what we have isn’t some fleeting three-day fling but something that means so much more to me, to us.
Her hand wraps around my wrist of the hand that’s resting on her thigh. She squeezes it hard, and I know what she is feeling. I know how she doesn’t want this to end, no matter how many times I tell her it’s not the end. I feel it too.
I pull up as close as I can get to the front of the house and put the truck in park.
“I don’t want to do this.”
I reach back over and squeeze her thigh. “You know we have to do this. As soon as Wes goes back home, we can see each other again and figure out a plan.”
“He’s not supposed to be home until tomorrow, why couldn’t we have just had one more day?”
I sigh. “It’s already bad enough your parents don’t tell Wes that I’m here. We both know it would just cause suspicion from them if you stayed with me.”
“I don’t care if they find out.”
That releases a little tension from my chest. We never really talked about telling her parents about us. We just figured it would happen naturally after Christmas.
“Let me help you out,” I tell her. I open my door and climb out of the truck. A feeling of nostalgia hits me as I take in her parents’ house. The decorations outside, the lights, the Christmas tree in the window. It reminds me of being a kid and coming here, how much it felt like home more so than mine ever did.
I round the back of the truck and open the passenger side door so I can help Pen get out of the truck. I don’t want her slipping on the snow in those damn flip-flops since she refused to put on a pair of my boots.
I squeeze her hips as I help her out of the truck and set her onto the slippery snow-packed walkway that leads to the front door.
I don’t know why I do it. Maybe because she said she doesn’t care if her parents know. Maybe to ease up some of the hesitation that she has. Or maybe just to settle my own uncertainty in my chest, but I lean down a press a kiss to her lips. I’m not sure when I’ll see her again. It could be a week—she isn’t sure how long her brother plans to stay. I just know I need to lay low while he’s in town.
She wraps her arms around my neck, and I can’t help but pull her in close to me for one last searing kiss.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Pen jumps away from me so quickly she nearly slips into a mound of snow. “Wes!” she shouts with a joy that I know is fake. “You’re home early. I’ve missed you.”
“Cut the crap, Pen.” He turns to me. “What the hell are you doing here, and why are you kissing my sister?”
Pen tries to cover for me. “It’s a long story, and we weren’t kissing. I was giving him a hug.”
“Don’t even try to cover up the fact that you were kissing. I saw it happening for two minutes before I stormed out here. What the hell are you even doing here, Nick?” Wes yells at me as he storms down the front steps of his childhood home.
Great. Not only did he see me breaking the cardinal rule, he now knows I’m here in Ouray. Two years of lies ready to bubble to the surface.
I don’t even get the chance to defend myself or spew off some lie or excuse before Wes punches me in the face. Not once but twice. The first right into my eye and the second into my jaw. I don’t fight back. What’s the point? I definitely deserve this. If he even knew the half of what I was up to with his sister the last few days, he would probably murder me.
“Wesley, stop!” Pen cries out as she tries to pull her brother away from me.
“Let me go, Penelope. This fucker deserves it.”
Wes swings at me again, but this time I block him.
“Finally gonna fight back?” he taunts me.
I shake my head. “No, man. But we don’t need to fight over this.”
“Like hell we don’t!” he screams, his face turning red. “You promised me you would never touch her, and who knows what the fuck you all have been up to the past few days.”
“Wes, my car broke down at the store. Nick just drove me—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” he seethes as he turns toward Pen. “I know the truth.”
“Wes, come on. Let’s just talk—”
“No, you’ve been lying to me for how long now? I thought you were my best friend. But no, you are just another fucking asshole.”
He swings at me again, and I let him hit me because I feel like I deserve it. This time he gets me in the stomach, and I hunch over from the strength of his punch. I see another fist coming for my face, but it’s stopped by a strong arm.
“That’s enough, Wesley.” I look up to see their dad holding his son back. “This isn’t how we handle shit.”
“Dad, he is fucking your daughter!”
Jonathon, their dad, winces but then pulls Wesley back a few more steps. “Watch your mouth, son. We don’t know anything that’s happened.”
“He’s a fucking liar!”
“Wesley!” Jonathon snaps at him.
I look over at Pen, and tears are streaming down her face. She mouths an ‘I’m sorry’ to me, and I just shake my head at her, she has nothing to be sorry about.
Jonathon turns to his daughter. “Come on, sweetheart. Go inside with your brother. I need to talk to Nick.”
Wesley pushes off his dad and storms inside the house, his anger floating around us like snow. Pen gives me one more glance before following her brother inside.
“You should ice those hits,” Jonathon tells me. “I can get you some ice.”
I shake him off. “I’ll be fine. I’ll take care of it later.”
“I’m sorry about Wesley.”
“I didn’t think he was here.”
“He came home this morning. Wanted to make sure we survived the storm okay.” He pauses before continuing. “I didn’t tell him your secret. I let him know Pen was at a friend’s house. He didn’t know it was you until you pulled up.”
I nod.
“But I do want to talk to you about what is going on between you and my daughter.”
I gulp. I really didn’t want to have this talk this morning.
“You are an honorable man, Nick. And you are probably better for my daughter than any other guy she has dated. I just want to make sure your intentions are true.”
I stand in shock. I thought he would be mad at me the way Wes is. “I never saw Pen coming to be honest. She was always a little sister to me. But these last few days…I’ve seen a different side of her.”
Jonathon nods. “She is special, she just doesn’t know that about herself.”
“I know it.”
He gives me a smile like a father would give a son, then claps me on the shoulder. “You should lay low for a few days. I’ll try to talk to Wes. But I think it’s best you don’t show your face around here even if Pen asks you to.”
I nod. “Yeah, of course.”
“I’m happy for you though, Nick. You and Penelope, never would have thought I would see the day. Gracie is going to be so ecstatic.”
I smile thinking about their mom and how she always seemed to have a place at the table for me and treated me like her own son.
“Take care of yourself the next few days. Don’t let your dad get to you. I’ll make sure Pen is okay.”
I give him a flat smile and nod, then get back in my truck and drive off. This is going to be a long few days. And I’m not sure it’s going to end with a happy ending.