Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
August
“You okay, man?” March peers at me from the stern of Jan’s bass boat. We’re currently drifting around in the middle of the lake. Pretending to fish. Because I’d been ordered out. Except neither of us really knows how or actually wants to fish at the moment.
“That was a hard hit,” he adds with a frown.
No shit. A five-foot-six pissed-off woman knocked me flatter than any hulking linebacker ever could. I swallow thickly and flick at the tab of my coffee thermos. It’s supposed to be temperate here, but the lake is freezing today.
“Pen had a hard time accepting my help from the get-go. She didn’t want anyone to think she was taking handouts from me.”
“She’s got to know that you don’t see it that way.”
“I think she does. But too many people, including our sisters, assumed she was too.”
“The hell they did.” March glares back in the direction of Jan’s house where, presumably, our sisters are. Somehow, I doubt Pen kicked everyone out of the house. Just me. “What the hell, August?”
Icy wind sweeps down over the tree line, rustling the leaves and rippling along the water. I hunker deeper into my parka. “They didn’t put her down for it, just assumed our association came with financial benefits for Penelope. We set them straight, but the fact is I am helping her.”
With a sigh, I make a point not to look back at the house. “It chafes her regardless, but all of that was relatively private. Until her fucko father put it out to the world.”
“Fucking bastard.” March tosses his gloves on the seat by him and roots through our snack pack. He rips open a bag of chips with a vengeance. “The guy always was a colossal dick bag.”
We clink coffee thermoses in agreement.
“Point is, what was once a sore spot is now an open wound.” And she won’t let me help her heal. That hurts the worst. Not that she needs some time alone, but that she ordered me to go away. As though I was part of the problem.
“I’m part of the problem,” I say aloud. Yep, sucks just saying it.
“Oh, bullshit.” March gives me an irate look. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m all over this. Doesn’t matter if my intention wasn’t to hurt her. She’s still hurt.”
“By her selfish dick-weasel dad! Not you.”
March’s immediate and wholehearted defense of me is gratifying. But it also makes me feel worse. Because he doesn’t know the whole picture. No one does.
“If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have this particular hurt going on.
” For the first time, I truly understand Jelly’s desire to put some distance between himself and his girl, if only to ease the fodder their relationship gives the public.
But, no, it’s worse. Pen was assaulted too. All because of me.
Absently, I rub the aching hollow behind my breastbone.
March, however, continues to scowl. “If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. Like it or not, we’re famous. Someone is always going to dig up some shit to drag out and flap in the wind. I know Penny understands this.”
I thought so too. But does it even matter? She’s been repeatedly hurt. Because of me.
I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know what she’s thinking about now. And it’s quietly killing me. Worse? She doesn’t have all the facts. I’ve been keeping something from her and it’s a big thing. I don’t want to lie to her anymore.
I could lose her. Even now.
The hollow in my chest gets deeper, colder. Clearing my throat doesn’t help.
“There’s something I have to tell Pen, and I don’t know how.”
March pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please, please, please, don’t tell me you’re dumping her for the game because I will fucking kill you where you sit.”
“What? No. Dump her? As if I could.” But maybe you should . . . No! No. “Why would you even—”
“Sorry. What with Jan and all the utter shit piled on him that we’re just hearing about . . .” He shakes himself like a dog. “Fuck. It’s got me twisted.”
“Okay, I have shit timing.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to say it.”
“You basically did.”
“Fine. Lay it on me, brother, because my balls are freezing off and I want to go inside.”
I want that too. Not just for my balls, although I am worried they’ll soon be frozen to the boat seat. Mainly, I just want to be back with Pen.
But I can’t until I have a game plan. So I tell March the awkward truth.
When I finish, I don’t feel lighter. If anything, the hollowness has spread to my guts.
Silence rings out, broken only by the occasional cry of a red-tailed hawk migrating south and the slight lap of lake water against the side of the boat.
Forearms resting on his knees, March stares at me a long moment, then rubs a hand over his mouth before speaking. “Look, I’m not gonna say it, but we both know I’m thinking it.”
I nod. March’s disappointment in me couldn’t be any clearer.
“Right,” March says briskly. “I mean, I guess your boneheaded thought process can be excused given that you lose you damn mind when it comes to Penelope Morrow.”
“I though you weren’t going to say it.”
“I lied,” he drawls, then looks out over the lake in contemplation. We’re both quiet for a minute. Both of us thinking things through. And even though there’s pictures to prove we were born over a year apart, at times like this, I swear we shared the womb.
March clasps his hands and addresses the problem. “Maybe there’s another way. Maybe you could—”
“That wouldn’t work.”
“Okay, but have you considered—”
“You think I’d ask for help if I hadn’t?”
“No, no. Of course you had. I’m all out of ideas, then.”
“Terrific.”
“Oh! Remember that time? With the nuts?”
“Could work.”
“Agree on three?”
“You know I hate ‘on three’ it’s so—”
“You and your odd number fear. Fine. On four, though it seems superfluous.”
“We could always go with two.”
“Not enough momentum.”
“What was I thinking?”
“I’ll never know.”
Pen
I am allowed roughly one hour to myself. Then my mother barges into the room, looking me over with a critical eye at where I lay curled up at the head of the bed under the covers and surrounded by plump pillows.
She raises a brow. “Made a comfort fort, did you?”
With a scowl, I snuggle a pillow closer. “So what if I did?”
Yes, I make forts when I’m upset. Always have. Never underestimate the power of a good pillow or warm blanket. You could be surrounded by August’s warmth instead, you noodle.
No, I can’t. Not when August is part of the problem.
To be clear, I’m not upset with him; well, not much.
Irritation lingers from the way he pushed aside my concerns over the house being exposed, but I know he didn’t mean it that way.
Regardless, no matter how I tilt it, he’s in the picture.
And in that moment, with our family watching us, I needed to get away from him and everyone else.
“Well,” my mom says pragmatically, “it’s time to crawl out.”
I glare at her. But it doesn’t work. Mom is immune to such puny threats. She hovers by the doorway, looking vaguely amused but also sadly sympathetic. “Your father is an asshat.”
It startles a laugh out of me.
“Now get up.” With that, she pulls a two-foot-long dowel-shaped pasta roller out from behind her. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Where the hell did you get a mattarello?”
“I asked Neil to pick one up in Austin.” She weighs the wooden roller in hand. “It’s not as fine as Nona’s but it will do.”
“You want me to help you make pasta?” Why can’t she leave me be? I want to wallow.
“Tortellini in brodo. Much more comforting than a pillow fort.” Mom uses her “theater” voice: clear, commanding, and brooking no argument. “Now up you get, Penny Lane.”
With a groan, I flop into a cloud of pillows and sigh. She’ll never let up until I comply. I roll over and head for the kitchen, after her.
Margo is already at the stove, attending to a big pot of broth. At the other end of the counter sits a stand mixer. They move in perfect tandem, handing over a hunk of parmigiano to grate into the blended pork filling, offering up a spoon to taste the broth. A bit more pepper is suggested.
When they were younger, they spent several holidays with my nona—who is actually my great-grandmother—in Bologna, learning how to cook, and, let’s be honest, drinking copious amounts of good wine.
I’d done much the same throughout my childhood—well, not that much with the wine until recently. “We should have started the broth and filling yesterday,” I mutter, still grumpy about being pulled from my cave, though less so now that the scents of rich broth fill the air.
“Yes, well,” Mom says. “We’ll just have to muddle through.”
“We’ve got a good starter,” Margo adds. “I left a few batches of broth with Jan when I was last here. I thought he might like to make soup for himself, but he hasn’t touched it.
” Her voice is softer than usual, and she doesn’t quite look my way.
I know she’s tiptoeing around my feelings.
I’m horrified to wonder if she’ll think less of me after seeing me all but boot August out of sight.
But she gives me a small, encouraging smile.
I return it, feeling as thin and brittle as an eggshell. “I’ll start on the dough.”
“Neil picked up a pasta board too,” Margo says over her shoulder. “It’s on the counter.”
“That was nice of him.”
Margo flashes a quick smile. “He’ll do whatever it takes for homemade pasta.”
I’d thank him, but he’s nowhere to be found. Neither is Jan. I know March pulled August out of the house—and the guilt twinges. Not just guilt; even though I asked for space, I still miss him. I still want him near.
What a mess I am.
“Neil, Jan, and the girls went out for some more wine,” she adds diffidently, as though we both don’t know she’s alleviating my curiosity. “They should be home in a bit. And when August and March come back from fishing, we’ll have a feast.”
Fishing. When the weather has taken an unexpected dip and no one else wants to go out there.