Chapter 13 Straight Out of a Fairy Tale
Straight Out of a Fairy Tale
I used to be embarrassed when Bridget would brag about my SAT score as a weird party trick, but she could be right—I might actually be a genius.
Because when I make my way upstairs, first-aid kit in tow, I find shirtless Penn stretched out on the beanbag, one arm propped behind his head, his skin glowing in the blue light of the aquarium that’s set into the wall, the tiny ceiling lights shining overhead like a constellation, stars winking just for us.
The scene aligns perfectly with how thirteen-year-old me pictured romance. “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer might as well be playing softly in the background.
In fact, that’s not a bad idea.
After covering Penn’s cut with ointment and a Band-Aid, I kneel beside the Bluetooth speaker on the floor and try to connect it to my phone. The speaker has too many buttons. Why are there always so many buttons?
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“We need music.”
“Actually, I need an ice pack.”
I toss a hand. “Yeah, yeah. One second.” Something blinks on the speaker, and I’m finally able to connect my phone. But music selection is another, more stressful story.
“Need help?” Penn asks.
“Nope!” I scroll and scroll through my music. I may or may not be stalling, terrified of what I’m trying to do here, but eventually I land on a playlist of teen movie soundtracks and press play. The first song is more of a cheesy-pop situation than I’d like, but it’ll have to do.
Penn huffs. “All that to ensure Hilary Duff was playing? Does her voice have magical healing powers I’m unaware of?”
I turn and scowl. “Pipe down and enjoy the artistry, will you?”
He shakes his head, closing his eyes as he lies down again.
There are multiple seating options. I could sit on one of the Starburst-colored floor pillows, or on the glittery blow-up chair by the window. But I need to stay close to Penn, so, as casually as possible, I tell him to shift and make room for me on the beanbag.
He arches an eyebrow, but he doesn’t question it. Not aloud, anyway.
I lie beside him. We both stare at the ceiling.
“Hey, Wynne,” he says, cutting through the silence. “You’re pretty cute when you’re worried about me.”
“Shut up.”
He laughs. “You were right about this room, by the way. I gave you shit for it when you built this place, but it’s nice.”
I smile to myself. “I always wanted a room like this as a kid.”
“And now you have one,” he says. “We’re sitting inside your dream come true.”
The words settle between us, leaving me strangely choked up. Penn says it like he’s proud of me, but I don’t know what my dream is anymore. I don’t even know what’s true.
“One thing, though,” he adds. “What’s with all the fish?”
I snort. “A lot about this life doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, some of the best things in life don’t make sense. Not at first, anyway.”
“Respectfully, I disagree. I like things to make sense.”
The smile in Penn’s voice is obvious. “This from a woman with a roller-rink restaurant?”
That’s not me, I want to shout. But I can’t risk messing with the game. Or the rules. So I tell him, “I just like puzzle pieces that fit. I don’t like surprises.”
“Respectfully,” he says, echoing the word back to me. “I think you’re lying to yourself.”
“Oh, really?” I shift to my side, tucking my hands beneath my cheek. “How so?”
Penn rolls over, too, onto his good side. His features are dark, his face close, the bare skin of his torso and arms bathed in the light of the aquarium behind him. “Well, for one thing,” he says, lowering his voice, “I think you liked it when I surprised you yesterday.”
“You mean when you led me to a retirement home?”
His eyes glint in the dark. “No. I mean when I touched you.”
A flash of heat floods through me. Penn’s stare stays locked on mine, a single curl falling over his forehead, dipping over the bandage and the scar in his eyebrow.
He brings a hand to my face, and as his fingers trace along my cheek, the tingling sensation reaches every part of my body he isn’t touching, too.
His thumb lands on my lower lip, his gaze trained on my mouth as he asks, “Can I surprise you again?”
I nod, overwhelmed by a sparkly, heady rush.
Slowly, Penn props himself up and moves his hand to my bare waist. The shock of his warm hand sliding along my skin makes me gasp out his name.
“Penn.”
His voice is as husky as I’ve ever heard it. “Yeah?”
Our eyes meet. “Are you sure about this?”
He smirks, a glimmer in his eye. It’s the same taunting look he’s given me for years, only now it’s infused with something more—a heat that wasn’t there before. “You have no idea how sure I am.”
He shifts closer to tip my face toward his, his fingers tangling into my hair as our bodies wind together.
It should feel stranger than it does, our hips aligned, the skin of my thighs pressed to Penn’s sides.
But as I run my hand up his chest the way I’ve wanted to all night—longer, if I’m being honest with myself—I watch his eyes go dark, and his crooked mouth parts, and I want him impossibly, because it doesn’t feel strange at all. It feels good.
Even if it is just a kiss. Just a game.
Penn tilts forward until we’re a breath apart.
This isn’t real, I have to tell myself. Because it feels astonishingly real.
The Goo Goo Dolls come on, and we both start laughing. I like this feeling: The lightness. The letting go. I can feel Penn’s smile just in front of my lips. So close.
We’re so close.
“You were really trying to set a certain kind of mood,” he teases, brushing his nose against mine. “Weren’t you?”
I wonder if Penn’s stalling, too. If, like me, he’s afraid of what’s happening, or trying to hold on to it. “Maybe,” I admit. “Did it work?”
In response, he tips my head to the side and kisses the soft space beneath my ear. He takes his time, his lips leaving a warm, wet trail that makes me shudder out another breath.
“Yeah. It worked,” Penn whispers into my skin. Then he pulls back, his gaze flickering over my face. “But you don’t have to try so hard, you know. Not for me.”
“Yes, I do.” Because this is a game. And I have to give it all I’ve got.
“What I mean is…” Penn takes a breath and starts again. “You don’t have to try because it’s you and me. And this feels…” He pauses. Swallows.
“It feels what?” I ask, impatient.
His lip quirks. He brushes a hair from my face. “Are you going to make me say it?”
I nod.
Gently, Penn presses our foreheads together. I wrap my arms around his neck, holding on—to him, and to all of this, while I still can.
“I think this was inevitable,” he admits in the softest whisper. “You and me.”
This is the moment. Celebratory fireworks should go off in my brain, and an entire marching band should parade through my heart to commemorate the victory.
I needed a sure bet, and the conviction in Penn’s voice is as sure as anything.
I should feel jubilant. Exhilarated. Relieved.
Instead, though, as Penn’s face hovers over mine, an ache stings at the back of my throat, because his words are so much more than I’d bargained for.
I wanted him to want me for now, for a night, so that I could escape this game and return to my life. But I can’t get over the vulnerable, hopeful expression softening his features, or the way his thumb runs along my cheekbone, as adoring a touch as I’ve ever felt.
He means what he’s saying—what he’s feeling.
But I don’t know if it’s true only here, or if he feels the same in reality.
And I really don’t know how I can possibly go back to any version of me who didn’t live through this moment, because when Penn presses a kiss to my collarbone, I know I won’t forget any of it. Worse, I don’t want to.
But it’s a game. This isn’t me, isn’t him, isn’t real.
I close my eyes, trying to hold on to this moment before everything changes.
When I open them again, Penn shifts my face toward his, a shy smile on his lips. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
“Always?”
He nods. “Always.”
The ache in my throat gets worse. It’s too much to hear, to take in. I try to cushion his words with a joke. “You’re rewriting history,” I tell him. “We hated each other.”
“Fine line,” he says.
“Between love and hate?”
Penn’s eyes spark. “Who said anything about love?”
He smiles and my stomach flips, and I may as well be the thirteen-year-old girl who wrote out this future, because when Penn’s lips crash into mine, my whole body comes alive, like I’m being kissed for the first time.
He tastes like spearmint and smells like citrus, and he lets out the softest, sexiest sound as my hands slide into his hair.
I feel it, then: the heat of electricity.
What must be the magic working its tricks.
Penn starts to pull back, but I tug him closer, afraid to separate—scared of what’s on the other side, and what isn’t. There is no version of us like this anywhere else.
I stay pressed to him, determined to make the kiss last, and soon we’re all hands and hungry sighs, fingers pressed into skin.
Nothing about what we’re doing matches the sweet, simple kisses I imagined when I played the game.
It’s sharp longing finally getting its release, time stretching and folding in on itself, entire years collapsing into these heady, fervid seconds.
The kiss is overwhelming, a current pulling me under. I give in and let go, and as the potent want pools inside me, I wonder how new it really is. How many years the longing has been pent up. For both of us.
When Penn inches back, breathless, I bring my hands to his face, brushing my thumb across his scruffy jawline. He stares, his lips swollen and parted, a smirk waiting in the wings.
Air catches in my throat. I brace for the scene to go hazy. I wait for a million sparks to circle our heads and whoosh me back to Curly’s. Back to who we really are.
But I squeeze my eyes shut, open them again, and there, still, is Penn’s face, the most tender expression. He dips his head to kiss me, soft and sweet—straight out of a fairy tale—before pulling back to look at me again. Like he’s savoring the sight of me.
Nothing changes. Not the scene, or the sparkling starlight of a look in Penn’s eyes, or the unexpected heat that keeps surging beneath my skin.
So I kiss him again. And again. Because chances are I’ll wake up back in reality tomorrow, and I may as well make the most of whatever magic lies between us while I can. While I’m still here.