Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
PENELOPE
I used to be organized and put together—color-coded planner, matching pens, sticky tabs lined up like obedient little soldiers along the edges of my notebooks.
But now?
My half-drunk tea was somewhere in the library, my cardigan was slung over the back of a chair I didn’t remember sitting in, and I was scribbling a note on the back of a receipt with a marker I’d stolen from the community craft jar.
Again.
I blamed Declan.
Not that his lack of organization had worked some kind of voodoo mojo on me or anything. But rather that since he’d bulldozed his way into my life—into my routines and my carefully labeled compartments—my creativity had gone feral.
My ideas no longer waited politely for me to sit at my laptop and save them in their designated folder. Instead, they pounced like rabid little animals, unwilling to wait their turns.
Normally, this would have been a great problem to have—my deadline for book four was getting closer every day. Except I was currently at the library and very much supposed to be working, not writing.
But my brain was in constant go mode on book four, as if Declan had unlocked something dormant inside me and everything was pouring out.
I tried to focus on shelving returns. I really did. But halfway through sliding a copy of Pride and Prejudice into its rightful home, I froze, pulse racing as a line of dialogue slammed into me so hard I nearly dropped the classic.
I abandoned the cart, ducked behind a shelf, and scrambled for my phone. My breath caught as I typed the words into my notes app, thumbs flying. This wasn’t just dialogue—this was the hero’s heart on his sleeve disguised as dirty talk.
Biting back a grin, I locked my phone and tucked it into my dress pocket, knowing I needed to get my shit together. This was my job, for crying out loud. I couldn’t just abandon it any time I got a spark of an idea.
That all sounded well and good in my head, but I only made it seven minutes before jotting something else down on the back of a check-out receipt.
Twelve minutes after that, I used a pink sticky note.
Then the margin of a discarded event flyer.
Then one of the notecards we kept stacked at the circulation desk.
This had never happened to me before, even when I’d first started writing so many years ago. I’d always drafted my words with precision. Carefully and deliberately.
Now they poured out of me faster than I could catch them.
And it wasn’t just the sex scenes that were flowing but all of them. The giddiness and the uncertainty and that beautiful, scary, dizzying fall toward love.
A fall I was currently very familiar with.
Since the tattoo, something had shifted inside me. I couldn’t lie anymore and say whatever was between Declan and me was about education or research or checking things off a list.
It was about the way he’d looked at me when I’d said I didn’t want to forget. The way his hands had trembled after he’d marked me. And the way he’d held me in his lap like he didn’t ever want to let me go.
All those feelings bubbling inside me were escaping into my writing because that was the safest place for them to go.
By the time Fanfic Club rolled around that evening, I was still wired and trying not to show it.
Half a dozen teens sprawled across beanbags in the rotunda, notebooks open and laptops glowing, as they discussed whether they’d date a villain if he brought them snacks.
Molly leaned forward, pointing a pen at Theo. “I’m just saying, if he breaks in to your apartment to upgrade your security system and then leaves your favorite sour gummies on the counter? That’s romantic.”
“That’s a felony,” Theo said flatly with a roll of his eyes.
“It’s devotion. He just wanted to make sure she was safe!”
“By committing the crime against her himself?” Theo shot Molly a look over the top of his glasses. “Girl, please.”
“You can’t fault him for this! He installed better locks and a video surveillance system.”
“So he could surveil her!”
“He just loves to watch her sleep.”
“You sound creepy as hell right now.” Theo glanced around at the others, brows raised. “Tell me you’re all on my side.”
Molly scoffed. “Of course they’re not on your side! They understand the power of sour gummies!”
Theo stared at the ceiling like he was asking it for strength. “You cannot commit a crime and then fix it with candy.”
“You absolutely can if it’s character-driven,” Molly insisted.
A ripple of laughter broke out through the rest of the group, and I didn’t try to hide my grin.
“Clarifying question.” I tapped a pen against my notebook. “Does he admit to the breaking and entering?”
Molly slid a glance in my direction, and I knew her answer before she opened her mouth. “Um…eventually.”
I raised a brow. “Define eventually.”
“After she noticed the new security system.”
Theo made a strangled sound. “That’s not a confession! That’s getting caught.”
“But he was protecting her,” Molly argued. “She lives in a really dangerous area!”
“Then maybe he should’ve called a locksmith!”
“He is the locksmith!”
The rotunda dissolved into laughter again, and I joined in, loving every second of this. This—this absurd debate over fictional breaking and entering—was my favorite kind of chaos, and these high schoolers and college-aged kids brought it every week.
Running Fanfic Club was one of my favorite parts of my job. The unfiltered debates. The way they dissected tropes like they were real legal cases. The absolute certainty with which they defended fictional men who absolutely did not deserve it.
Once upon a time, I’d been just like them.
Arguing in comment sections at two in the morning.
Writing self-indulgent alternate universes just to see if I could make a villain redeemable with a single well-timed act of devotion.
Fanfic had been my first brave thing—where I had felt free to want something out loud and written without apology.
It was also the reason I eventually learned to keep my name away from my words.
After I guided the group back on track, they dove into brainstorming like always.
The rotunda filled with the soft clatter of keys and the scratch of pens and pencils.
Laughter and chatter came and went in waves while I moved between them, offering suggestions and asking questions instead of giving answers.
We ran over by about fifteen minutes, but that had become the standard for this group, so no one complained. Eventually, the kids started filing out, calling goodbyes over their shoulders as they went.
Soon, it was just Molly and Theo lingering like they always did as I closed up for the night.
Theo slung his bag over one shoulder, squinting an eye at me. “You’re writing something, aren’t you?”
I stilled for half a second before forcing a casual shrug. “I’m always writing something.”
“Yeah…” Molly pointedly glanced at the cluster of notes clutched in my hand. “But this feels different.”
I froze, the fragile boundary between my lives blurring in my mind just like it had over dinner with the Steeles. And the last thing I needed was two hyperperceptive teenagers tugging at the loose thread.
“Go home.” I shooed them out. “Plot-twist your assassin and keep me guessing next week.”
Laughing, they finally headed toward the front door, their voices trailing after them.
I moved around the space, stacking stray notebooks, collecting the scraps of paper I’d been scribbling on between conversations—dialogue fragments, plot notes, a half-formed idea for book five.
I shoved everything into my bag in one broad, distracted motion.
Phone—check.
Planner—check.
Pink sticky notes—
“Hey, Miss Pen?” Molly’s voice floated back from the circulation desk. “What’s your stance on kidnapping as a meet-cute?”
I slung my bag over my shoulder and grinned. “If anyone can do it justice, it’s you.”
Theo groaned loudly. “Don’t encourage her!”
Molly whooped and fist-pumped the air as I laughed, doing one final scan of the rotunda. Chairs upright. No notebooks or laptops left behind. No garbage. Nothing glaringly out of place.
Good enough for tomorrow morning.
I flicked off the lights, locked up behind us, and stepped out into the cool evening as they walked to Molly’s car.
I waved goodbye, my bag bumping against my hip as I headed the couple blocks toward home.
The breeze tugged at my hair, and I found myself smiling for no reason other than the fact that Declan would be there to greet me when I opened the door.