Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
DECLAN
Something was wrong.
I ran a hand through my hair and stared at the text on my screen, reading it for the third time.
Penelope:
Wil prob b sleep when u get hom
That wasn’t her. She texted in full sentences with proper punctuation—sometimes with asterisks and footnotes. The woman had once sent me a three-paragraph message about why towels do, in fact, need to be folded the same way every time, complete with a semicolon and a closing argument.
Plus, she hated when people with smartphones used u instead of you and b instead of be. Had gone on a whole rant about it once that I’d pretended to be annoyed by but had actually found adorable as fuck.
So, this? This was her either drunk off her ass—which didn’t make any sense at four in the afternoon—or…
Yeah, I didn’t actually have an or.
I was halfway through a reply when the front door of the shop opened and my mom walked in, calling hellos to Rowan and Cam over the steady buzz of their machines.
They both returned her greeting without looking up from their clients, their voices just loud enough to carry over the noise of the space.
“Mom.” I glanced at her with furrowed brows. She’d already been in this morning to drop off cookies for Rowan’s boys, and two visits in one day was unusual. “What’s up?”
“Wanted to drop this off.” She set a container of soup and little packets of saltine crackers on top of my tool chest. “For that sweet girl of yours. Make sure she tries to eat some tonight, okay? Even if it’s just a few bites.”
My hackles went up immediately, something cold threading through my chest. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
“Poor thing got sick at work and didn’t tell a soul.” Mom shook her head and tutted. “I found her in the bathroom trying to clean up after herself. She was on the floor, clutching a container of disinfecting wipes, burning up and still apologizing.”
A protective instinct I didn’t bother tamping down flared hot and intense in my chest.
“She drove herself home?” My voice came out harsher than I intended.
“I wanted to take her, but she insisted.” Mom shook her head, her expression exasperated but laced with something soft. “Apologized four times on her way out the door. For getting sick in a public bathroom.”
I clenched my jaw and said nothing, but my body was already moving. Putting shit away, cleaning up my station, and reaching for my phone to reschedule the rest of my afternoon.
Mom watched me with that quiet, steady gaze of hers. The one that always seemed to see too much.
“You know…” Her tone was deceptively casual and low enough that her words stayed between the two of us. “Whenever I got sick, your father would make a big show of caring—loud enough for everyone else to notice—and then forget about me the second no one was watching.”
The comparison hovered there between us, unspoken but sharp. I knew exactly what she was saying, even if she hadn’t said my name in the same sentence as his.
“I’m not interested in being seen. I’m interested in being there.”
She nodded and offered me a warm smile. “I know. I just want to make sure you finally see the difference.”
“What difference?”
“You’re not him. You’ve never been him.” She stepped closer and reached for my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “And you didn’t just get lucky with that girl—you earned her. Every single day, by being the man he never had the backbone to be.”
Her words landed somewhere deep, hitting a place I’d kept locked down for twenty years. Ever since the piece-of-shit excuse for a man had walked out of our lives.
I didn’t respond to her. Couldn’t. Because if I opened my mouth, something I wasn’t ready to say aloud might pour out.
Mom laid her palm against my cheek, patting it lightly. “Let yourself have this, sweetheart. Our Pen doesn’t need you to be perfect. She just needs you to stay. And you and I both know that’s the one thing your father could never do.”
I hit Mahone’s on the way home and moved through the aisles with a single-minded focus, tossing any and everything I thought Penelope might need into the basket.
Ginger ale. Crackers. Acetaminophen to reduce her fever.
Pedialyte because it was what my mom had always given us when we were sick.
I grabbed a thermometer since I had no idea if we had one at the apartment, and I wasn’t about to waste time looking for it even if we did.
And I snagged a pair of fuzzy socks with cats that looked like Darcy’s twin.
On the way to the checkout, I added a box of her favorite cookies—not because she’d be able to eat them tonight, but because she’d crave them eventually, and I wanted them to be there when she did.
I wanted to be there when she did.
My mom’s words flashed through my mind, firm and steadfast in their resolve.
She just needs you to stay.
I wasn’t sure that was all it took to keep a woman like Penelope. But standing in the checkout line with a basket full of ginger ale, cat socks, and cookies she wouldn’t eat for three days, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know what this was anymore.
I was all in.
Walking away from her was no longer an option. Not because I deserved her—I wasn’t sure I did. But because I was going to spend every goddamn day striving to.
Staying wasn’t complicated. It was a choice.
And I’d already made it the second Penelope Shea had set foot in Starlight Cove.
The overpowering scent of bleach accosted me as soon as I walked through our front door.
The lights were low, and the only sounds that greeted me were the hum of the refrigerator and Darcy’s affronted mewl at being interrupted from his nap.
Without giving me a second glance, he stretched before curling up in one of my hoodies I’d left on the couch and went back to sleep.
After setting the bags on the counter, I strode through the space, my gaze scanning every detail. The counters were wiped clean, the trash cans were empty, and a damp towel folded with military precision was draped over the edge of the tub.
Every surface in the entire place was spotless and bleached within an inch of its life. Penelope had cleaned the whole goddamn apartment while being sick enough to type a barely coherent text.
I didn’t know what pissed me off more—that she’d done it or that she’d thought she had to.
Her bedroom door was closed—something neither of us bothered with anymore. Didn’t make much sense when we’d been sleeping in the same bed—hers or mine—every night since the evening she’d handed me her panties in One Night Stan’s.
I stood there for half a second before turning the doorknob and stepping inside without knocking. If she wanted to lecture me about boundaries, I’d welcome it when she was feeling better. I just had to get her there first.
Curled in the fetal position, Penelope was barely clinging to one side of the bed.
The sheets were half pulled off the rest of the mattress, like she’d tried to change them but ran out of steam and gave up.
Her face was flushed, damp hair clinging to her temples, and her T-shirt was dark with sweat.
A small bucket sat on the mattress next to her, and she had dried vomit in her hair.
And she’d still cleaned up before I got home.
I’d seen a lot of things in my life. Blood. Stitches. Broken bones. But something about this—about her trying to disappear even while she was falling apart—hit harder than any of it.
I wasn’t going to let her do this alone. Not anymore.
I crouched beside the bed, pressing the back of my hand to her forehead to check her temp. She was burning up.
Her lids fluttered open, her eyes glassy and unfocused. “Declan?”
“Yeah, rebel.” I smoothed the hair back from her face. “I’m here.”
“You shouldn’t be,” she mumbled, trying weakly to push me away. “I’ll get you sick.”
“Don’t care.”
She blinked up at me, too fevered to argue, but I could tell she wanted to.
Without giving her the chance, I slid one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back, lifting her easily from the bed.
And the way she curled into me—instinctive and immediate, pressing her face into the side of my neck—made my chest swell.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“My room.”
She didn’t protest. Didn’t ask why. Just let out a shaky breath and snuggled in as I carried her where she needed to go.
I eased her onto my bed, but she shivered the second I set her down. Her shirt was sweat-soaked and clinging to her, and though she wasn’t well enough to shower just yet, I could at least get her in fresh clothes.
“Arms up, baby,” I murmured, reaching for the hem.
She obeyed without question, too exhausted to do anything else.
I peeled off the shirt and replaced it with one of mine before she could even register the cold.
Then she sank into the mattress, pressing her face into my pillow and inhaling deeply.
The sound she made—a small, contented sigh—knocked the air clean out of my lungs.
“Be right back,” I said, brushing my knuckles along her cheek. “Don’t move.”
She made a soft sound of protest, her fingers twitching toward my wrist, but she was too wiped to hold on.
In the kitchen, I grabbed the thermometer, a glass of ginger ale, a few crackers, and the acetaminophen before striding back to her side.
“Hold still,” I murmured, sitting on the edge of the bed and pressing the thermometer gently to her temple.
She slowly blinked up at me, her eyes barely tracking my movements, but she obeyed. When the display flashed green, I lowered it and checked the reading.
102.4.
I clenched my jaw but kept my voice even. “Did you take anything for your fever?”
She shook her head against the pillow. “Didn’t want to throw it up.”
“When’s the last time you got sick?”
“Dunno.” Her brow pinched like she was trying to remember and coming up empty. “Maybe noon?”
That was hours ago. She’d been lying here, burning up, soaked in sweat, for hours. And she hadn’t thought she could call me to take care of her.
Well, fuck that.
I was going to make damn sure she knew she didn’t have to earn being taken care of. Not by me.
I opened the bottle of acetaminophen, shook a couple tablets into my hand, and slid my other beneath her neck, easing her up. “Take these. And small sips of the ginger ale. Just enough to get the pills down.”
She took them without argument, which told me more about how awful she felt than anything else. Penelope argued about any and everything with me. The woman had once debated me for ten minutes about the correct way to load a dishwasher.
She’d been right—of course she had. But I’d continued pretending like I didn’t get it just to see that flush on her cheeks and be on the receiving end of those narrowed eyes and that infuriated pout.
After she’d swallowed down the medicine, she sank back onto my pillow. “I’m gonna get you sick.”
“You said that already. I still don’t care.”
She searched my face for a moment, like she was looking for the catch. The fine print. The clause that said this kind of care came with terms and conditions. She could spend a lifetime looking and still come up empty.
“At some point, you will,” she muttered. “Probably when I’m puking in your bed in the middle of the night.”
If that was the cost, I’d pay it. Gladly.
“I’m not going anywhere, rebel.” I smoothed the damp copper strands off her forehead. “You get sick at three in the morning, I’m gonna be the one holding back your hair. You need water at four, I’m getting that too.”
Her bottom lip trembled before she pressed it between her teeth and gave a small, stilted nod. “Okay.”
That trembling lip nearly undid me. Because Penelope didn’t do this. She didn’t let people see the cracks. She spackled over them, painted them a pretty color, and convinced the world the wall had never been damaged in the first place.
But right now, curled up in my shirt with glassy eyes and a fever she’d tried to white-knuckle through alone, she wasn’t performing.
And the unpolished, imperfect version of her she’d just trusted me with?
The one she spent every waking moment making sure the rest of the world never even caught a glimpse of?
I’d take that over the mask every single time.
“Get some rest, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
She tightened her hold on my shirt as her eyelids fluttered closed, and she drifted back to sleep almost immediately. I sat there for long moments, just watching. Struck by the easy way she’d given in to sleep like she finally believed someone else would take care of what she couldn’t.
I dragged myself away and headed back into her room. I stripped her sheets, started the washer, cleaned the bucket, and wiped down every surface she’d tried to get to before her body had given out and forced her to quit.
After I put her sheets in the dryer, I headed back to my room, stripping down and tugging on a pair of sweatpants before climbing into bed beside her. I gathered her against my chest, and she came willingly—no resistance, no pretense.
Her body was a furnace against mine, her breath shallow and uneven, but she curled her fingers into my shirt, as if silently asking me to stay. I pressed my lips to the top of her head and held her tighter.
I didn’t deserve this woman. I knew that. Felt it in every scarred, jagged piece of me that had been broken long before she’d shown up with her cardigans and her stubborn little lectures and her quiet fire.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t become the kind of man who did.