Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Penelope
It rained the night my car wouldn’t start. I was stranded at the drugstore, and my dad was away at a conference in New York.
I was a sophomore, and Decker was a junior in college. We’d remained cordial when we were thrown together by circumstance, but other than that, we weren’t anything.
He still had a girlfriend, and to my dismay, my dad had told him to bring her to dinner once. It was horribly awkward. The next time my dad asked, Decker said that she was too busy to join us.
She was nice enough. Aurora—who told us she was named after the princess and made it clear that she fully expected to be treated like one. I’d watched Decker hold out her chair and pour her water, and I ate my chicken and said very little.
She didn’t seem to care for me. Never made eye contact and hardly spoke. Looking back, I wonder if maybe she felt the tension between us.
My friendship with Decker hadn’t died so much as faded, which was somehow worse. Dead things allow you to grieve. You just keep searching for things that fade away.
I tried turning the key again, but my car wouldn’t turn over. I’d gotten to the drugstore right before they closed after getting my period and realizing I didn’t have enough tampons to make it through the next day.
I called my friends, but most of them didn’t have cars since it was a pain to park on campus. I scrolled through my contacts, and my thumb hovered over the screen.
Decker Davis.
My head hit the headrest. I shouldn’t call him. He probably wouldn’t even answer, but then the store sign turned off, and my desperation had me tapping on his name.
He answered on the first ring. I hadn’t even finished deciding what I was going to say.
“Penelope?”
I still hated when he called me by my full name. Since our friendship was pretty much nonexistent, he always called me Penelope now. I supposed I should get used to it.
“Hey, um… I’m at the drugstore. The one downtown in Hartwell and… well…”
“What’s wrong?” His tone was impatient but in the good way. Like he was worried about me. That made me feel better than it should have.
“My car won’t start and—”
“I’ll be there in forty.”
“What?” I heard Aurora in the background. “Where are you going?”
He must have covered the receiver because I couldn’t make out whatever he said. A minute later, he came back on the line. “Lock your doors. I’m on my way.”
“If you’re busy—”
“I’m not. Just don’t talk to anyone. Okay?”
“It’s Hartwell. I’m fine.”
“Just do it, Pen.”
Something in my chest unknotted at him using my shortened name. Something I hadn’t realized was knotted. He hadn’t called me Pen in months. I guess I was keeping track until right then.
“Thanks. I’m sorry for blowing up your night.”
“You didn’t. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“This is complete bull—” Aurora shouted in the background before the line cut out.
He pulled in next to me exactly thirty-five minutes after we hung up, which meant he hadn’t wasted time getting out of Kingsley, and he’d definitely sped to get to me. Some na?ve part of me felt as though it meant something. That our connection wasn’t as nonexistent as he pretended it to be.
He did all the things—popped the hood, checked the cables, tried to start it three times as if I hadn’t already. The car still wouldn’t turn over.
Then he pulled out his phone. “We’re going to have to call for a tow.”
Between looking through the glove box and finding his roadside assistance card, he called and handled it all as we sat in his car with the heater running.
It started with one raindrop, quickly followed by more.
We sat in the front seat and listened to the rhythm of the rain on the roof while we waited for roadside assistance to arrive, which would be an hour according to the miserable person who’d answered the call.
I didn’t have roadside assistance, but Decker did, of course.
Always the responsible one, even back in college.
The windows fogged slowly. I remember feeling as if we were the only two people in the world, cocooned from reality outside the intimate space.
It was dark outside, and I was painfully aware of how close we were, while pretending I wasn’t.
We talked. About schoolwork, classes, baseball, how he was going to enter the draft that year and finish his degree online.
There was something different about talking in a fogged-up car in the rain at midnight.
Maybe because we hadn’t been alone together in so long.
But I felt the fabric of our friendship quietly braiding back together.
In total honesty, I felt something much more than that in that car. But I was so scared it was just my crush on him.
At some point, he turned to say something, and I turned at the same time, and we found ourselves closer than we should’ve been. His eyes dropped to my mouth for one second, two, and by the third, I’d stopped breathing entirely.
“Pen.” My name was a whisper on the warm air of the interior.
We both leaned in. At least I think we both did. I’ve replayed that night so many times that the memory has worn grooves in my mind, and I genuinely don’t know for sure anymore what’s the truth.
My heart floated out of my chest, and I knew that whatever was about to happen would ruin me, but at the same time, I didn’t care.
His phone buzzed in the center console, and he startled and pulled away.
Decker picked it up, looked at it, and my heart squeezed painfully as he answered it.
I was so stupid. He wasn’t mine, and I knew it.
“Hey.” He turned to face the window, his hand wiping away the fog. “We’re just waiting for the tow… Yeah, I know… It’s okay. Yeah, I’ll stop by after… Bye.”
I turned to my fogged window and didn’t say anything, drawing little flowers onto the glass with my finger. He put the phone down and the car went quiet.
“Sorry.”
“For what?” My voice came out normal. Looking back, I have no idea how I managed it.
He didn’t answer. Truck headlights poured in through the windows, and the moment was over.
Probably a good thing.
I blink, pulling myself from the memory, and yank his hoodie tighter around me. I try to think of some way I can keep it.
His hand touches a wet strand of my hair, and he tucks it behind my ear, his fingers lingering. I can’t turn away from his eyes, and he steps another inch closer.
“Pen…”
He says it the same way he did in that fogged-up car a lifetime ago.
My brain plays war with my thoughts. Push him away. Kiss him. Consequences. This is trouble. Who cares? Take what you want now. Worry about the rest later.
The rain hasn’t let up. If anything, it’s found a second gear.
He steps forward an inch, and my back pushes flush against the wall.
I don’t breathe.
Decker closes the distance, and I tip up my chin. His fingers are warm against my temple, and the rain is loud on the overhang. This is the fogged-up car all over again, only there’s no girlfriend holding him back this time—
“Man, it’s really coming down out there.” A man steps under the overhang, and Decker circles away from me, resting his back against the brick wall next to me, chest heaving with his breath. “Excuse me.”
We part so he can get to the door of his building.
He gives Decker a glance, then me. I hope he’s not registering that we were a little too close, but after he puts his keycard in the lock, he turns to Decker. “Hope you guys win it all this year.”
Then he’s gone, and my head falls back against the wall. What was I about to do?
“She’s doing better,” he says, staring at his phone, acting as though nothing just happened. “Hazel. With the hoop. She’s getting the timing down.”
How can he flip a switch and go back to normal like that? If he can, I’m going to show him I can too. I’m an excellent actress when I need to be. I’ve had years of practice, specifically with him.
“She practices every night.”
He smiles. “She told me she wants to do a neck roll at the end. I told her we’d see.”
“She didn’t tell me that.”
He shrugs. “She’s still thinking about it. I feel like she’ll decide closer to the performance.”
I laugh before I can stop myself, and he turns to look at me, the way he always has, as though my laugh is something he can locate in a room without trying. I’ve always hated how much I loved that.
The rain finally slows, and I find myself not wanting this moment to end. Wanting to draw it out.
“Mom!”
Hazel’s voice carries across the bank, high and clear, and I step back to find her twenty feet away at the edge of the pavilion, waving both arms as though she’s flagging down a rescue plane.
Monroe is behind her and doing the same thing, except screaming Decker’s name.
I raise my hand so Hazel can see me. “I should get back to her.”
“Yeah.”
I pull off his hoodie and hand it to him.
We walk out from under the overhang and head across the field.
It just goes to show—nothing good happens when I’m alone with Decker Davis.