Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Penelope
Leighton’s kitchen is the kind I’ve always hoped to have.
It’s warm, and it smells like whatever was on the grill, and there’s always something on the counter that someone is in the middle of making. The fridge is lined with calendars, drawings, and schedules, and little piles of belongings clutter the counter here and there.
Callie is perched on a stool with a plate of two s’mores in front of her.
Leighton drops a dishwasher pod in the dishwasher and starts it, then sits on the stool next to Callie to eat the s’mores Hayes just brought in for her.
I feel way overdressed in my dress and heels and full face of makeup, having put in every effort for the man I spent the entire evening across from while I thought of another one.
The s’mores look delicious as Callie bites into one, but going outside to make my own would mean seeing Decker again.
As if she can read my mind, Leighton says, “I’ll ask Hayes to make you one.”
But the back door opens before she can get up off the stool.
Easton comes in with a plate. “For the ladies.” He slides it onto the counter. Four imperfect s’mores rest on the plate.
“Did the kids make these?” Callie asks, finishing hers.
Easton puts his hand on his heart. “Are you suggesting I’m not a gentleman?”
“You? No way. I’m sure if some hot single women were at this table, you’d be turning on the charm no doubt.” Callie gives him a cheesy smile.
“There is one hot single woman at the counter.” Leighton eyes me as she goes to the fridge and grabs an open bottle of white wine and two glasses.
“Is she though?” Easton’s head tilts.
I feel as if I just choked on a s’more. The man barely knows me and has already identified the central problem of my adult life.
Leighton pours the wine, glancing in my direction. “Penelope is single. She was just on a date.”
Easton laughs, and he’s not fully out the door when he says, “Goldie, man, your lady went on a date. You need to get your head out of your ass.”
The guys all tell him there are kids nearby, but who are we kidding? All those kids have probably heard way worse than ass by now.
By the time I turn around, Callie and Leighton’s attention is on me.
“What?” I pull the wineglass toward me. They both give me a look that says come on, spill. I motion to Callie’s face. “You have chocolate on the corner of your mouth.”
Leighton hands Callie a napkin, and she wipes it away, swallowing the last of her second s’more.
“Seriously, I eat all the time. It’s great, but what will happen to me after I stop breastfeeding Ellis?” Callie asks.
“You’ll be fine.” I remember when I stopped breastfeeding, and my appetite finally settled to something bearable. It was more the boredom that got me once Hazel was napping twice a day and going to bed early. She was an easy baby.
“Okay, we’re not talking about that. Spill. How was your date with Elias?” Leighton sips her wine.
“Oh yeah, who cares about me eating like I’m in a competition every day? Please tell us about your hot date with the doctor, Pen.”
Callie’s shortening of my name pulls a smile from me.
It makes me feel as though I’ve found real friendships here—but there’s a problem.
They’re all linked to Decker, and if I admit how hard it is to be around him, how much I’d love for us to have an honest try, I risk losing them. They’re with Decker’s teammates.
“He was nice.”
Callie makes a sound and picks up another s’more. “My gynecologist is nice. That doesn’t sound promising.”
Leighton’s smile drops.
“He was funny and kind and good-looking. He asked me about Hazel and didn’t seem put off by me being a mom. But…”
Leighton nods. “Just not for you?”
I shake my head and reach for a s’more.
“Anything else?” Callie asks.
“Like?”
“Like you were comparing him to someone else the whole time?” Her eyebrows rise.
I figure if they’re going to be my friends, if we’re building something real here, I might as well just tell them the truth.
“I compared him to Decker the whole time.” I drop chest-first onto the cool stone counter. “I’m pathetic.”
Leighton glances at the back door, then back at me. “You are not.”
“Yeah, Leighton was pining over my brother for years.” Callie shakes her head.
Leighton gives her a look that says shut up. “And she hate-fucked Foster and got pregnant.”
I hold up my hands and chuckle. “Okay, ladies. This is not a competition, and whatever it was that kept you two from your guys, you cleared it up fast enough.”
Callie quirks her lips. “If you consider decades fast.”
Leighton picks up a chunk of graham cracker and tosses it at Callie. The two of them laugh. Then the room sobers, and I prepare for another round of Confessions from Penelope.
“You thought of Decker the whole time?” Leighton frowns.
I break a graham cracker in half. “Pretty much. Elias was telling me about a delivery that went sideways. It was a great story, and I was nodding along, but in my head, I was thinking about how Decker would’ve told it differently.
Decker would’ve imitated the voice. And then I hated myself for it and tried to pay better attention. ”
“Did it work?” Callie asks.
“For about one minute.”
Leighton makes a sound I think is her trying very hard not to laugh.
“It’s not funny,” I tell her.
“It’s a little funny.”
“It’s a disaster, is what it is.” I put the cracker down without eating it.
“Elias is a perfectly good man. He’s handsome, he’s kind, and he brings babies into the world for heaven’s sake.
And what do I do? I spend our entire first date mentally comparing him to a baseball player who has never once chosen me. ”
“To be fair,” Callie starts, then stops.
Leighton looks from me to her. “What am I missing?”
“It’s not my story to tell.” Callie raises both hands. “But you should tell Leighton your history. She can feel the tension between you two. Then again, I’m pretty sure the people down under can feel it.”
I toss a piece of chocolate at her, and she picks it up and eats it.
I look at Leighton, who has the expression of someone trying to look casual and failing completely. “How much do you know?”
“That you two have history. That it’s complicated. That Foster is somehow involved.” She refills her glass with wine. “The rest I’ve been filling in myself, which means I probably have half of it wrong.”
“Whodunits aren’t Leighton’s forte,” Callie says.
Leighton turns to look at her. “Don’t you have a baby to feed?”
They laugh for a moment, and the years of friendship look so good on them. Then they grow serious and turn toward me.
“Okay.” I take a breath. “Decker and I grew up together. My dad coached him when he was eleven, and we became close. Really close. He was my best friend for years. There were feelings, but we never acted on them because of my dad, timing, and I’m not really sure what else now that I look back on it. ”
“And then?” Leighton leans forward.
“And then he went to college a year before me, and we lost touch. When my dad took a coaching job near his school, we reconnected, but things were never really the same. He had a girlfriend.” I glance quickly at Callie.
“Foster played for my dad, and Decker introduced us at a bar one night, and well…”
Leighton blinks. “You dated Foster?” It comes out as a whisper.
“Junior year. Not for very long.” I reach for my wine and glance at Callie again because this involves her fiancé.
She waves me off. “Go ahead. I don’t care.”
Callie looks out the back window, and I follow her gaze to where Foster holds Ellis against his chest, rocking back and forth, laughing with his friends.
Who would’ve ever thought Foster would be the first Davis twin to settle down and have a family? No one from Kingsley or Hartwell, that’s for sure.
“It wasn’t—Foster wasn’t ready to be someone’s boyfriend. He was focused on the draft, and I understood that, but I was twenty and operating under that stupid belief that I could change him.”
They both nod.
I don’t know their dating history, but I can tell they’ve been there. Hasn’t every woman? There’s always one guy you think will change for you, and you just get your heart broken trying.
“And Decker?” Leighton asks.
“Decker and I—” I can’t compress a lifetime into one kitchen conversation waiting to be interrupted by a kid.
I tell them a little more of the college story, enough to draw the shape of it without filling it all in, then I jump to my move here, and how I’m planning Dugout Social Club events with him, and he’s teaching my daughter to hula hoop, and apparently I can’t go on a single date without his face showing up in my head.
“Okay,” Leighton says slowly. “I had about forty percent of that right.”
“Which forty percent?” I sip my wine.
“The part where you’re both completely gone for each other and doing absolutely nothing about it.”
Callie snorts and covers her mouth.
“I’m doing something about it,” I say. “I went on a date.”
“With someone who is not Decker.” Callie’s forehead wrinkles.
“Because Decker isn’t an option.” I hear how it sounds as soon as I say it. “Or rather, he hasn’t made himself one.”
Leighton tilts her head. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It means—it means we shared a moment at the river cleanup. And there have been other moments. And every time one of them happens, something interrupts it, or one of us steps back, and it just—” I flatten my hand on the counter and flex it. “Dissolves.”
“So go after him,” Leighton says simply.
“I can’t.”
“Why not? You’re both adults. You both clearly—”
“Because he has to come to me.” I say it firmly enough that both of them pause. “And I know how that sounds. I know it sounds like I’m sitting around waiting for a man—and that’s not… I’m not waiting because I think that’s the woman’s role.”
“Then why?” Callie’s voice is soft, and she’s looking at me with the expression of someone who might already know the answer.
“Because Decker has things to work through that have nothing to do with me. His relationship with his brother. His contract year. And most of all, whatever he’s been carrying for years that keeps him on the edge of things instead of in them.
” I trace the lines in the stone of their countertop.
“He just keeps stepping back. That’s not who I want.
I want the version of him who can’t be without me.
Hazel deserves more than someone who’s almost all in.
I deserve more. We have to be enough for him to get there himself—or it won’t work. ”
Leighton puts her hand on mine. “I get it.”
Callie slowly takes apart a s’more. “For what it’s worth,” she says, breaking off a piece of chocolate and handing it to me, “I think he’s getting there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I can see it. The way he looks at you. The way he is with Hazel. One day he’s going to wake up and get his head out of his ass.”
I take the chocolate and eat it, deciding not to ask her what she means. It hurts to hope and feel as though I’ll be disappointed again.
Through the window, I can see the backyard—the string lights, the group of people who have somehow become mine in the space of a few months. Hazel’s laugh carries through the glass as Decker shows her something with a playing card.
I’ve been waiting for Decker Davis to make a move since I was twelve.
I’m not so sure how much longer I can wait.