Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Penelope
Eleven minutes.
I gave him one extra minute, and I counted every one of them while standing at that railing, watching the Chicago River do its beautiful thing below me. When ten minutes became eleven, I picked up my clutch and went inside, found my dad, said good night, and called an Uber.
I’m not trying to punish Decker. I told him to go to Foster if that’s what he needs, but I’m not going to embarrass myself again.
So many of the most embarrassing moments in my life were because of him.
I’m not standing out front in a black dress at ten-fifteen making a point.
I’m just done waiting for him to come back to me.
The Uber pulls up, and the doorman opens the back passenger door for me.
“Pen!”
It’s Decker’s voice, and I take note of the desperation in the way he says my name. I can’t deny that my body wants to turn around and run to him.
“Ma’am?” The doorman waves for me to get into the Uber.
I pull out a tip and hand it to him, sliding into the back seat. “Thank you.”
I make the mistake of looking out the window. The Uber driver honks at a party van that has stopped in front of him, trying to park. The doorman gets involved, and while everyone’s attention is on the commotion in front of us, I lock eyes with Decker, running out of the doors.
His jacket is open, his tie a little askew, and he looks as if he’s run through the entire venue.
Do not just lie down for him, Penelope.
“Pen.” His hand grabs the door handle, and I can’t react fast enough to lock it. He heaves for a breath. “Why are you leaving?”
The Uber driver continues to honk his horn.
“Because.” I have no words. I wouldn’t want to say them in front of all these people anyway.
“Let me come with you.” He doesn’t step in. He waits for me to decide.
Such a Decker thing to do.
“I can’t do this with you again just to end up—”
“No, Pen. I just… I want us to start on the right foot, and in order to do that, I had to give Foster a heads-up. But now, all that bullshit is behind us, and we can start with a clean slate.”
“Hey, man, in or out?” the Uber driver asks now that the party bus has had no choice but to go around the block, after all his patrons have staggered to the bar on the corner.
Decker looks at me.
“You realize I make my money on how many rides I take?” the driver says.
“You can see me home.” I slide over, and Decker climbs in, shutting the door after him.
His big body takes up the majority of the back seat, but there’s still a little room between us. The problem is that space feels like live barbed wire.
The Uber driver pulls away from the corner, and I stare at the busy street.
All the couples with linked hands walking down the sidewalk pull that feeling out of me of how I want that so badly.
But not with just anyone. Sure, Elias was nice, but if I’m being truly honest with myself, it’s Decker I want.
And if I can’t have it with him, I don’t want it at all.
“Foster said go.” Decker’s voice is soft. “He doesn’t care.”
I fidget with my hands in my lap.
“Pen?”
“I heard you.”
“I need you to know something.” He turns in the seat to face me.
“It’s always been you. Since I was eleven, I think I knew on a subconscious level that you were meant for me…
and I fucked it all up, wasted our time.
First because your dad was my coach, and then we got close.
Like, really fucking close and you were my person, Pen.
The one I told everything. When I went to Kingsley, it killed me to say goodbye to you, but… ”
Tears well in my eyes. I don’t want to do this in front of an Uber driver, but I’ve also waited so long for him to tell me all this.
“I was leaving, and I didn’t want to do that to you.
I knew the time I’d have with you would be limited, and you deserved better, even if it was without me.
Who would have thought your dad would get a coaching job at Hartwell and in just one year you’d be so close to me again? Had I known, I never would have…”
He doesn’t say her name, and I’d rather not hear it anyway.
“That night you walked out with Foster, it nearly killed me.”
I put my hand over his mouth. “I don’t want to rehash it.”
He gently takes my hand and lowers it between us, keeping it clasped in his. “I don’t either. I want all that behind us. I don’t care why you never came back to the hotel three years ago after we reconnected.”
“Oh… um…”
“No, I don’t care. I just want to be with you.
Every girlfriend I had. Every rule I made.
Every time I wouldn’t cross that imaginary line.
” His voice is steady, but something underneath it isn’t.
“It was always because of you. Because the alternative was wanting something I was convinced I wasn’t allowed to have. ”
The Uber moves through the city. The driver says nothing, pretending he’s minding his own business.
I look at Decker for a long moment. Twenty years of baggage we’re trying to sort through in the back seat of an Uber. All the versions of us that almost happened but never did.
“I’m really scared.”
He looks down at our hands, lacing his fingers through mine, and doesn’t let go.
“I know, and I promise you, I’m never going anywhere unless you want me to.
I want to be with both of you, but I understand you might not want that.
That building your trust that I’m not going anywhere takes time.
We can do this however you want. I can go home tonight and maybe we plan a date.
Go slow. Whatever pace you feel comfortable with. ”
We pull up along the curb outside my house, and since I live on a one-way street, my door is along the curb. I release his hand, as much as it pains me to do it. I thank the Uber driver, open my door, and step onto the sidewalk.
Decker says something to the driver about where to go next, but I never shut the door, leaving it open as I walk to the front steps of my house.
“Buddy, she’s inviting you in,” I hear the Uber driver say.
I glance over my shoulder, and Decker’s staring at me. I smile and shake my head, reaching my front door.
Decker tosses some money at the Uber driver and gets out of the car. “You are inviting me, right?”
I don’t look back, setting my clutch on the entry table and slipping out of my heels. I hear the door close softly behind me and his footsteps on the hardwood, then his hand is on my waist, turning me around.
He looks at me in the dark entry the way he looked at me on the balcony. With more sureness than I’ve ever seen.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”