19. Penelope #2
“I just needed that,” he says. Quiet. Almost to himself. “Real quick. Before we say whatever we’re about to say.”
I stay on his lap. Don’t move. The intimacy of two people who are about to end something and are not in a hurry to start the ending.
He lifts me off gently. We lie down. Side by side. Facing each other. His hand finding mine between us on the mattress. “Talk to me, Penny.”
“I don’t know how to start.”
“Then I’ll start.” He runs his thumb along my knuckles.
“I told the guys tonight. Downstairs. About my feelings for you. About how I know I’ve been filling a space that’s shaped like somebody else.
About how being with you is the closest I’ve felt to being loved in months and that’s beautiful and it’s also not enough because I deserve to be somebody’s first choice, not their safest one. ”
The sentence hits me in the sternum.
“Iz—”
“It’s the truth, Penny. And I’m not saying it to hurt you.
I’m saying it because we promised no more lies and this is the last one I’ve been telling myself: that if I was patient enough and kind enough and present enough, you’d eventually choose me over him.
But you’re not going to. You’ve never been going to.
And I’d rather walk away with my dignity than wait to be let down gently. ”
The tears come. His. Mine. The communion of two people who are being honest with each other and finding that honesty has a cost that kindness can’t fully cover.
“I love you, Iz.”
“I know you do. Just not the way I need.”
“No. Not the way you need. And you deserve the full version. Not my leftovers.”
He smiles. Sad. Real. “Leftovers. That’s harsh.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.” He squeezes my hand. “Bella.” The word changes the temperature. “I told the guys about her too. The homecoming dance. Walking in on her with Tyler Braxton.”
“Iz…”
“She looked right at me and said ‘guess you’re not the only one I keep entertained.’ Like she’d rehearsed it.
Like she wanted me to see it. And ever since, she’s been pushing me away, and I can’t shake the feeling that something else is going on.
That she’s protecting me from something by making me hate her. ”
“Do you hate her?”
“No. That’s the problem. I should. I should hate her for what she did.
But I can’t. Because the girl who said those words and the girl I was falling for don’t feel like the same person.
Something changed. Something happened. And she won’t let me close enough to find out what.
So in a way, I’ve been trying to fill that hole with you. And that’s not fair to either of us.”
We lie there. Two people who understand each other completely—not as lovers, not anymore. As something sturdier. The bond of two people who have been honest about the limits of what they can be to each other and have chosen to keep the parts that work.
“This doesn’t change us,” I say. “The friendship. The trust. You and me—that’s permanent. No expiration date.”
“I know.” He grins. The Iz grin—even now, even through the hurt. “New rule, though. If we’re both single at thirty, we’re getting married. Non-negotiable.”
“Vegas. Elvis impersonator. Playlist I curated.”
“Deal. Shake on it?”
“Absolutely not. We kiss on it.”
He laughs. Full. The belly laugh. Then takes my face in his hands—the Iz hold, gentle, cupping—and kisses me. Long. Slow. The kiss of two people sealing a promise with their mouths because handshakes aren’t enough for what this is.
His lips are warm. His hands are steady. He tastes like soda and something sweet and the particular flavor of a goodbye that doesn’t hurt as much as it should because the people saying it are choosing honesty over pain.
He pulls back. Taps my nose with his finger. “Thirty. Vegas. Elvis. Don’t forget.”
“As if I could.”
We stand. He extends his hand. I take it. We walk downstairs together—hands separate, shoulders close, the geography of two people who have just redrawn their borders and are adjusting to the new map.
In the kitchen, I catch X’s eye. He’s been watching the stairs. His face is careful—the restraint of a boy who is choosing to trust and is applying the skill to the moment where trust is hardest.
I give him the nod. The one that says: it’s done. I’m here.
He nods back. The one that says: I know. I’ll wait.
The house empties. Kaiden and Cat first—Cat squeezing me, whispering “I’m proud of you” into my hair. Danny and Ryan arguing about something from three years ago. Iz last—the hug at the door, long, warm. He whispers: “Thirty. Vegas. Elvis.” I laugh into his shoulder.
My parents left an hour ago—a late-night gallery showing. Dad in reading glasses. Mom in her art-world outfit. The particular cheerfulness of parents trusting two teenagers alone.
The house is quiet. I order dessert. The bakery in town that delivers until ten.
I find X in the basement gym. On the bag—tap-tap-tap, the rhythmic work of a boy who organizes his thoughts with his fists.
He sees me. Stops. Towels off.
“Ordered dessert.”
“Please tell me you didn’t order that pineapple shit.”
“Pineapple upside-down cake. And before you say anything—it’s a classic.”
“It’s an abomination. Fruit does not belong in cake, Penelope. This is a hill I will die on.”
“You’re literally eating chocolate lava cake, which is just melted chocolate pretending to be sophisticated.”
“It IS sophisticated. It has ‘lava’ in the name. Nothing with ‘lava’ in the name is unsophisticated.”
“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, and you’ve said some spectacularly dumb things.”
He throws the towel at me. I catch it. We’re both grinning—the particular ease of two people who have known each other long enough that insults are a dialect of love.
Upstairs. Dessert on the couch. The TV on but unwatched—the prop, the excuse for proximity.
I eat my pineapple upside-down cake. He eats his lava cake with a fork. “Who uses a fork for lava cake?”
“Civilized people.”
“Serial killers use forks for everything. That’s a documented fact.”
“That is absolutely not a documented fact.”
“Google it.”
“I’m not googling ‘do serial killers use forks.’ That’s how you end up on a list.”
The laughter fills the living room. The sound of two people who used to make each other laugh every day and are remembering how and the remembering feels like coming home.
The laughter fades to quiet. The good quiet. The full quiet.
“X.”
“Yeah.”
“Iz and I ended things.”
He sets the fork down. Turns to me. His face careful—the restraint of a boy practicing not reacting.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. We’re good. We talked about everything—his feelings, mine, Bella. It was honest. It was kind.” I smile. “We made a pact that if we’re both single at thirty, we’re getting married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator.”
X laughs. Real. “I’ll allow it. Only because I plan to make sure you’re not single at thirty.”
The sentence hangs. He doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t need to.
We talk. Real talk. The program. Darla’s assignments.
The MMA gym and Marco talking about a regional circuit by summer.
My internship opportunities for music management.
The conversation flows the way it used to—easy, natural, two people who communicate in the spaces between words as fluently as in the words themselves.
The dessert is gone. The TV still unwatched. The room darker—just the lamp. The particular intimacy of low light and proximity.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe him. Maybe me. Maybe both of us at the same time, drawn by the gravity that has been pulling us together since a maternity ward eighteen years ago.
His mouth finds mine. On the couch. The first kiss of the night—soft, testing, the gentleness of a boy who has been told by my father to ask and is asking with his pace. His hand on my cheek. His thumb tracing my jaw. Slow.
I pull back. Look at him. “Xander. I need to tell you something before this goes further.”
“Okay.”
“I like it rough.”
His breathing changes. The intake of air against my lips.
“I like the claiming. The possessiveness. The dark voice. When you say ‘you’re mine’ and grip like you mean it. I like being marked. Cat and I talked about it. It’s a preference. It’s not fucked up.”
I take his hand. Press it against my chest so he can feel my heartbeat—fast, alive.
“The difference between the closet and what I want is one thing: communication. I want the rough. But I want you to check in. I want you to look at me and make sure I’m with you. Not because you’re afraid—because you respect me enough to ask.”
He’s quiet. Processing. Then: “I can do that.”
He kisses me again. And the gentleness is still there underneath.
But the permission has shifted something—the relief of a boy who has been terrified that the thing he wants is the thing that makes him his father, and a girl is telling him it’s not.
That the difference between Lucian’s violence and Xander’s intensity is the difference between taking and being given.
The kiss deepens. His hand slides from my cheek to the back of my neck. Pulling me closer. His mouth opening wider. The taste of chocolate and the chemistry that only exists between us.
We stand. Together. Not breaking the kiss. His hands on my waist, my hands on his chest, and we move—clumsy, laughing between kisses, bumping into the coffee table, his shin hitting the corner and he curses against my mouth and I laugh and the laughter becomes another kiss.
The hallway. He presses me against the wall by the stairs—briefly, his body flush against mine, his mouth on my neck, the sound I make echoing in the empty house. His hands grip my hips. The closet grip. The one my body recognizes before my brain catches up.
“This okay?” he asks against my skin.
“Yes.”
The stairs. Kissing on the third step—my back against the banister, his mouth on my collarbone, his hands under my shirt, warm against my stomach. I pull his shirt over his head and it lands somewhere on the staircase and neither of us cares.