Think this belongs to you
Chapter twenty-nine
Evan
Iwake reaching for her, but my hand drags across cool sheets.
My eyes open properly, blinking against the pale stripe of sunlight cutting through the curtains. The room smells faintly like Penny’s shampoo and the coffee she made earlier, but the space beside me is empty.
I lie there and listen for her. For movement in the hallway. For the music she told me she’d put on again. A cabinet door opening and closing, or Gus’s nails clicking after her across the floor.
Nothing.
“Pen?” I call, but when there’s no answer, I reach for my phone, and it lights up on the nightstand.
Lucky Pen: Needed some time away. I’m okay.
Lucky Pen: I love you.
I stare at the message for a moment, then I stare at it again.
I love you.
My thumb hovers uselessly over the screen while my brain catches up to the words, replaying them slower this time, like maybe I read them wrong. But there they are, small and bright on my phone. Too small for the way they land.
Penny loves me.
Heat floods low and sudden through me, sharp enough that I actually suck in a breath. Because Penelope Easton says things with her whole heart when she means them. She doesn’t throw words around carelessly. Every soft thing she gives feels earned.
And she’s never said she loves me before.
Not directly, anyway. She’s said it in every other possible way.
In packed lunches and penguin notes. In coffee timers and sleepy kisses.
In the way she looks at Elle like there’s nothing in this world more precious.
In the way she reaches for me when the room gets too loud, even when she’s convinced she shouldn’t need anyone at all.
And fuck. I haven’t told her, either. But Christ, I’ve known it for months now.
I knew it watching her dance around my kitchen in fuzzy socks, and the first time Elle crawled into her lap without hesitation. Felt it at the lake. Knew in the grocery store, and half asleep beside her at three in the morning when she’d tuck her cold feet under my leg.
But every time the words climbed up my throat, something happened. A callout. Elle interrupting us. Stacey. The fire.
And after the tower, I couldn’t say it then either. Couldn’t let the first time she heard it be tangled up in smoke and fear and an almost.
My thumb lowers toward the keyboard. I could send it back right now. Three words. Easy.
But not like this—not for the first time. Penny doesn’t get my love in a text message while she’s off somewhere convincing herself she’s easier to leave than keep.
She gets my face. My voice. The truth, where she can hear it.
That I love her just because I do. Because my life feels wrong when she’s not in it.
And because somewhere along the way, Penelope Easton became the best part of it.
I scrub a hand down my face, staring at the text like it might disappear if I blink too long. The cold feeling settles in slowly after that.
It’s the exact same feeling that’s lived under my skin since the second I saw her car outside the tower. It’s the same feeling I felt this morning when she asked me if I think some people are just bad luck.
The anger in me flares at this story she’s telling herself.
That she’s unlovable. Dangerous to know. That she ruins good things.
And after I go get my girl, I’m going to go find the people who put these ideas in her head and make sure they know how damn lucky they are to have ever had her in their lives.
Because the luckiest thing I know is the way my heart thunders for blonde hair tipped in blue, and a musical laugh. Someone who has courage and kindness in equal measure and somehow still thinks she’s the thing people need to survive.
And if she thinks she’s not worthy of being someone I’ll run toward, she’s out of her fucking mind.
“Jesus Christ, Pen,” I mutter under my breath.
I’m already dragging my jeans off the floor before my brain fully catches up.
The house is quiet when I walk out into the hallway. Gus is snoring in the living room, and Penny’s coffee mug sits in the sink beside mine. Her keys are gone from the bowl, and so are the donation bags from the porch.
I tell myself that’s normal. She’s probably gone downtown. Went to Flora’s or Neverland for an hour. Or maybe she needed space to breathe after our conversation this morning and went for a jog.
But my pulse doesn’t believe me, so I tug the front door open, and that’s when I see it.
A silver heel lies near the edge of the driveway, tipped onto its side on the concrete.
Something uneasy moves low in my stomach as I walk over and pick it up. The leather’s warm from the sun, and soft against my palm where Elle scuffed the side.
I turn it over once in my hand, and then my phone’s already out of my pocket and calling before I’ve even consciously thought about it.
Straight to voicemail.
“Hey, Pen,” I say after the beep, trying to keep my tone even. “Call me back when you get this, okay? I gotta tell you something.”
I hang up and stand there another second with the heel dangling from my fingers and the trees moving softly in the morning breeze.
Needed some time away.
How far away, Penny? I swallow around my own question, trying to keep my breathing steady.
I know what panic feels like—I’ve lived inside it before. This isn’t panic yet, but it’s close enough that my heartbeat hasn’t settled properly since I woke up.
Looking down the driveway, I half expect her to pull in while I’m standing there, confirming this is all in my head. She doesn’t.
Flora’s opens early, and Penny likes the cinnamon buns when she’s stressed, so Flora’s is the first place I’ll check first.
By the time I’m climbing into the truck, the heel is still hooked through my fingers.
The bell above the café door jingles when I walk inside a few minutes later, and Rose Potts glances up from wiping down the counter before her eyes narrow slightly.
“You look terrible,” she says automatically.
“Morning to you too, Rose.”
She notices the heel in my hand, and a beat passes.
“Did you murder Cinderella?”
Normally, I’d laugh.
“You seen Penny?”
Something in my voice must land wrong because her expression changes immediately.
“No. Why?”
“She said she needed some time away.”
“And now you’re carrying her heel around Maplewood?”
I look down at the shoe. “Apparently.”
Rose tosses the towel onto her shoulder and comes around the counter. “Okay, talk to me, Prince.”
I scrub a hand over my eyes and down my jaw. “She left this morning. Said she was okay, but she’s not answering her phone.”
“Evan.”
“I know how that sounds.” My fingers tighten around the heel. “I just need to… tell her something.”
Her face softens, and she reaches out and squeezes my forearm once. “I haven’t seen her. But if I do, I’ll call you.”
I nod and head back outside before the tightness in my throat gets any worse. The heel thumps softly against my thigh as I cross the street, still dangling from my fingers while I pull my phone out again.
“Come on, Pen,” I mutter, but it’s straight to voicemail.
Flora’s would’ve made sense, but Penny’s got close with Gwen too, and Neverland’s only a block over, so I’ll try there next. By the time I pull up outside, my pulse still hasn’t eased.
Neverland’s quieter than usual this early, with chairs still flipped upside down on half the tables while Gwen counts inventory behind the bar. She looks up when I walk in and immediately barks a laugh.
“What the fuck are you holding?”
I stop in front of her. “Don’t.”
“No, seriously. Why do you have one tiny sparkly shoe in your hand?”
“She dropped it in the driveway.”
That earns another snort from Gwen before her expression shifts slightly.
“Penny did?”
“Yeah.” I look down at the heel. “You seen her?”
Her grin fades into a frown. “No…”
I clench my jaw but manage a nod.
“Hey.” Her voice softens. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Bullshit.”
I lean one forearm against the bar and stare at the heel in my hand. “She said she needed time away.”
“Ah. And your brain immediately went full firefighter-catastrophe mode.”
I don’t answer, because yes. Obviously.
Gwen studies me for another second before sighing softly. “Prince, that woman is obsessed with you.”
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth almost twitches.
“She wouldn’t leave, not for good.”
I sigh. “I know.”
At least I think I do. Knowing and believing suddenly feel like two different things, and by the time I leave Neverland, the unease in my chest has sharpened into something harder to ignore.
I check the park next, thinking maybe she’ll be jogging her usual loop.
She’s not.
There’s just a couple teenagers throwing a football near the swings and old Mr. Henderson feeding ducks by the water.
He squints at me as I walk past and gives a short nod. “Prince.”
“Morning.”
His gaze drops to the heel.
“…rough date?”
I keep walking.
The town suddenly feels too small and too wide at the same time, every street carrying some version of her.
The bookstore where she bought Elle a penguin encyclopedia.
The grocery store and the drugstore. The town center where she took off this very heel, and I carried her home while the town clock chimed at midnight.
Everywhere I look, there’s Penny.
And now Penny’s nowhere.
By the time I pull back into our driveway, exhaustion has settled heavily beneath my skin. I kill the engine and sit there for a second, gripping the wheel too tightly while the heel rests against my thigh.
Maybe I’ve overreacted. Maybe she came back while I was gone and fell asleep in the guest house.
The guest house.
I haven’t checked the guest house.
The thought pushes me up, and I’m moving again. When I step inside, sunlight filters softly through the windows, warming the little kitchenette and the folded blanket draped over the couch, but there’s no sign she’s been here.
I turn to leave when something catches my eye. Her journal sits open on the side table beside the couch. Normally, I wouldn’t read it. I know better than that. But my gaze snags on my own name before I can look away. It’s on a page from months ago.