Chapter 17 Penny
Penny
NOW
“How’d last night go? You haven’t said anything about it.” Fia leans forward in the passenger seat, pulling down the mirror to swipe on mascara as I drum my fingers on the steering wheel.
I stare at the red light, willing it to turn green, because Fia’s question is burning a hole in me, and I need to move. There’s a Santa on the corner ringing a bell. I’m just glad it’s not Jesse.
“It was fine,” I reply quickly. “We ate dinner and chatted.” I accidentally slam on the gas too hard as we head toward Fia’s doctor’s office.
“Damn, Penny!” she yells.
The seat belt jerks against my ribcage, and I wince, glancing at Fia.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
Fia reaches for the grab handle, like I’m about to drag race through town. “Just slow down,” she replies, and I roll my eyes. “But seriously, you two used to be so close… What happened?”
“Nothing, we drifted apart. It happens,” I say with as much control in my voice as I can. “Do you still keep in touch with your high school friends?” I raise my brows at her, knowing damn well she doesn’t.
Fia lets out a slow sigh, then smirks. “Well, anyway, when I came downstairs, Jesse was whistling.”
“What do you mean he was whistling?” I scoff.
Fia shrugs, but she’s eyeing me closely now. “I don’t know, he seemed like he was in a good mood. So whatever you did to smooth things over, it must’ve worked,” she adds cheerfully.
I kissed him. That’s what I did. And I shouldn’t have.
It was reckless and stupid. But I couldn’t stop myself. Because standing in front of the fireplace with him brought me right back to that love-sick teenager who would’ve lassoed the moon for him.
I’m terrified by how easy it was to slip back into that version of Penny.
I can’t let it happen again. That’s a dangerous, slippery slope.
I force a smile and wave dismissively. “Well, now that everyone’s happy, maybe we can stop obsessing over Jesse and talk about something else. Please.”
“Fine,” Fia says slowly, but there’s a twinkle in her eye. “We’ll move on. For now.”
There’s no way Fia could know about Jesse and me. She was an oblivious child, but she’s an adult now and not as naive as I had originally believed, unfortunately. The tension between Jesse and me is thick, and Fia can read me like a book.
Sister intuition, or whatever.
But I can’t afford to even begin to let her guess.
I whip the car into a parking spot in front of an old brown brick building with a sign on the front of a mother and baby. Fia has her twenty-six-week checkup today.
“Alright, let’s get this over with.” I muster up some cheer, because I’m not thrilled about being here, but I wasn’t going to let her go alone. Nothing about pregnancy entices me—in fact, it freaks me out entirely. But I’m trying for my sister.
It’s not until I reach the double glass doors that I realize Fia hasn’t followed me. I turn to see her still sitting in the passenger side of my car, unblinking, staring straight ahead at the row of hedges.
What the hell?
She lowers the window when I knock on it.
“You coming in or what?” My patience wearing thin has nothing to do with her, and everything to do with my nerves around last night. So I try again, nicely, when she doesn’t answer. “Fi, talk to me, what’s going on?”
Her bottom lip trembles, and for a moment, she looks so young. She is young, but suddenly she doesn’t look like the twenty-one-year-old who has a lot of big decisions ahead of her—instead, I see the little girl who used to sit on my bed, clutching her Barbies, watching me do my makeup.
She doesn’t answer at first, just blinks hard, shaking her head, green eyes misty.
“I don’t think I can do this.” She sniffles, rubbing her nose with the sleeve of her oversized green sweater.
“They’re just going to measure the baby and check vitals,” I repeat what I read on Google this morning, because I know absolutely nothing about what happens at these appointments. I don’t mention that they will probably do bloodwork, or that I gagged reading about the cervical checks.
My sister bites her lip, and I grip the edge of the door, looking around, because right now, I’m not sure how to handle this.
My famous “Penny Pep Talks” have apparently decided to leave the station today.
“You were right,” she says suddenly, so quietly I almost miss it.
I glance back down at her. “About what?”
“I’m not ready for this. I have nothing ready. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” Her hand lands on her stomach, and she breaks, a sob rolling through her.
This is way worse than bagel-gate.
“Fia…” I crouch down beside my car, guilt stirring in my gut. “If this is about what I said, I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. I have a lot going on…and I was just trying to drive home how serious this all is.”
She swipes a tear, shaking her head. “I texted him two days ago.”
“Texted who?”
She gazes at me, her tear-stained face growing red and blotchy. “Brett. I thought maybe…I don’t know…that after a few weeks, maybe he’d had time to think. Maybe he came to terms with it. I told him where I’d be today and that I’d like him to come,” she explains breathily.
I already know what’s next before she says it.
“He read it. And didn’t reply.”
My knuckles whiten, a fist clenched at my side. I avert my gaze, a silent scream held in until I can release my breath.
“Listen to me.” Like word vomit, my pep talk comes rushing out. Too loud and too much, but Fia’s eyes snap to mine, and I know she’s hearing me—truly hearing me. “He is an idiot! Him not being here has no reflection on you, or indicates how your future is going to be. Do you understand?”
She nods and wipes a stray tear.
“I have let so many people walk out of my life, Fia,” I say, surprising even myself. “And yeah, it hurt like hell. But if someone wants to leave, you have to let them. You can’t build your future around people who don’t have the decency to stay. I wasted years waiting for apologies that never came.
“You’re going to go in there”—I point at the sad looking brown building—“and they’re going to show you your baby on the monitor or whatever the hell they do.
” This gets a laugh out of both of us. “And we are going to hang the picture of your damn uterus on the fridge. You’re going to be the best freaking mom ever.
So screw Brett, it’s his loss. And your baby will have me and a million other people who will love the hell out of it. ”
“Like Jesse and Danny,” she adds wistfully, and I unwillingly nod.
Sure, maybe.
“I couldn’t do this without you.” Fia smiles at me.
She offers her hand like she used to when she scraped her knee or got scared of thunder, and I pull her petite frame out of her seat.
“I know,” I say, smiling as I nudge her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go see what kind of weird shit they do in there.”
I open the door, hit with the smell of musty plants, and Fia steps through. She pushes the little elevator button, and I smirk, reassuring her.
“Hey, after this, let’s get mani-pedis.”
“And a bagel?” Fia asks, and I laugh.
“If you eat so many bagels, your baby is going to come out addicted to gluten,” I say as we walk into the suite.
An hour later, I’m trailing out behind my sister—only slightly traumatized.
But she’s grinning ear to ear.
“An early Christmas gift,” she says, holding up the little scroll of photos they printed off for her—she’s having a girl.
Looks like we’re adding another stubborn Hanson girl to the clan.
I stare down and wiggle my glossy cotton candy toes. I don’t care that it’s winter and no one will see them—I didn’t fly all over the world this year to not treat myself to small luxuries like deluxe pedicures.
“God, I needed this.” Fia moans as her shoulders are rubbed while her toes are painted a cherry red—for the holidays, of course. She’s a traditionalist.
“You deserve it,” I say, leaning my head back against the heated spa chair.
I open my phone and see an ad for a new rooftop bar downtown. The kind with heat lamps and modern firepits and drinks that look like science experiments.
“Oh my god, I just realized something—I never got to take you out for your twenty-first birthday.”
Fia snorts. “Penny, that was months ago.” It was only three months ago. “You sent me money and told me to ‘raise hell responsibly.’”
“It’s not the same. I wanted to take you somewhere,” I say, frowning.
“It’s fine. Honestly, I don’t even really enjoy drinking, you know that. And obviously…” She rubs her small belly. “That’s a hard pass right now.”
“Well, we could still go out,” I offer. “Somewhere low-key. You could get a mocktail, maybe live music or something chill. We can’t just sit at home every night.”
Her eyes brighten slightly. “Nothing crazy, though…” she trails off, then perks up like she’s just had a brilliant idea. “What about Rebel Tavern?”
My spine stiffens against the leather massage chair, and I sit up quickly. She has to know, why else would she suggest that place?
“Rebel Tavern?” My mouth goes dry. “That little dive bar down in Carolina Beach?”
Fia nods, pulling her phone out, half listening to me. “Yeah, that one. It seems chill, they have live music on Wednesday nights, and Jesse mentioned it before.”
My fingers dig into the armrests of the spa chair, and I rack my brain for a response.
The last time I was in Rebel Tavern was just weeks before everything went to hell.
Danny was out doing something sketchy, and Jesse and I snuck into the bar, crawling through the bathroom window from the alleyway, and danced in the corner of the wood-paneled, smoke-filled dive bar.
We felt free, his hands on my hips, his lips on my neck, his whispers in my ear telling me he loved me. The taste of cheap beer, the way the lights blurred, and when they closed, we ran down to the beach, buzzed and alive, the moon the only light around us.
The way he kissed me—wild yet sincere. I remember everything.
That was the first and last time I ever set foot in that place.