Chapter 40 Penny
Penny
NOW
The sun is setting in the evening sky as we leave the hospital in silence. We don’t speak during the ten-minute drive home—music plays low through the speakers, and I stare at the lines on the road, grateful Jesse remains quiet.
As we pull in the driveway, my stomach rumbles, and I clutch it. My last meal was brunch, but I can’t even think about making food right now.
I’m stuck in a whirlwind of fuckery.
One moment, I’m flooded with relief that Fia’s okay, and the next, I’m back in that visitation room hearing Danny spill the truth. Then I remember how Jesse held me in the ER waiting room. It’s too much.
“You’re a good boy, you know that?” I squat down, scratching Tank’s ears as we silently go inside. He was waiting just on the other side of the back door.
Jesse watches me with his dog, and it takes everything in me to stand and face him. I’m a shell right now, and I desperately want to scrub this day off me.
My stomach gurgles in protest, my head starting to get a dull ache.
“Hey, can we talk a moment?” Jesse breaks the silence, and I look away from his gaze.
I’m not ready to tell him I know everything. I’m not ready to tell him how wrong I was, how fucked up everything that happened was.
Because after we have that conversation, everything is going to change between us. Everything is going to change within myself.
There’s going to be an after.
And I haven’t decided what that means yet for us.
Whatever semblance of us there is.
“Can it wait?” I exhale, and he bites his lip but nods. “I desperately need a bath and to get food.”
Jesse steps up, his brow lowered, but when his hand swoops under my chin, lifting my face to his, my heart does that little flutter thing it does every time he touches me. Without fail.
“Go take a bath, and I’ll figure out dinner.” His voice is smooth and strong.
Flutter.
“I can do both,” I insist, but he grabs my waist, spinning me toward the staircase, and pats my ass.
“Yeah, see, that wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command.”
I turn with my mouth wide open, but his jaw is tight, his eyes locked on mine.
“Go. Now,” he instructs, and I shut my mouth, silently heading upstairs toward the bathroom. I can’t recall a time when someone told me “I got this” and I got to go relax.
The stress of the hospital slowly melts off my shoulders as I plug the drain of the clawfoot tub and start the hot water. Steam fills the small, tiled bathroom immediately, and I shove my clothes into a pile in the corner of the room.
I rummage through the bathroom cupboard and find the bubble bath soak packets I sent Fia for her birthday.
There’s no point in pulling up my hair; I want every inch of me to be submerged in the scalding hot water. For just a few minutes, I want to feel like I’m ten feet underwater, far, far away from this reality.
Only the dim vanity light remains, casting the bathroom in a golden glow from the retro fixture. I prefer my candlelit bathroom at home, but I need this.
Gripping the sides of the tub, I settle into the frothy, milky bubbles. My long hair floats on the surface, and when I lean my head back, I expect them to come, the tears. The ones I couldn’t yield off all day. Now I feel safe enough to let them out, and they’re trapped in my throat.
I close my eyes and try to focus on the smell of citrus and eucalyptus.
But Danny’s words intrude my thoughts, and I snap my eyes open again.
He loves you, you know that, right?
“If he loved me, why didn’t he tell me the truth?” I whisper to myself, mindlessly rubbing the oily bubbles into my slick skin.
If he did, would I have listened? Would it have changed everything?
I swallow and clear my throat, like that will ward off intrusive thoughts.
I don’t want to answer those questions.
But then my heart jumps in my chest, and I jerk up. The water sloshes around me as the hinges of the bathroom door squeak.
“Tank, you can’t come in here,” I whisper grumpily. This old house needs all new doors—ones that latch—because Tank learned that all he has to do is nudge them with his nose and they’ll open.
But it’s Jesse who steps in, taking up half the bathroom with his frame. His eyes find mine, and I freeze.
The water is creamy white, hiding most of me, but the way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m standing here naked, dripping wet in front of him.
He doesn’t wait for my allowance or dismissal—and I’m not entirely sure which one I’d give him—before he shuts the door behind him and steps toward the tub, kneeling down on the floor next to it. Even on his knees, I have to look up to him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him, but he doesn’t answer.
Jesse leans forward, cupping the back of my neck, capturing my mouth with his. It’s delicious and soft, and when he pulls away, I blurt out the words I can’t hold in any longer.
“He told me, Jesse… Danny told me.” It comes out choked, and my eyes burn as they gaze up at him. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth about that night?”
His eyes grow dark and pained. He drops his hands to the side of the tub. “I thought it was the right choice…”
I shake my head. “You left me… And for ten years you let me believe that you chose everything else over me.” A sob rips through me and I sit up, my chest now exposed, and I half expect to look down and see my heart bleeding.
That’s what it feels like to look into Jesse Rivers’s eyes and tell him the truth.
That he broke my heart, and it’s never quite healed.
“We were supposed to do this together,” I say louder, anger and hurt on my tongue.
He drops his head slightly, dark locks falling over his forehead. I place my hand over his, gripping it hard, using him as my anchor.
“Jesse, you broke my heart.” My vision blurs as I stare at him.
“Penny…” He cocks his head back, saying my name like it hurts him. “I know I did. I know I left you.” He pauses, and my breathing shallows.
“Three years had passed when I was released… I stayed away, because I didn’t want to ruin your future.” His voice cracks, guilt carved into every line on his face.
He lets out a soft laugh, almost bitter. “Look at you.” There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips. “You did it, baby. The dream school, you made something of yourself. I was just a lucky guy who got to be in your orbit for a bit.”
“Don’t say that." I shake my head, squeezing his forearm. "Do not say that. Please.” His haunted green eyes meet mine. “You deserved everything, too. I believed in you,” I say with as much conviction as I can, as my voice wavers.
“It’s okay...” he murmurs, leaning toward me. “I took the pain and moved on. I loved you enough to let you go.”
“Then why didn’t you come looking for me?” The question cuts through the air, sharp and aching. He could ask me the same question.
Jesse lets out a hollow laugh. “The day I got out, I wanted to find you. God, how I wanted to run to you, Penny.” He pauses. “Nan picked me up, and the whole car ride home, she talked about you. I’ll never forget the way she radiated with pride.”
The room feels darker, and my chest constricts.
“You were studying abroad, in Paris.” He looks at me knowingly. My dream. “I knew then there was only one choice: to let you go. So I moved as far away as I could. I removed temptation, because you weren’t mine to hold on to.”
A lump as heavy as steel forges in my chest, and I shiver in this steaming hot water.
Every puzzle piece, every moment from the past ten years, suddenly clicks into place. It’s like a ripple effect on my heart, smoothing over all the lines and jagged edges until it’s whole again. Even if it’s messy, even if I want to refuse to understand, I do.
We broke each other in different ways, at different times.
The water collects on my eyelashes, clumping them together as I look up at his tortured face, still focused on me.
Jesse lived in my head as a different guy for a decade.
The villain, the reason I’m jaded.
He was my secret, my scapegoat, the person I couldn’t bear to think about, yet couldn’t erase from my mind. And now here he is kneeling before me, in my most vulnerable state, and there’s only one question left.
“Do you still love me?” I whisper.
He gives me that sad, crooked smile. His green eyes shimmer like rare sea glass. “I never stopped.”
I curl my knees to my chest and press my cheek against them, trying to make myself smaller. “What does this mean? I don’t know… I don’t know what to do now,” I say.
It’s still and silent in the bathroom, and I tilt my head so I’m looking at him.
“About what?” he asks softly, fingers trailing up my spine. It’s gentle, and I shiver under his touch.
“Everything,” I breathe.
He waits patiently, strong, unwavering.
“I don’t know how to be here for Fia, I don’t know how to build a relationship with Danny, I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back home in a few days. I don’t know how I’m supposed to sit here and pretend that I’m okay with leaving you.”
“You don’t have to pretend.” Jesse’s hand finds my neck, gently massaging it. “You take care of everyone else, but who takes care of you?”
I'm unable to give him an answer, but he doesn’t wait for one.
He lowers his lips to mine, capturing a soft moan from my mouth.
“Let me take care of you.” His voice is velvet against my neck as his supple lips mark me. Calloused hands reach into the water, cupping my wet breasts as he leans me back against the tub.
I cling to him in return, taking, taking, taking. But he keeps giving.
My core clenches as he parts my thighs, slipping a finger inside me.
I inhale the sweet scents still wafting from the hot water and push every worry from my head. Jesse’s other hand wraps around the column of my throat, possessive but gentle, while water drips off his corded, inked arms.
“Stop thinking, stop trying to control, just let yourself feel,” he demands, biting my neck, licking and sucking down to my hard nipple, drawing it into his mouth as I arch my back into him.
Tears pool in my eyes as he takes away my pain, one touch, one kiss at a time.
His thumb expertly and gently strokes my center, his eyes steady on mine, not letting a single wall form between us.
“Jesse…” I moan as he adds another finger, filling me, kissing me gently, taking his time. I want to pull him in with me, but I lose all will when he smiles against my mouth, strumming me faster, and I tighten around his hooked fingers.
“That’s it, good girl.”
Fuck.
I grip the sides of the tub as he applies just the right amount of pressure to make me come undone. I roll my hips up into his hand. “Oh my god…”
He holds me while I ride out the wave of ecstasy, running his hand from my tits to my collarbone until he’s holding my jaw tightly, forcing me to look at him.
“Jesse Rivers, I never stopped loving you either.” I lean my forehead against his, catching my breath.
“Then promise me something,” he replies, husky and low, and I look up, still in a dreamy ecstasy.
“You have to stop hiding everything that’s in there.
” He lightly jabs a finger to my chest, right over my beating heart.
“Even if it scares you, even if you think it’s going to hurt me, tell me. You understand?”
I nod, and he kisses me, biting my lip and pulling away quickly.
“Whatever’s happening in that mind of yours, I can handle it. Got it, princess?”
It goes against everything I’ve held true for the last ten years.
Run and don’t tell the truth.
Keep things light, keep things fun.
No relationships—once they say they love you, they’re out.
And never, ever think about Jesse Rivers.
These were the rules I lived by.
But everything has changed. I couldn’t forget him if I wanted to; it’s worthless to try. He’s a part of me, and like the ink etched on his ribs, I’m part of him.