19. Anthony
nineteen
anthony
I probably break several traffic laws on my way home from school after a pit stop at the store, but I couldn’t care less. I managed to get Nathan to give me Claire’s phone number when Penelope wasn’t texting me back, and got enough information to send me into a panic.
Her wrist is fractured. She’s in a cast for 4 weeks, and then they’ll check in.
Reading that text was like swallowing glass.
Penelope has already had a hell of a time lately. She doesn’t need this too.
I’ve done my best to learn what I can about her by living together, and managed to snag a few of the snacks she keeps in her pantry bucket. Loaded down with Cheetos, Nerds Clusters, and animal crackers, I grabbed a six pack and something with a bubble bath label and rushed home. Claire’s car is still here when I arrive, and I realize that Pen’s is still in the parking lot at school.
Maybe I should text one of the guys to help me get it—but that would delay me getting to her.
My grocery bag hangs limply in my hand. My peace offering somehow weighs differently after what happened this morning. I’d seen her on the ground, hurt , and it had gutted me. I’d had my hands on her, and it had set my body into overdrive.
I push through the door, where girly laughter starts to die down with my arrival. I’m barely into the kitchen when I hear Claire’s approaching footsteps, and her cheerful, “Oh, good! You’re back.”
She leads me to the kitchen table, which is now loaded down with Pen’s pain medication.
“She needs to take one of these every six hours. Her cast cannot get wet. She’s just tired, but I set her up on the couch. Her arm should be elevated as much as possible for the next few days. Good luck!”
Claire claps a hand to my shoulder, then calls out, “Text if you need anything!” to Penelope and walks out the door, leaving us alone and dumbstruck. It takes me too much time and not enough at all to cross my way into the living room, where I can’t stop my smile from spreading.
Penelope is cuddled up on the couch with the recliner propped beneath her feet. She’s buried in a blanket cocoon, her right hand in a bowl of popcorn, her left arm encased in lime green plaster with Claire’s name Sharpied down the side.
God, I want to stop time.
I want to put her in a bubble so that nothing bad ever happens to her again. I want to curl up beside her and hold her through this and let her throw popcorn at me while I make bad jokes about a movie we picked out to watch.
But I don’t know if I get to be that guy.
“Can you stop staring at me like I died?” she asks, one brow lifted, one cheek full of buttery goodness.
I huff a surprised, airy laugh, and shake my head.
“How’s the patient?”
“Annoyed. Doped up though, so I can’t really complain about the pain.”
She shrugs, then tilts her head.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Oh, this?” I lift the Target bag, and she nods. “I uh… Goodies. To make you feel better.”
She shovels the handful of popcorn into her mouth before extending her hand. I unload my gifts one by one, and watch her eyes go from excited to surprised to a peculiar shade of pink that washes her cheeks so prettily.
“Figured you might need some cheering up.”
I shrug, then take a seat on the opposite end of the couch. Her expression is scrunched, and that pink is turning red as she tries to scrunch it all in toward the middle.
“I am not crying. I am simply on painkillers .”
I can feel my eyes sparkling with the open-mouthed laugh I expel.
“Sure,” I chuckle, nodding. “Absolutely.”
“Anthony James Ellis…”
“Oooo, she full-named me.” I waggle my eyebrows. “What’s next? You gonna tell me to sit like a good boy?”
“No, I’d much rather you were the one giving the orders.”
She flames scarlet, then brings both hands quickly to her mouth presumably to hold in any further confessions—only, she forgets that one of her arms now weighs significantly more, and whacks herself with her new cast.
“Oh, fuck! ”
“Easy there, killer!” I laugh, scooting closer on the couch to peel her cast away from her face. We fall into the kind of laughter where you can’t breathe, and I wonder how I ever let a day go by where this woman wasn’t in my life. How I ever gave myself the option otherwise.
Once we can both breathe again, she realizes I’m still holding her casted hand and slides it away, but I can’t help it. Touching her today has been like finding water in the desert. I slide my hand up to gently cup her face and skim my thumb over her upper lip, letting her breath catch and heat my skin with her gasp.
“You’d better start being careful, PJ. I’m gonna end up using all my sick time to take care of you.”
The nickname breaks the spell, and she shakes me away, settling back into her blanket burrito. I remain on the middle cushion, spreading my legs wide as I relax against the back of the couch.
“How are you feeling?”
“Stupid.” She grumbles it in a whisper, crossing her arms. I long to reach out and tuck the loose hair behind her ears, but I feel like my touching has reached capacity for today. I grip my biceps to keep my hands from going rogue.
“Why? It wasn’t your fault. It was the damn Stanley cup’s fault. I already told Nathan we need to ban them. Hell, I might go after the corporation itself.”
“You can’t avenge me against a Stanley cup, Anthony,” she chuckles breathlessly.
“I can give McKenna Smith detention for a week,” I nod.
“How’d you know it was hers?”
“The volleyball sticker. All of our girls have them.”
She shakes her head, turning her cast over a few times in her lap, studying it.
“I’m just glad it’s my left hand,” she sighs. “At least it won’t totally get in the way of work. Writing, on the other hand…”
She tilts her head and chews on the inside of her lip.
“Hey, I’m here to help in any way that I can, Pen. You want me to write for you, I can type.”
“Absolutely not,” she answers immediately. But almost as quickly, the line of her brows softens. “But I might need your help with a few other things. I don’t know. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Just say the word,” I nod. Getting an idea, I stand and head to my bedroom. After digging around in the unpacked boxes of knick-knacks, I come up with exactly what I was looking for.
I jingle the bell as announcement of my reentry.
“What the hell is that?” she laughs skeptically, taking the bell from my hand.
“Bought it during our seventh grade field trip to the Boston Tea Party museum,” I say. “Might make calling me for help a little more fun than yelling across the house.”
“Or just texting you,” she chuckles with a lifted brow.
“Yeah. Or that.”
I’m about to yank the novelty bell from her hand when she lifts it between us and shakes it back and forth. That tinny sound is sweet relief to my ears. I bow my head, hiding my smile.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Pain meds and Cheetos, peasant.”
I shake my head, opening the bag of Cheetos before I find her next dose of extra strength Tylenol.
“I guess we should probably figure out a game plan for teaching while I’m all laid up,” Penelope says, popping a Cheeto into her mouth. I steal one, nodding as I crunch it between my teeth.
“Okay, shoot.”
“Well, with you being called out so much for admin duties, I was thinking I might just run things like I normally do. Would you be opposed to me taking the reins? Lesson planning would be one less thing for you to worry about.”
“I guess that makes sense. I still feel bad that you’d be doing the bulk of the planning.”
She shakes her head and waves her hand between us.
“I have a yearly plan that I’ve been following forever. If anything, it’s the grading that’s going to drown me, especially with one hand.”
“That’s where I can make up for being out. Give me whatever you have to. I’ll get it done.”
She nods, and then cracks a huge yawn. It’s barely five, but after the day she’s had, I don’t blame her for being wiped.
“Did you eat yet?” I ask.
She lifts the bag of Cheetos. “I’m content with snacks for dinner.”
I nod, then toss her the remote. She feigns a gasp, clutching her good hand to her chest.
“What’s this?! He’s letting me pick the channel?!”
“No good sports on tonight. Don’t get too ahead of yourself.”
I head into the kitchen as she flips through a streaming service, and toss something quick into the oven before heading to my room to change. I return in sweat shorts and an old Celtics shirt with a tray of chicken nuggets and pizza rolls, settling in to watch reruns of New Girl .
“What’s this?” she asks, staring at the plate I place between us like it’s a foreign object.
“Dinner.” I shrug, feeling my neck heat. “You skipped lunch to get X-rays. I’m no gourmet chef, but I’m pretty certain Tyson puts protein into these things. No girl dinner tonight. Now, eat . Doctor’s orders.”
The blush that colors her cheeks has the cogs in my chest stuttering.
We laugh through a few episodes together, sharing snacks. As the sun goes down, she declares that she’s going to sleep in the living room.
“It’ll keep me from rolling onto this thing,” she explains, lifting her cast that has been resting on the arm of the couch.
“Okay,” I nod. “Then I’ll be right back.”
As I’m jogging down the hall, she calls, “Where are you going?” after me. When I return with my pillow, she blanches.
“You don’t have to… Anthony…”
I crash into the other end of the recliner, pop open the motorized footrest, and make myself comfortable.
“I can sleep anywhere. Promise.”
It’s an absolute lie. My back is going to hurt like a bitch in the morning. She tries to protest once more, but I dismiss her, wiggling my ass deeper into the couch. She sighs in defeat, clicking onto the next episode.
“You know, if I wasn’t mistaken, I’d say we’re getting along ,” I smirk, waggling my brows at her. She lifts one, dropping into that deadpan stare that I’m coming to love so much.
“It’s the Tylenol. Don’t get too ahead of yourself.”
Even so, I can tell she’s trying to hold her smile captive.
After we’ve watched a few episodes in companionable silence, she rings the bell. I turn my head, and catch a glimpse of what I gave up when I didn’t choose her first.
Sleepy Pen, with her wild hair mussed from the couch, her half lidded eyes competing with gravity, a warm glow making her all soft curves. If she wouldn’t smack me stupid, I’d take a photo.
I lift my brows and smile at the tinkling sound of the bell. The corners of her sleep drunk smile turn up.
“Thank you.”
“It was nothing,” I say, letting the sandpaper scratch the rough edges of those words.
God, if she only knew.