32. Anthony
thirty-two
anthony
Penelope was quiet tonight. More so than usual.
I almost want to chalk it up to my presence in her space, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Even after Nate gave her the go-ahead as her boss to keep writing her books, she was so reserved tonight that it kind of scared me.
We arrive home, parking side by side in the garage. I help her carry in the leftovers that we snagged from the party, and we Tetris them into the fridge in silence. We part in the dining room and head to our separate sides of the house to change into pajamas. I’m wired enough to know that it will be a couch night for the next several hours, but I fear that she’s going to retreat into her own headspace. It’s not my place to intrude or ask, no matter how much we’ve been sort of getting along lately. I’m antsy as I brush my teeth, but all of those little bugs in my head fall to the floor when I nearly run her over in the hallway. In my hallway. Like she was coming to see me.
“Woah there, boss. Take it easy.”
It’s meant to be a joke, but just the sight of her, red tinted cheeks and mountains of anxiety building in her eyes, forces it out breathlessly. I steady her with both hands on her shoulders, and she immediately loosens beneath my touch. I can’t handle that .
“Hey, you okay?”
She sighs, eyes fluttering closed, and I squeeze her there, holding her steady until she’s ready to talk.
“I just have a lot on my mind.”
She shakes her head, and I can see the exhaustion labeling the bags beneath her eyes. Tilting my head toward my bedroom door behind me, I lift the corner of my mouth. She follows, almost like she can’t help it, and I have to beat up my stupid heart for its excited little fist pump.
We settle on my bed, and I am instantly washed in memories of the last time we were here. Weeks ago, her skin against mine, her cries of my name painting the walls in a brand new color. But even more, it’s the coconut scent of her hair on my pillow that’s clinging on for dear life, and the shape of her head on my chest that I’ve been trying desperately to keep there.
Lying beside one another, on top of the covers, she looks at ease. Her index finger starts drawing aimless little patterns in the duvet. I wait patiently, something I’ve just come to realize is a staple with Penelope Barker in my life.
“You were kind of quiet tonight,” I finally say, piercing the silence. “Kind of freaked me out.”
Her smile ticks up lazily, but her eyes stay trained on the bedspread.
“What, Penelope isn’t herself if she isn’t loud and starting a riot?”
“I don’t know. I think that’s all kind of an act.” At this she tenses, like I’ve spoiled one of her secrets. “But, when she’s comfortable around people, she does tend to be more open. Was it me?”
I ask that last question in a whisper, my own fears finally coming to light. She blinks up at me, brows knit to the center.
“It wasn’t the comment about the Elvis squirrel, was it?”
“No. No, it wasn’t you, Ant. Or the squirrel.” Her cheeks flush, and I swear that there’s tamped down heat in her eyes when she looks up at me. Her gaze flutters back down as she continues, “I’m not sure if I’m ready to give Elvis squirrel another show. Not just yet. But that doesn’t mean it’s off the table entirely. I want to make sure I’m taking care of my heart first.”
I nod. This thing with Pen isn’t about sex. It’s about the way our hearts seem to sync whenever we’re near, and about my inherent need for that to happen as often as possible. But before I can tell her as much, she slams into me with an earth-shattering puzzler.
“Have you ever thought about… changing your career?”
Damn, does she have me pegged. My heart stutter-steps before righting its beat. But right now isn’t about me , it’s about her .
“Are you thinking of quitting teaching?”
She hesitates before shrugging, but once she does, the floodgates start to crack open.
“I… I don’t know if I love it anymore. It’s something I once saw stability in, but now, it’s just something that drains the life out of me. My books are doing well enough that I could take a chance on writing as my sole career, but I’m scared.”
I hear everything she’s not saying in that hesitation. She’s afraid to take a chance on herself.
“I think you should do it.”
Her eyes widen, hope trying to swim to the surface of the hesitant tides of blue.
“Take a chance on you for once, Pen. You’re clearly amazing at what you do, even if I am a little biased.”
“You’ve never even read one of my books,” she laughs, raising a brow in challenge.
“Okay, but millions of people have , and they’re demanding more of you. What does that tell you?”
She won’t say it. She won’t give herself the credit where credit is due. So I do it for her. sliding a hand beneath her wandering one, I lace our fingers together and squeeze, feeling the hammering of her pulse where our palms are joined.
“You deserve to be happy, Penelope. If teaching doesn’t make you happy anymore, that’s okay. If the money is what’s holding you back, look at how much success your books bring you. You can do it. It’s okay to be scared, but I don’t think it’s okay to let that fear hold you back anymore. Don’t hurt yourself because of a what-if. Take a chance on you . You’re worth it.”
She blinks. Furiously. Like she’s doing her best to hold back tears that are fighting their way forward. She squeezes my hand, nods three times, and tugs until our bodies are able to loosely tangle. Penelope falls asleep within minutes, like those words were her permission. It doesn’t take me long to follow, despite my earlier assumption that I would have one of my sleepless nights.
Of course, that peace was just determined to be interrupted. By my alarm? No, not this time.
I wake at the crack of dawn to incessant pounding on my window.
“The fuck ?” I groan, pushing out of bed. I don’t even get to enjoy the fact that, for a second, Pen was wrapped around me with her knee pushed between my legs and her wild red hair draped over my chest. No. Because something is attacking my window.
I pick up the baseball bat beneath my bed that I keep there for such purposes, blink the sleep crust from my eyes, and try to orient where the noise is coming from.
“Ant, what the fuck ? Why do you have a bat ?”
“Because we’re being attacked . Stay in bed.”
I level the bat over my shoulder and, at the next resounding thud, I follow the sound upwards.
This house has several Palladian windows above the basic one, a design choice that I incorporated into my own place for the aesthetic. But do you know what those pesky crescent fuckers don’t have? Blinds. My mother never thought it necessary. And, apparently, that creates a glare in this bedroom. One that has birds dive bombing the glass at the sight of their own reflection.
My morning cuddle sesh was interrupted by two birds and their reflections.
I groan. Out loud. Like a damn cave man.
Stomping outside in my basketball shorts at the end of November wakes me immediately. It only takes one screech and a threatening wave of my bat for them to realize that, no, they are not actually fist fighting other birds. They fly off, chirping none the wiser. And of course, by the time I get back inside, Penelope is already out of my bed, and out of my room. My heart pouts. It might even whine a little.
“Are they gone?” she asks, adding creamer to an empty coffee mug while the Keurig brews.
“For now. I’m going to have to look into shades or something.”
“Get them for my window, too. I don’t need to spend all of break waking up at the crack of dawn.”
She’s not wrong. One glance at the clock, and two teachers have officially started their first day of Thanksgiving break before seven-a.m.
Bending over the kitchen table, I put both hands in my head and groan. Penelope chuckles. I hear the telltale sounds of her shuffling through the kitchen, and lift my eyes when two back to back thuds land beside my head. There’s a mug atop a coaster.
“God bless you,” I moan, then swig down half of it, not even caring that it scalds my throat. “There was no way I was getting back to sleep.”
“Me neither. Remind me never to get those stupid little moon windows put up in my own house.”
I shift so that I’m actually sitting at the table and take her in. Hair slightly mussed from sleep, rumply pajamas, lips pursed around the lip of her mug, with a sleepy conspiratorial look in her eyes.
I would give up my legs to see this every morning.
“Now that you’re up, what ever are you going to do with all of your extra time today?”
“Probably hit the gym early. Might swing by the house and get a few things done.”
“What’s next on the list?”
“Uh… I have a few things to patch up before starting on the second story drywall. Hopefully that’ll be finished by the end of this week. You might not see a lot of me during break.”
“That’s alright. I think I’m going to literally lock myself in the cave with my computer and try to hammer this thing out by the end of the month.”
“When’s your deadline?”
“Christmas, technically. But I’m already so far over the initial deadline that I feel bad. My wrist set me back, and since I’m out of the brace, I need to pick up some of the slack. And besides, I think I know where the story is headed now. I just need to focus.”
“Okay. I can take a hint. I’ll get out of your hair.”
I stand, one hand in the air in surrender, the other on my coffee mug that I down before taking it to the dishwasher.
“You heading to your mom’s for Thanksgiving?” I ask as I start to make my pre-workout concoction.
“Uh… No. Actually, we uh… I don’t know, I just…” When I look up, she’s shaking her head with her eyes closed. Then, she nods, almost to herself. “No. I’m not seeing my mom. She’s busy, and I’ll probably be working straight through this week to?—”
“There’s no way in hell you’re spending Thanksgiving alone.”
She raises that challenging brow slowly.
“Oh?”
I step toward her, crowding her space.
“No. Because Deborah Ellis will be absolutely outraged if I show up on her front porch knowing that I left you alone in her AirBNB.”
She smirks. Up this close, and without any makeup on this early in the morning, I can see her freckles scrunch. Fucking adorable.
“Are you sure she wouldn’t be pleased that I’m finally getting a break from her son?”
I slap my chest and gasp in feigned outrage. She smiles, one of those slowly unfurling grins that I want to capture like a rising sun.
“At least think about it?” I call after her as she heads straight past me toward her office.
“We’ll see.”
I shake my head, running one hand through my unkempt hair before running through my mental checklist for the day.
I do not tell her that the patch work I plan on doing on the house now includes un-installing the Palladium windows in my own place.
Nope. No way she needs to know.