55. Anthony
fifty-five
anthony
“We really don’t have to drive in together,” I say, contrary to every single neuron in my body that started buzzing the second Penelope put her three different bags, lunch box, and two water bottles into my truck to drive to school the Monday after the wedding. The domesticity of it all has my skin hot.
Pen turns around at the open door to my truck, head tilted in cheeky defiance as her arms find my waist.
“What if I want to?”
She tugs me close, and I remember to breathe.
“Then who am I to deny you?”
I plant a gentle kiss to her lips, and that settles the bees in my brain to a quietness I’m learning to expect when she’s around. But the moment she reaches across the center console to hold my hand? You’d think someone just whacked the hive with a two by four.
“Do I at least get a little preview of what this big after school emergency meeting is about, now that I’m sleeping with the assistant principal?” she asks, running her thumb over the back of my hand.
I lift her hand to my smirk and kiss her knuckles. I haven’t told her this yet. We’ve been a little preoccupied with jumping over all of our mountains—and then jumping each other’s bones all over the new house all weekend. Anytime we did speak, it was a mixture of sweet nothings and Uber Eats orders. As that thought hits me when we pull into the school parking lot, I turn and take her hands in mine.
“Uh oh. He’s got his serious face on.”
“I don’t want to just be the assistant principal that you’re sleeping with, Pen.”
Her eyes widen and soften, and I see her swallow a golf ball.
“Oh. Yeah, me neither. You’re umm… You’re mine now, Anthony. I don’t want to go back to a time that you weren’t.”
“Damn. You stole my line,” I chuckle, my smile beaming at the way that things can be so easy after deciding to read from the same page.
She exhales, and I cup the back of her neck to pull her to me. I don’t give two shits that we’re in the parking lot at school. I kiss her. I’m not technically the AP yet .
“So… What’s the big secret?” she asks when we pull away.
It’s my turn to blush.
“I uh… They’re recommending me for assistant principal, effective immediately. And they’ll also be implementing the behavior plan district wide starting next year, so I’ll be coordinating that, too,” I squeak out, scratching the back of my neck.
“Anthony!” she squeals. Her arms around my neck are my new safe space. But she pulls away to tell me, “Yes! I am so proud of you!” and those words become my safe place to land.
They get me through the chaos of the day—meeting with students, recommending mentors, going over the sports schedules to give both schools ample practice facility time. When the entire doubled staff meets in the library, I do get a little jittery. I check my watch several times, waiting for the clock to strike three-thirty. Penelope is standing with our crew and offers me a smile and a thumbs up, mouthing You’ve got this! I give her a tight smile in return, then head to where my laptop is plugged into the Smart TV to go over my slides one more time when I hear it.
It’s faint, but her name carries over the crowd, sticking out like a beacon.
“…sounds like Penelope Barker has been writing dirty books on the side. I can’t believe they still let her teach.”
My head snaps in the direction of the lewd gossip, finding Amanda White at the center. She has her phone out, and is no doubt showing an article or photos or something to the group of Meadow Ridge teachers who all show the same distaste to her news.
I know I should stay out of it. She shoots her gaze one circle over to where Pen stands, and I grind my teeth.
“If I were administration, I certainly wouldn’t let one of my staff write smut on the side,” she tosses, projecting her voice so that Penelope and her circle can hear. “What kind of people do we have teaching our kids? ”
And that’s where she fucks up.
They all turn. Aaron and Sam with furrowed brows, Lucy and Juliet with claws out. Penelope clocks it all, and raises her chin.
“If you have something to say, you can say it to my face,” she says, taking a step closer to Amanda, who lifts her nose in disdain.
“Says the woman who hides behind a pen name so her employer doesn’t find out her dirty little secret?” she retorts, running her tongue over her teeth.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I like to keep my two lives private.”
“When it affects my students, I think it is my business.”
“Explain to me how any of the kids are affected by Pen’s writing?” Sam shoots.
“No one even knew about it until a few weeks ago,” Aaron says, crossing his arms.
“And when it does get out that one of our district’s teachers publishes trash romance?” Amanda starts, but is cut off by Juliet.
“Their opinions aren’t going to matter, because she does her job well above the standard. Unlike someone who refuses to implement district behavior plans, and has given next to no effort on co-teaching this year.”
“And I’d rethink that word ‘trash,’” Lucy chimes in. “Pen is on several bestseller lists, and is about to sign a new publishing contract.”
The folded arms and the daggers in the eyes of our tribe could murder.
Amanda scoffs, her reply coming in the flapping over opening and closing lips, when Nathan enters.
“What are we discussing? Penelope’s books? Congratulations on the newest. I look forward to reading it. My Claire has given it nothing but high praise.”
“You’re okay with this?!” Amanda gapes.
He nods. “She writes on her own time, and the last time I checked, romance books aren’t illegal. The last I heard, several teachers in your building bartend on the weekend. I don’t refute their opportunities to make extra money either.”
In a completely un-Nathan-like gesture, he pats Pen on the shoulder, then joins me at the helm. Amanda scowls and moves to the back of the room, and as Nate calls the meeting to order, Penelope gives thanks to her circle of people. Nate looks to me and levels me with his gaze.
“Are you ready for this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Before he can begin, I seek her out in the crowd. She looks confident. Bold. And where I once saw fire in her eyes, I now see wheels turning. Still, she smiles at me, her nod all the encouragement I need. Even still, as Nate opens his mouth to let the cat out of the bag, the bees start roaming my veins like Indy 500 drivers.
“This meeting has two purposes. Firstly, I would like to congratulate Anthony Ellis, who will be taking over as the assistant principal at River Valley this year into next, when I take over full-time as your principal.”
The bees are vibrating with nerves, until I hear the applause. The cheering. The congratulations. If there are grumbling faces out there, I don’t see them. For once in my life, I let the positive lift me, outweighing the negative that I know comes with everyday life. The same happens when Nathan announces that we’re looking for people to join our permanent behavior committee. As I show my presentation about how streamlined we have made it, I see a lot of nodding, and hear positive chatter throughout the library. I’ve learned that there are always going to be people who don’t accept change. The only thing I can do is keep moving forward.
Pen comes up to me afterward, her hand gently squeezing my bicep as I’m fielding a few stray congratulatory handshakes.
“Hey. This is cause for celebration. Can the gang come over tonight?”
I beam down at her and nod, which she returns before bounding back over to the group.
Two hours later, we’re all seated around the giant kitchen table. I built it intending it for a big family, and that’s exactly what I have here.
“Okay people, champagne all around! We have a lot to celebrate,” Penelope says, dishing out the plastic glasses she snagged at the store on the way home.
“Nathan and Anthony’s new jobs…” she starts.
“Your new book! ” Lucy adds.
“Mr. and Mrs. Russo making it a full school day without running home,” Juliet winks.
“Full disclosure, we left during lunch,” Aaron nods.
“ Guys ,” I gasp. “I am your boss now.”
“So am I,” Nathan says, shaking his head with a look of anguish as he tugs at his collar.
“Baby, we have literally hooked up in your office before,” Claire says, laying her left hand over his chest. Pen and I clock it at the same time.
“Excuse me?”
“Ex cuse me?”
“What the fuck?! ”
“ Ahhhhhh !”
It’s hard to pin down who says what when—aside from the ear-piercing shriek; that’s all Aaron—but the absolute rock on Claire’s hand is a surprise to us all. They look down at each other, blush, then turn back to us.
“We didn’t want to overshadow your wedding,” Nathan begins.
“He proposed over Christmas. We stayed in New York a few extra days.”
The girls get up to hug Claire and squeal and look at the ring. The guys fist bump Nathan. Once everyone settles back down, Penelope slides in beside me and lifts her glass of champagne.
“Updated Toast: Anthony and Nathan’s promotions, my book, Russos getting freaky on their lunch break, Claire and Nathan are planning a wedding. Am I missing anything?”
Sam and Juliet, the only people not on the docket, smile at one another before she slides her champagne glass in front of her husband.
“I might need the non-alcoholic version, if you’ve got anything sparkling.”
Another round of fits erupts. I don’t think I could cram anymore excitement and love into this room if I tried. After settling down a second time, we lift our glass. Pen reiterates what we have to be grateful for, and before anyone can clink, I slide my arm around her shoulder, look down at her, and say, “ And , to Pen and I, for finally pulling our heads out of our asses so we can start our own chapter of a happily ever after.”
Her eyes are shining. With gratitude, hope, love. The kaleidoscope swirls in soft circles that lull me into the security she has been asking for this whole time, something I didn’t realize I needed too.
We drink way too much champagne for a weeknight. By the time everyone heads home, leaving Pen and I to clean up the kitchen, I’m still buzzing with the excitement of the day that ended with us hosting our friends in this big house.
“Did you see Juliet’s claws come out earlier at Amanda?” she asks as we collect the last of the plates, chucking them into the trash.
“I think my balls cinched up into me,” I chuckle, shaking my head. “Never come for a lady’s man.”
“How am I supposed to protect you when I’m gone then?” she asks, resting her hand on my chest with a sly tilt of her head. I close my hand over top of hers.
“Be here for me at the end of the day.”
She nods, presses up to kiss me, and helps me with the rest of the kitchen.
We end the night cuddled in the corner of the giant L-shaped couch, my legs extended out with her head resting on my shoulder, laying perpendicular. A hockey game drones on before us, but we’re too sapped from the day to really be paying attention. With the late night hour on the clock, I blink, swallowing the ball of nerves in my throat.
“It’s uh… getting kind of late,” I rasp.
She tilts her head against my shoulder to look at me.
“You kicking me out, Ellis?”
“No,” I say adamantly, if not a little raw. “I just want to make sure you’re okay staying here. I don’t want to force you into it, if it’s not what you want right away. But I do want you here. More than I can put into words.”
The bees in my brain compete for the turning cogs in her head as she thinks it over. She doesn’t respond with words, though. Instead, she pushes up from the couch, heading to the mudroom where she’s already taken over one of the cubbies. I hear her rifle around before her bare feet cross the hardwood of the kitchen and return her safely to me.
She has a book clutched to her chest like a security blanket. I can make out the title as the one of her most recent story—our story. But something about this cover is different.
“I love you, Anthony,” she says, raspy and exasperated, but with promise in her eyes. “I think the first time I knew was on that beach, staring up at the stars. But I knew for sure when you saw my pieces on the ground and offered to pick them up for me. I just need you to know how much. You asked me once what would happen if you couldn’t measure up to Finn, and the truth is that I don’t want you to. He is a work of fiction. You are my reality.”
She slides the book into my hands before I can even say it back. The cover is a photo of the beach back in Florida. Beside the original title is something new.
Hills and Valleys: Ant and Penelope’s Version
“It’s the same until page one-fifty. When they?—”
“When they move in together. I know,” I say around the rust.
“We’re not an ending, Ant. We just put a bookmark in the chapter until we were ready to read it together again. That’s the beauty of our story—it’s real .”
What I find inside the pages aren’t Finn and Delilah. No, this is Ant and Penelope, right down to the names of the characters.
“I love you with or without this, Pen,” I rasp, holding the book in one hand and her in the other. “I love you with everything that brought us here, and with everything we get to build moving forward.”
I grasp her chin and pull her in for a kiss that seals those words into forever.
And then, I spend the rest of the night reading.
Our story.
And all of the feelings she had for me along the way.
Right down to the poem she wrote on the flight back from Florida.
One locked gate
was the barricade
between staying on the safe side
and taking the risk for once.
How fitting that I stumbled at first.
How bittersweet that
you were there
on the other side
to catch me.
We laid beneath
constellations,
marveling at the way that
they seemed to move
while we stayed put,
naming the ones
we thought we knew.
I never understood
in all of the books I’ve read,
and in all of the ones I’ve penned,
how a girl could be so charmed by a smile ? —
until yours snuck up on me
as the brightest array of stars invading my space
despite the endless night above us,
telling me it was okay to jump the fence.