Chapter fifteen Penn
Chapter fifteen
Penn
“Please tell me my lunch is ready,” I say as I walk into Catch & Release, wiping the dirt from my face with my forearm. It’s Thursday, and once I’m done with lunch I’ll only have a few more hours until I’m free for my weekend with Astrid.
Dallas grabs a burger from under the heat lamps and sits it in front of my usual stool at the bar. “Just finished up.” He assesses me with his eyes. “You need a shower.”
“Yeah, I know. The grout gets fucking everywhere, but I’m finally done with the tiles in both of the showers on my rental.”
“Making progress then?” Dallas asks, leaning up against the bar. It’s just him and me right now, but Grady and Parker will be here any minute.
“Slow progress, but I guess that’s better than nothing.” I pick up my burger and take the biggest bite I can muster, needing food before my stomach eats itself.
“So quit working for me then. Give me your two weeks’ notice right now.”
“I’m not ready,” I mumble around my food.
“Does that have to do with Dad?” he asks, catching me off guard but striking a chord nonetheless.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He sighs and brushes a hand through his hair.
“I know you and I had a different relationship with Dad, but I envied how you were always with him—helping around the Veteran’s Center, checking on families of Marines that were on deployment, and fixing up things around the house.
He taught you to fix what’s broken and help out your neighbors, and it’s noble, Penn.
Really fucking noble, and makes me proud to call you my brother.
But, I also feel like he projected this sense of obligation on you where you feel like you can’t say no now.
” Shrugging, he moves to the soda fountain and fills up a glass of Coke for me and slides it across the bar.
“I guess I’m just trying to tell you that it’s okay to be selfish, Penn.
I mean hell, you did that with Astrid, right? ”
“Yeah, but look at how long that fucking took,” I huff out.
“But you got what you wanted, right?”
“Almost.”
“Is that why you two are going away this weekend?” I stare at him, wondering how he knows that, but he answers for me. “Astrid told Willow.”
I nod in understanding. “Yeah, I just hope we can get on the same page.”
“You will. I believe in that. I’ve watched the two of you dance around each other for years, and if you don’t, then all of this would have been for nothing,” he says. “Make her see that she’s the one you can’t live without.”
“There you go with the relationship advice again.”
A pleased grin stretches across his lips. “I’m getting pretty wise since Willow came into my life.”
“Thank God because I was wondering if you were adopted there for a while.”
He tosses a dry dish towel at me just as Parker and Grady walk in through the front doors of the restaurant. “Is it Friday, yet?” Grady grumbles as he takes his stool next to me and Parker sits on the other side of him.
“I echo that sentiment,” I mumble around another bite of my burger, although I can’t tell Grady why I’m chomping at the bit for the weekend to be here. Wanting to defile his sister all over the cabin I rented is not something he needs to know.
“I hate Christmastime,” Parker says, popping a fry into his mouth.
“Isn’t it supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year?” Dallas asks sarcastically.
“Sure, but people are also irresponsible pet owners during the holidays. Do you know how many emergency surgeries we have to perform because dogs and cats ingest decorations?” Parker shakes his head. “I had a dog come in today that has a strand of garland coming out of its ass. The poor guy.”
“Did you save him?” Grady asks.
“Yeah, but it will take some time for him to fully recover.” He picks up his tuna melt and takes a huge bite out of it. “I need a fucking vacation.”
“Same,” Grady echoes.
“You’re preaching to the choir,” I say, finishing off my burger.
“You are taking the weekend off, aren’t you?” Dallas asks as I flick my eyes to him and flash him a glare of epic proportions.
“You? Taking a break?” Parker snaps his fingers. “It’s because of the comment about the bags under your eyes Hazel made at Thanksgiving, isn’t it?”
“Fuck you,” I spit back. “And no. I just…want some time away.”
“Then good for you. I have the week off between Christmas and New Year’s, and I can’t fucking wait,” Parker adds.
“So where are you headed?” Grady asks, turning his attention to me.
I don’t want to come up with some elaborate lie that I’ll have to remember later, but until Astrid and I discuss when and how to tell him, I’m going to be as vague as possible. “Up to the mountains.”
“Damn, that’s far.”
“I know, but I just want to get out of Carrington Cove for a bit. I’ve been working too fucking hard, and if I stay in town, I’m just going to be tempted to work on something instead of relaxing.
“Makes sense. Maybe we need to plan a guys’ weekend sometime soon then? Just a bunch of boys in the woods, drinking beer, going fishing…” Grady suggests.
“Fuck, I’m down,” Dallas says. “I’d have to run it by Willow first, of course.”
Parker laughs. “You’re not even married and you’re already whipped?”
Dallas arches a brow at him. “Are you telling me that if you’d married Sasha, you wouldn’t put her before everything else?”
I tense up at the mention of Parker’s ex-fiancé, wary of his reaction. “I’ve asked you not to bring her up,” Parker says through clenched teeth.
“Well, if you’re going to pass judgment on my relationship with Willow, then Sasha is fair game.”
Grady looks back and forth between the two of them. “Uh, did I miss something? Parker was engaged?” he asks.
“Unfortunately,” Parker says swiftly. “And we’re not talking about it anymore. Got it?”
“Okay then,” Grady draws out. Silence descends on us, but Grady offers up a distraction. “Penn got hit in the face with a dildo this weekend,” he says. Parker starts choking on his food, Dallas throws his head back in laughter, and I shove Grady off his stool.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What? I needed to lighten the mood,” Grady replies.
“And that’s what you went with?”
Dallas has tears streaming down his face. “I’m just mad that Grady beat me to the punch.”
“How the fuck does everyone know about that?” I ask, fucking pissed that I have to relive this embarrassment again.
Grady clears his throat. “Dude, did you forget that half the women in town were at that party?”
“The best part is, it was Hazel that threw it at him,” Dallas manages to say through his laughter, and the other two morons lose their shit.
Standing from my stool, I head for the door. “You know what? That’s fine. Everyone have a good laugh at my expense, but I’ve got work to do so I can fucking enjoy myself this weekend.”
Dallas calls out to me as I get closer to the door. “Hope you have a good fucking time,” he says, hinting at my true intentions this weekend.
And with that, I flip him off and exit the restaurant, eager to complete what I need to so I can relax this weekend. But Dallas’s comment about our dad eats at me all night.
So that’s when I decide that before I pick up Astrid tomorrow, I’m going to put in my two weeks’ notice with him and Mrs. Hansen at the hardware store.
I can’t keep living my life for someone else. I have to make the changes I set out to when I took on this venture and when I pursued Astrid. I need to full commit.
Let’s just hope that all these changes I’m making don’t come back to bite me in the ass.
***
“Well, that was kind of stressful,” Astrid says from the passenger seat of my truck as we head toward the highway that will take us to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the western part of the state.
“You mean sneaking out of your house before the sun rises?”
“Yeah. I made sure to kiss the kids goodbye last night and they knew my mom would be there in the morning when they woke, but I mean look at me.” She gestures to her body. “I even wore all black so I’d blend in.”
“You act like you were robbing a bank,” I say, holding in my laugh.
“I just didn’t want to get delayed by the kids.
” She bounces in her seat. “Honestly, this whole thing kind of reminds me of Monica and Chandler in Friends when they were sneaking around so no one would find out about them. It’s kind of fun, right?
” she asks with a lilt in her voice. But the secrecy is less than fun for me.
Gripping the steering wheel harder, I clench my teeth. “No, Astrid. I don’t think hiding how I feel about you is fun. It’s stressful and it limits our time together.”
She sighs and I can tell my response made her excitement fizzle. “I know.” Fiddling with her hands, she twists them in her lap. “It’s not fair to you, Penn. But…”
I hold a hand up to stop her. Now is not the time to have this conversation. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? Not now.” I grab her hand and bring it to my mouth, kissing the back of it, and then sucking her index finger between my lips.
A small moan leaves her lips. “Okay.”
“Now, open up that bag beneath your seat,” I say, directing her attention to the paper bag full of our breakfast and road snacks.
I got up even earlier than I normally do so I could make breakfast burritos and pack snacks for our trip.
I didn’t want to stop since we have a five-and-a-half-hour trip ahead of us.
Every moment that we get alone together is going to be spent wisely, and once we arrive, I have other activities planned for us to do—mostly of the naked variety.
“You made all this?” Astrid pulls out the burritos wrapped in foil, single serving orange juice bottles, and then peeks through the rest of the snacks in pre-portioned bags.
“I did.”
She sits there, stunned. “Wow.”
“What?”
“I mean, you took the initiative to plan this trip, pack food for us…” Sighing, she says, “Those are things that I usually have to worry about.”