Chapter 16 A Coldplay Kind of Night
A Coldplay Kind of Night
When we get home, the house is dark. I feel my way to the console table along the wall and flip on a lamp.
Penn closes the front door behind us, and the click of the lock echoes through the entryway.
His shallow exhales puncture the lingering silence, as irregular as my stuttering heartbeat when I turn and face him.
It’s hard to know what comes next. Hard because I don’t want the night to end, and both of our bedrooms sit just up the stairs, and Penn Hayes, who’s never, ever short on words, has seemingly lost the ability to speak.
Not that he needs to say anything. Even in the dim light, I can make out his heavy, focused look, and I know what he wants. He’s making me take the lead, though, unsure if I want it, too.
I wish I didn’t, but I do.
Racked with nerves, I buy myself some time by leaning on an old trick: messing with Penn. I set down my purse, kick off my boots, then slide off my coat, taking a truly obnoxious amount of care to fold it neatly over my arm.
“Well,” I say, with an air of finality. “Thank you so much for the ride home. I must say, you were a bit more handsy than other drivers, but your music didn’t suck, so I’ll make sure to tip.” I try not to crack a smile before I turn toward the staircase.
Penn lets out a breathy laugh and wraps a hand around my wrist, pulling me into him. My coat falls to the floor as he looks down at me, affection etched into the lines beside his eyes. “You’ll never stop messing with me,” he whispers. “Will you?”
“Never.”
He smirks. “Good.”
We stand there, teetering on the edge of something. Slowly, Penn skates his hands up my arms, leaving behind a trail of goose bumps. His gaze falls to my shoulder, where he slips a finger beneath the silky strap of my shirt and gently sweeps it aside.
Need knots inside me. With Penn’s hands on me, my internal safety mechanism has shut down. All bets are off.
He brushes his thumb across my collarbone, and every soft stroke plucks at the final shreds of my self-control until one thin, tensed thread breaks after another. Until I don’t trust myself any longer.
“Penn.” I exhale his name. “We can’t go upstairs.”
He kisses my shoulder and whispers into my skin. “Okay.”
“I mean, I want to,” I admit. “But…”
Penn straightens. “But…”
I take his face in my hands. “There would be no coming back from it. From any of this,” I warn. “Do you get that?”
The edge of his mouth ticks in amusement. “Back from what? What exactly are we doing?”
I can’t look away from his lips, parted and perfect. I want that stupid mouth on mine. I want to kiss that smug smirk right off him.
So, I do.
My fingers twist into Penn’s hair as I pull him closer, and he kisses me back with his whole body. His hands wander up my waist, cradle my face, then drift down the column of my neck. The kiss is deep and deliberate, and when I lick at his lower lip, a sound catches in his throat.
He pulls back, eyes darting to mine. “Maybe we don’t have to come back from this,” he rasps. “Maybe we can just…stay in it.”
My chest rises and falls, my whole body thrumming with the kind of heat that needs a release.
Problem is, we can’t stay in this.
This isn’t real life, and if I ever make it back to reality, I’ll have to look Real Penn in the eye at Christmas, at every birthday, and in dark bars, desperate for him to stare at me like he is now, all lust and longing.
I’ll have to pretend I’m totally fine when Real Penn is wildly unaware of what’s happened here, and who we could be to each other, if only we’d let ourselves.
His thumb grazes the hinge of my jaw. “Ruby,” he says softly. “I’m trying to read you, but…” He swallows hard. “Do you need this to slow down, or stop, or…”
No. Certainty drops like a stone into my gut. This could be our only chance. I have to know.
“Keep going,” I whisper. “Please.”
Penn’s mouth curves into a wry grin. “Okay, then. Since you asked so nicely.”
He inches forward, edging me back to the console table before he picks me up and sets me on top of it. One after the other, he takes my arms and wraps them around his neck. My hands dangle over his broad shoulders as he shifts closer, eyes dark and glinting.
“If we can’t go upstairs, then we can stay right here.” He hitches my leg around him and smirks. “Does that solve the problem?”
“You’ve always loved a shortcut.”
“Oh, don’t get the wrong idea,” he says. “I’m not taking any shortcuts tonight. I told you. You get as much of me as you want.”
“What if I want it all?”
Penn’s eyes flash with naked surprise. He kisses me again, more urgently, and I melt into him until he pulls back suddenly. “Are you going to make me retreat to your make-out lair again?”
I give him a look, my hand fisted in his shirt. “It’s the beanbag lair. And no.” I bend forward to get back to kissing him, but he stops me.
“Are you sure? We could press pause on all of this and queue up some Hilary Duff to set the mood again. Or is this more of a Coldplay kind of night?”
“Coldplay?!”
“Listen, I don’t know what you’re into.”
I swat at him, laughing, then press my palm to his chest, where his heartbeat races through his thin sweater. I toy with the neckline. “Actually, someone recently told me that I don’t have to try so hard. So maybe we’ll just…find out what happens, together?”
I have no clue what I’m doing, but I know I want Penn, and I trust him. I know he’ll take good care of me.
“No plan.” Penn’s lips curve into an almost-grin. “My favorite kind.”
We stagger upstairs and into my bedroom, all tangled limbs and short breaths while we kiss our way to the bed. He shifts on top of me, and we move together with a steady rhythm I already crave low in my belly.
I press him into the mattress, and he lies back, one arm tucked behind his head. His hooded eyes watch as I skim my hands down his chest, across his stomach, lower. He bites his bottom lip, his eyes slanting to mine as I reach the hem of his shirt. His breath catches.
I’ve seen Penn in so many ways—in almost every way. But not like this. His curly hair is rumpled, his composure long gone as he stares up at me, pupils blown wide open.
He sits up and kisses me again, slowly sliding his hands beneath my silk shirt. After he pulls it off, he stops, swallowing at the sight of my pink lace bra. I stare back, mesmerized by his expression.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I whisper.
Penn grins. “I can’t believe we’ve waited this long.”
Frantically, sloppily, we continue to undress each other, laughing when Penn’s T-shirt and sweater get stuck on his head. Again, after his pants come off and he struggles with the button on mine. “You never make it easy for me,” he says. “Do you?”
“Do you want me to?” I ask, lifting my hips for him.
“No,” he rasps, his eyes raking over me. “I really don’t.” He tilts down to kiss me again, then whispers, “Relax, okay? Let me do this.”
I remember what he told me—how he needs to feel needed. “Okay,” I breathe.
When he finally manages to unbutton my pants, his hands slowly work the fabric down my legs, and his gaze follows. “God, Ruby,” he says thickly. “You’re…”
He doesn’t finish his thought, quickly tossing the pants aside.
I gasp. “I thought I was the impatient one.”
Penn smirks. “Oh, I’ve been patient, Wynne. Trust me. I have waited a long, long time for this.”
—
Moonlight spills in from the tall windows, casting shadows across Penn’s face as he rests his head on the pillow beside me.
He pushes my hair from my forehead, tracing his fingers along my cheekbone.
I’ve never been adored like this. Savored like this.
It needles at something in my chest, poking at the softest parts of me.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, and I can’t handle the earnestness in his voice.
“Is it my turn to hear a list of compliments?” I’m joking, hoping to lighten the intimate mood and lessen the ache in my chest, but Penn takes me up on it.
“You’re so smart, it’s annoying,” he says. “Funny, too.”
I laugh. “Wow. You’re admitting it? Are you sure? Remember: no take-backs.”
His dimple appears. I press my thumb into it as his expression turns serious again. “You’re thoughtful,” he says quietly. “And fiercely loyal.” Each word is a low vibration I can feel in my chest. “And so…unapologetically yourself.”
My throat tightens. “I don’t know about that one.”
“I do.” A slow smile tugs at his lips. “I don’t think you know how to be anything but yourself. You’re pretty committed to the role.”
I struggle to swallow.
He’s wrong, I think, picturing the kaleidoscopic rooms in this house, and remembering the colorless apartment back in reality.
The neon lights in the diner, and the buttoned-up uniform I wear to the office each day.
MASH Ruby and me, we’re not the same. She’s committed to being her biggest, boldest self.
But I’ve put myself into a box, trying to feel safe.
I’ve grown smaller. More afraid.
Then again, I’ve always been myself with Penn. I’ve never had to be careful with him or pretend. And I’ve certainly stayed stubbornly true to my path back in reality, too. I have no doubt Real Penn would agree.
Maybe I’ve just been committing to the wrong path.
“What’s wrong?” Penn gives me a lazy, lopsided grin. “I have more compliments in mind, if that’s what you need.”
I shift closer. “We’ve been over this. I don’t need you. I want you. Just like this.”
“I’d tell you that I want you, too,” he says, a smile in his voice. “But I think I made that pretty damn clear.”
My laugh is soft and bright.
“You’re it for me, Ruby,” Penn whispers suddenly, and sparklers go off in my chest. Alarm bells, too.
He studies my face while I struggle to breathe.
“I mean it. If this is all you want from me, then I get it. I’m okay with that.
But I can’t pretend this doesn’t mean more to me, because it’s… ” He swallows back the thought.
There it is again: that caving-in of my sternum.
I look into the eyes I’ve turned to again and again to feel tethered here—to feel like myself—and realize this is what it feels like, real intimacy. A true knowing and trust in another person. Something I’m pretty sure I’ve never had.
Choked up, I bring a hand to Penn’s creased brow and touch the scar that’s still there. The memory that’s still ours, even here. He presses a kiss onto my wrist and my heartbeat quickens, forcing me to face who Penn has been to me all along.
He’s the one I track in crowds, whose stare I crave like a spotlight. Who gets a rise out of me with a single glance and the simplest touch. I know it now, and I can’t un-know it.
I wish I could say as much to Penn, but I can’t. Until I know the rules of the game, I can’t risk telling the truth of how I feel—or how deeply I feel it.
So I play it safe. I nod.
Penn nods back, his eyes welling up, and when he kisses me again, soft and slow and as delicate as I feel, I tell myself not to worry about the goodbye that might be ahead of us. Right now, while I can, I have to be here, with Penn.
My inevitable other half.