Chapter 28 No Take-Backs #2
Penn grabs his coat and shifts out of the group, pressing a hand to the small of my back to lead me away from the cloud of cologne. Outside, the frigid air is a welcome shock.
“You’re coming to Curly’s,” he says, slipping on a dark wool jacket he’s worn for years. I can see his breath. “Right?”
“Actually, Ryan’s got to leave. So he just called us a car.”
Penn’s face falls. “Oh. Right. Okay.” He sets his hands in his pockets, his shoulders shrugged up around his ears in the cold. “Did you have fun tonight?”
“It was perfect, Penn.”
His pleased grin wedges right under my rib cage. “Yeah. It was.”
He steps closer, just an inch, and his eyes flash with something familiar and intimate.
I study his face, a map I’ve memorized. I know every freckle, every mark on his skin, and I can picture him older, too, can see us together, laughing, every sidelong glance a conversation.
I’m overwhelmed, all too aware of my own breath, and his, and maybe that’s why I say it.
“You were right. I’ve thought about it.”
“About what?” Penn asks.
I shouldn’t do this right now. This is his night, and I’m just thrown off by the snow and the stars and his loaded stare. “Never mind.” I shake my head. “I—”
He cuts me off. “Nope. No take-backs, Wynne.”
His lip quirks, and it unhooks something inside me.
“Us,” I say simply, delighting in the way his eyes spark. “I’ve thought about us. You and me. A lot.”
His gaze flickers over me. “Pining?”
“Yes. Pining.”
For a moment, Penn just looks at me. His lips are parted, but he doesn’t say anything. I can’t tell if he’s going to kiss me or make a joke or ruffle my hair. I can’t tell if he’s even breathing.
I start to say something, anything, just to break the ice. But then the door swings open, and we both turn. Ryan pauses a few feet away, looking between us.
“Car’s here,” he says, pointing toward a pair of headlights down the block.
Penn faces me, his eyes mirroring all the hope and fear I’m feeling, decades of unspoken words and blurred timelines and a thousand tiny threads tugging between us.
“You go ahead,” I tell Ryan. But I’m still staring at Penn, and his expression shifts, the sun rising across his face, warm and bright.
When I look at my brother again, he’s smiling, too. “Okay. Yeah. Sure.” He clears his throat, then squeezes Penn’s shoulder, giving me one last nod as he finishes zipping his coat. “You two have fun, alright? And watch out for that tequila, Ru.”
He grins at me and leaves, and Penn runs a hand through his hair, his head dipping on a low laugh. He stares down at the sidewalk, last week’s snow now a gray slush at our feet. When he meets my eyes again, he wears a nervous, tilted grin. “I have something for you.”
I straighten, surprised. “Did Theo make a PennPals bucket hat for me, too? Really crossing my fingers for one.”
Penn reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a folded-up piece of paper. “Here.” He drops it into my palm before shoving his hands back into his coat.
I thumb the well-worn page, then arch him a teasing look. “You wrote me a note?”
“No. It’s a to-do list.”
“You know how I love a to-do list. What’s it for?”
“Senior year.”
“Of high school?” I laugh in disbelief. “And you held on to it?”
He shrugs. “I found it in that old business-idea notebook I was telling you about. It was in a shoebox at the back of my closet.”
Curious, I unfold the page, Penn’s horrific chicken scratch unmistakable. “Why are you giving this to me?” I ask, glancing up to search his eyes.
Snowflakes drift off the awning overhead, floating in the air between us.
“Because nothing’s changed, Ruby.”
My eyes trace his face for clues again before I start reading. There’s no date on the page, and very few words. Teenage Penn got right to the point.
TO DO:
Save money.
Chill with Ryan.
Read 30 20 books.
Host a rager.
Talk to Ruby.
Another laugh tumbles out of me. “A rager, huh?”
“I was eighteen. I had my priorities straight.”
Still grinning, I ask, “What did you have to tell me?”
“Oh, you know.” Penn lifts a shoulder. “Everything?”
His smile is soft. Mine won’t go away. We hold each other’s stares, and something tender and golden warms me from the inside out.
I take a deep breath, gathering my nerve.
“Penn,” I start. “We’ve been playing games with each other for a long time.
Sometimes that was easier for me than facing reality, because the reality is…
I’m in love with you.” His breath hitches, and I say it again.
It feels so good to say it. “I love you, Penn. For real. It terrifies me to admit that, but it’s much more terrifying to think of a world where I don’t at least try, because I don’t want to be so afraid anymore, or so careful.
I don’t want to be so scared of taking risks that I lose out on what really matters to me. Or who.”
Penn nods, his eyes crinkled at the sides, and I can tell he’s seeing it, too: me and him, playing like a movie in his mind. A three-second flash of every us we’ve ever been.
He takes my hands and swallows hard, his voice thick when he says, “You love me, huh? Like, capital-L love?”
“Eh.” I shrug. “I was thinking more like l-u-v.”
Penn laughs. He brings my hands to the back of his neck and grips my waist, tugging me closer. “Glad we cleared that up,” he says. His eyes dart between mine. “I should’ve told you how I feel about you forever ago. I just wasn’t ready.”
I knit my fingers in his hair, overwhelmed. “Neither was I.”
“I didn’t want you to be my warm-up,” he says. “You were always supposed to be my closer.”
I grin. “Is that a sports metaphor?”
“Maybe. Could be a music one, if you prefer.”
I’ve seen so many of Penn’s smiles, but this one is my favorite: up close, small but brilliant. An entire galaxy, just for me.
His hands move to my face, his thumbs sweeping across my cheekbones as he says, “I’m so in love with you, too, Ruby. Always have been.” He shrugs. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”
“Promise?” I whisper.
Penn smirks before he leans in and kisses me, our smiles pressed together. Sparklers go off in my chest, a kaleidoscopic whirl of color splashing across my mind while I stand here, in this moment, with Penn. Happy and imperfect and hopeful and afraid and as sure as I’ve ever been about anything.
When we pull apart, he rests his forehead against mine and asks, “Did you practice that speech?”
“Parts of it,” I admit. “But I didn’t account for the freezing temperatures. The weather was a real liability.”
“Yeah, well. So am I.”
“You are,” I agree. “But I’m willing to take a risk on you.”
He shifts back and cocks his head, grinning. “You sure about that?”
I nod, struggling to swallow, suddenly overcome. This is real. It’s us. Every version of him has known every version of me, and I can’t wait to meet whoever we become next.
He’s my other half, and maybe I always knew it.
Or maybe it was just a matter of time.