Chapter Twenty Six
SPENCER
On Friday evening, I picked up Penny at seven o'clock as promised.
"I can't believe that your grandparents are missing this event," Penny exclaimed once she got in the Uber. I decided booking a car service was easier than driving.
Grandmother declared that tonight was as good as any for Ben to sleep at their place. Agatha was there too, of course. I felt more at ease that my grandparents weren’t alone with him.
"I know they're happy for me and Gabe, anyway. They wanted to spend time with Ben, and if that's what’s important to them, I'm glad I can make them happy.”
“When are they bringing him back to the house?”
“Tomorrow morning. They wanted to keep him the entire day too, but Naomi is coming to visit.”
“Busy day,” she murmured.
“When are you and Taylor leaving?”
They were going away on a girl’s trip and coming back on Sunday evening.
“Whenever I wake up tomorrow. I feel like such a genius for already bringing my suitcase to her place.”
“You are.” Leaning closer, I whispered, “That way we can have a lazy and delicious morning in bed.”
She exhaled a sharp breath, laughing softly. “Spencer!”
I straightened up. “Anyway, tonight is going to be insane with so many Whitleys around you. I think my grandparents guessed you might be overwhelmed."
She laughed nervously. "What do you mean? You and Gabe will be the center of attention. No one will notice me."
I took her hand, kissing it. "I can promise you, nothing is further from the truth."
"Right. I can't wait to meet everyone."
"I can't wait for them to get to know you and then to take you back to the house," I whispered in her ear. "We finally have the place to ourselves. I can make you scream louder than ever before."
She gasped, glancing at the driver. I followed her gaze. He didn’t make any move that indicated he was listening.
“There is no way he could've overheard me.”
She shook her head just as the car stopped in front of Gabe’s bar. She got out first, and I followed.
After closing the door, she said, "You and your dirty mouth should come with a warning sign."
"You look like a wet dream. I can't help myself."
She was wearing a gold dress, and she had on sandals, or whatever they were called. They had straps. "Let's go inside," I said.
The place wasn’t crowded yet, but it was early. I’d asked some of my team members as well as Jenna, Juliet, and Diego to come. No one was here yet. Gabe had also invited most of his staff.
He'd shut off the distillery as well and was using parts of it for the party.
Cade, Jake, and Gabe were waiting with Natalie and Meredith by the entrance. I figured that meeting my brothers’ women would put Penny at ease.
“Penny, these are my brothers Cade, Jake, and Gabe.”
"And I'm Natalie," my older brother's fiancée said.
“And I'm Meredith. It's good to have another girl in our midst. We can be a trio. It evens the playing field against eight guys."
“So nice to meet all of you,” Penny said.
“Who else from the family is here?” I asked.
“Everyone. They’re at the bar.”
"I can't believe we're so late," Penny said.
"No, you're not," Jake explained. "Everybody was just excited and arrived early."
Gabe made his way to us. "The man of the hour, along with the star of the evening, of course."
"This place looks amazing, Gabe," Penny said.
"We can do a tour of the distillery later if you want to see it."
"Sure," Penny said, nodding. "I've never been to one." She was genuinely curious about what my brother did.
Colton joined us too. "Figures you'd be late to your own party," he said. "Penny, I'm Colton. We've heard so much about you."
Penny glanced at me nervously and then back at him. "You have?"
"Yeah. Oh, not just from him, but also from our grandmother. She likes you."
"Thanks, I like her too," Penny said. "Let me just make sure I’ve got this straight. You are Colton, Gabe, Jake, and Cade, right?"
"You've nailed it," Gabe said. "Our half brothers are somewhere around here too. We'll introduce you to them. Ah, there they are. Come in here so you can meet Spencer's woman."
Our half brothers came over, and Maddox winked at me. Nick looked like he was about to burst out laughing, and Leo was just smiling smugly.
"What?" I asked. "Spit it out."
"The first time we heard about Penny, we envisioned something like this happening," Leo said.
"What are you talking about?" Penny asked. I’d warned Gabe not to embarrass me, but I hadn't thought about these three.
Maddox shook hands with Penny. "I'm Maddox. And to answer your question, when we played tennis some time ago, we learned that you and our brother dearest had something going on. We were all wondering how long it would take until he'd introduce you to rest of us. You know he’s serious about you if he even introduces you to us three.”
Jake, Gabe, and Cade burst out laughing. Even Colton was amusing himself. I guess, in a way, he was right. My brothers always knew what was going on in my life, but when my half brothers got wind of it, then I meant business.
“Let’s go have some cocktails,” Nick suggested. “Gabe, the bartender is excellent.”
“Why are you surprised?”
Nick shrugged. “Sometimes bartenders just like to sing their own praises, but then they do the same old, same old. But this guy’s actually a novelty.”
We fell in step with Colton and Leo.
“You’re still staying at your friend’s house?” Leo asked.
“No, I moved out, back into my old condo. She returned from her business trip earlier than expected,” Penny said.
“Did you rent yours out while you were staying at her place? Sorry if I’m intrusive. I work in real estate. I’ve got a bad habit of questioning people about their homes.”
“I don’t mind,” Penny said. “I tried to when I first moved, but I only wanted to do Airbnb. I didn’t want anyone long-term. The problem with it is that it’s not in a pretty area, so I had zero bites.”
Leo frowned. “If you ever need help with that, let me know, okay? My people are very good at placing short-term tenants, especially if the place is furnished.”
“Thanks, Leo, that’s really nice of you.”
I wasn’t surprised he’d offered. Leo was a great guy.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Colton. He looked stunned. Out of all of us, he and Jake always had the most distant relationship with our half brothers. I still wasn’t sure where Colton stood on this, but I was determined to let bygones be bygones.
I didn’t blame my brothers. Colton and Jake were older, and they’d had a front row seat to the family’s implosion—much more so than the rest of us.
Jake had the bad luck of discovering the clues that led him to find out about Dad’s infidelity.
And after it all broke out, Colton had a huge fight with our father.
Still, ever since moving back to Boston, Jake had grown closer with our half brothers, and I was sure that Colton would start seeing them as part of the family if he spent more time with them.
We went to the bar, leaning against the counter. I put a hand on Penny’s back and brought my mouth to her ear. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I like the guys and Meredith and Natalie. They’re all so welcoming. They don’t seem to mind that I was house-sitting.”
“Why would they?”
“I don’t know, you and your family come from this,” she said, pointing around. “You guys grew up in a totally different way compared to me.”
“Penny,” I said, tilting her head and making eye contact with her. I didn’t want everyone to hear me, so I brought my mouth to her ear again. “No one cares. We all like you for you. Me especially. I like you more than everyone else. Way more.”
“Well, I should hope you do,” she said.
Leo cleared his throat. “You guys behave. You’re in public, in case you forgot.”
Straightening up, I turned to him. He couldn’t have heard anything, but our body language was probably pretty telling. “Why? Jealous that you’re here on your own?”
“Huh?” Leo exclaimed. “Don’t you dare ever repeat that in front of Gran, or she’s going to draw the wrong conclusions.”
Next to him, Nick whistled. “Hear, hear.”
“By the way,” Maddox said, appearing on Penny’s other side, “congrats on buying The Digital Owl. I’ve been reading their articles for some time. Smart of you to snap it up.”
“Thanks. I like them too. I’m glad to be able to hand them something as important as our biography section.”
Maddox narrowed his eyes slightly before nodding. “That’s the one your mother wrote, right?” His voice was nonchalant on the surface, but I detected an edge in it.
“How do you know that?” I asked him. Penny reached for my hand, interlacing our fingers.
“I’ve read some of those articles she wrote when I found out, well, you know… She was a very good writer.”
“Thank you,” I said.
My stomach clenched, and so did my throat. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever mentioned my mother. Probably never. I had no idea what to say. Penny squeezed my fingers. I squeezed them right back.
“Good for you,” Leo added, clearly having overheard. “It’s a great way to honor her memory.”
This conversation was way out of my comfort zone.
I appreciated my half brothers praising her.
But I simply didn’t know how to talk to them about my mother.
It wasn’t rational, of course, but in the back of my mind, part of me would always blame Dad and his second family for Mom’s illness.
The two things weren’t related, of course, and the doctors had reiterated that.
The cancer had been in her body for a long time, and it just went undetected.
But the idea had formed in my mind as a teenager that my dad was the cause of it, and I couldn’t forget it.
I actively tried, but sometimes, in moments like this, it resurfaced.
“All right, I’m moving to the other side. Gabe is flagging me,” Maddox said.
I couldn’t tell if he meant it or if he’d just realized the conversation was making me uncomfortable.
Leo and Nick went to the other side of the bar.
That was when I realized Colton had been here the whole time too.
He slipped into the space Maddox had vacated.
Penny squeezed my hand as she looked up at me but didn’t say anything.
Colton’s eyes were fixed on the rows of tequilas opposite us. I had half convinced myself that he didn’t overhear anything when he asked, “You talk about Mom with them?”
I looked at him. “No, never. That was the first time they brought her up. I had no idea how to react.”
He nodded. “They were respectful about it, all things considered. I just don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to be friends with them like you and Gabe and Cade are.”
That seemed to snap me out of this deep hole I’d been in. I patted his shoulder. “You know what the first act of friendship is?” I asked.
“What?”
“Doing tequila shots.”
Penny laughed. “Oh my god, I haven’t had those since college.”
“Yeah, what are you, a kid?” Colton asked.
I wiggled my eyebrows. “No, but we’re here to celebrate that our baby brother opened a bar. Shots are in order.”
“Let’s go join the group,” Penny said.
“Where are they?” I asked.
Colton pointed to the other end of the bar. Okay, so Maddox hadn’t made it up, because he, Nick, and Leo were on either side of Gabe, who was pouring drinks too.
“Let’s go, before I change my mind,” Colton said, charging forward.
Penny squeezed my hand again. “Are you okay?” she asked, clasping her hand around my wrist.
“Yeah, why?”
“You seemed tense earlier.”
“It was a strange moment.” Then I whispered in her ear again. “But having you here made it all better.”
“Oh stop, you don’t have to flatter me! You’ve already got me exactly where you want me.” She wiggled against me.
“Not even close.”
Her skin turned to goose bumps. I barely kept myself from finding an excuse to pull her into one of the back rooms and have my way with her. I wasn’t lying. I hadn’t put two and two together before, but I instinctively knew that having her here grounded me.
She took a step back, smiling. “I want shots,” she said, taking my hand and leading me through the crowd until we reached the other side.
She’d pulled her hair up in a ponytail, but it was long enough that it reached her upper back.
She was wearing heels but was still smaller than me.
Her skin was soft to the touch and perfect under the neon lights.
She looked like a goddess.
My team still wasn’t here, but that was fine by me. It gave me some time with my brothers.
“I’ve heard through the grapevine that we’re doing shots. Here are yours,” Gabe said, pointing at a row of glasses. “Let’s drink.”
“To what?” Colton asked.
Jake held up his glass in Gabe’s direction. “To the bar.” Then he turned it in my direction. “And to your acquisition. To us honoring our grandparents’ legacy and building on it.”
“Hear, hear,” Penny said. She first clinked her glass to Natalie’s and Meredith’s before all the girls clinked with us too.
“By the way, Penny, we’re going to steal you for the rest of the evening,” Natalie said.
Meredith added, “We don’t want the guys overwhelming you.”
She laughed before downing her shot. She looked so damn amazing.
The instinct to whisk her away almost overpowered me, especially after drinking my own shot.
The alcohol burned my throat but left an incredible aftertaste.
Even though I wasn’t driving, I should pace myself.
After all, I’d have Penny to myself in no time.
I was wrong. It was two o’clock in the morning when we arrived home.
We’d both had a few more shots, and then Gabe gave everyone a tour of the distillery.
I’d already visited it a few times, but I’d gone anyway.
It was fun seeing everything from Penny’s perspective.
Then my team came, and I couldn’t leave.
But now, finally, it was just the two of us.
The second we went through the door, I took her up in my arms, walking upstairs with her.
“Someone’s in a hurry,” she teased.
“Damn right I am.”