“I can guarantee it’s better than whatever cutsie buddy fucks you had with your two pals. But now’s your chance; prove me wrong. Describe what you consider good.”
She opens and then suddenly closes her mouth as she moves on to some other task at the stove. “I would if we actually were friends, but we’re not. You don’t do friendships.”
This time it’s not a joke. It’s the truth, and one I don’t deny. “I don’t.”
“Then just cube those potatoes.”
I lay the knife down. Although I find the way she bosses me around adorable, I can’t let this go. I don’t have a need to ask questions, but the more time I spend with her the more I want to know about her. It’s unsettling. “Nothing else riles you up, but a little sex talk and suddenly you’re ordering me around? Wait, is that your thing? Dominatrix? I could work with that.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s blushing. “I’m not riled up. I don’t let anyone or anything bug me. Not this conversation and not my car getting towed. Life’s too short to dwell on the negative.”
Exactly. There’s nothing negative about what I’d like to shift her attention to. Orgasms not only feel good, but there’s medical research supporting they’re also good for a person’s health.
This is my opening to take the flirting to a deeper level, but there’s something in her eyes that stops me. She likes me, and I—I don’t see her the way I do most people. She’s not trying to impress or manipulate me. Right here in my apartment, I am sitting across from a creature so rare I’d stopped believing in it—a genuinely nice person.
Part of me wants to protect her from the very man I am as well as the other men in the building. “You need to be careful. They won’t stop. If anything, not reacting will amp up their attempts to get you out of here.”
“Let them try,” she says defiantly as she plants her palms on the counter and stares at me. “I don’t let other people’s drama and negativity impact me. My sister asked for my help, and I’m not budging. She’s more important than whatever anyone here can throw at me. Once they understand that, they’ll give up.”
I wish I were as optimistic about where this was headed. Although, I can see one thing we have in common.
“I don’t let other people’s drama and negativity impact me, either.” Now that has been my life’s mantra.
My stomach churns with worry that I instantly resent. I don’t want any of this. I want to go back to when Bachelor Tower was my haven from the world and a woman like Penny would come up from the bar for just a few hours and then leave. But I guess that’s the point. There are no women like Penny down at the bar and there never will be.
Shit.
Maybe I hit my head hard this morning and don’t remember it, but I actually want to hear about this sister she says she cares so much about. More questions? Me? Is there any surer sign that I’m losing it? “Is your sister as hopeful as you are?”
Penny laughs. “Kylie? No way. She’s a little like you. Every glass is not only half empty, but she needs to be the one to fill it. We joke that there’s no way we came out of the same vagina, but my parents swear we did.”
I smile and this time not because I’m imagining her naked. She’s funny. I wonder if the two men she’s been with appreciated that humor, and suddenly my mood takes a dark turn. How I’ve gone from being surprised and intrigued to hear she’s been with only two men, to jealous that she’d been with them at all is beyond me. I’m not possessive when it comes to women, but I don’t like the idea of her with another man.
I also don’t know how I like being compared to her sister. “That’s how you see me?”
Penny tips her head to one side. “Careful, you nearly sound like you care what I think.”
I almost say I do. The words are on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I scoop the potatoes into a bowl and say, “I don’t, but I thought it was a better topic than your mother’s vagina.”
Penny starts laughing.
I join in.
And it feels good.
So good it scares me.
I call downstairs to have another new key card brought up for Penny’s apartment. I can’t fuck her. Not tonight. Not when she’s tangling my insides up in knots.
I’m not her friend, but if I were, I’d tell her to stay far, far away from a man like me. Instead of picturing her naked, I’m imagining her baking cookies with her children and laughing when their family dog swipes one.
The image scares the shit out of me because for just an instant I saw myself in that scene, hugging her from behind and laughing along.
I raise my hand to my forehead, positive I must be fighting a fever—there’s really no other explanation.
CHAPTER TEN
Penny
I’m barely out of the shower when I hear the first notes of “Daddy’s Little Girl” from my phone on the counter in the kitchen. Wrapping a towel around my head and grabbing my robe from the hook, I rush to catch the call before it goes to message. This can’t be good. Dad never calls this early in the morning.
“Dad, please slow down.” My father has two speeds: completely relaxed or utterly panicked. He spends ninety percent of his life in the first. So chilled out he lets nothing get to him, but lately things have been unraveling and that usually means he’ll spiral out. It’s hard for me to see him like this but I know he needs me. I’m all he has.
“Penny Pot, it’s really bad. They say I’ve got less than a week to pay off the back taxes or I’m going to lose the building. I’ll lose everything.”
“We’ll figure something out, Dad,” I start, hoping practical advice will just pop into my head. It doesn’t. “Take a deep breath. I can give Kylie a call. I know if I ask—”
“No,” he sighs. “No, I don’t want her to know how bad it is.” As his voice trails off I try to dissect if he means it. Before I can press harder I hear his familiar chuckle. “You remember that time you came into the office asking if I could find you a job?”
I feel my shoulders relax some as his voice settles. “Yes. I was seven years old, and I wanted you to find me a job as a unicorn.”
“You were endearingly serious.” I can feel him beaming proudly through the phone.
“You made me a horn out of a paper towel roll, wrote up my résumé, and had your friends play along and interview me.” I get a little misty at the memory.
My father made my childhood one of dreams. While my sister was visiting my mother at the office and learning all about stocks and bonds, my father and I were staying up all night waiting for meteor showers and pretending we were vampires allergic to the sunlight. Every day was a celebration of some kind. National Pancake Day. National Drive-In Movie Night. I’m positive he made most of those things up, but it didn’t matter. Every second was important—and that’s how he made me feel.
Nutrition wasn’t high on his priorities. Some days I’d eat a whole jar of pickles or an entire box of Popsicles. My hair was never brushed. My clothes were always in disarray. There were no rules. No punishments. It was fun, and I was free.
Getting older opens your eyes to some things. With all that fun and excitement there was also uncertainty. My father’s mismanagement of money sometimes meant that the box of Popsicles was the only thing in the house to eat. Transitioning back to my mother was difficult because every failing she saw in him she also saw in me.
I loved my childhood, I love my father and my mother, but there are days I wonder what life could have been like if we had a little more balance. Did my mother have to see Kylie as a success for turning her back on our father and me as a failure for not wanting to?
My father is the best man he knows how to be, and judging him for it only makes him sad. So instead we laugh about my first job as a unicorn. And all the times he let me scale the cliffs and dunes at the beach even though the sign said not to. Kylie refused to go, just as she often refused her visits with him. She didn’t see his magic, and over time we lost a middle ground. Everything was either about Mom o
r Dad. I was either going to graduate from a top school and rule the world, or become as pathetic as my mother said our father was.
It took me a long time to realize there was a third option—I could simply be me.
“I miss you,” my father says warmly.
“I’ll come by this morning,” I promise.
“You don’t have to,” he protests half-heartedly. “Coming across town in the morning is a nightmare, and it’s raining.”
“I’m very familiar with the bus.”
“Where’s your car?”
“In the shop.” I could have told him the truth and possibly asked him for advice, but that wasn’t how our relationship worked. I didn’t lean on him for support. Instead, I chose to remember how he’d removed my fear of public transportation by calling it the ultimate adventure.
Looking into Dad’s glittery gray eyes made me smile. In a house filled with serious business, smiles mattered to him. So every time I smiled at him, he gave me a penny. They piled up fast. I saved them in a penny pot, and when there were enough, we’d ride the bus to our next adventure. Just Dad and me, his Penny Pot.
He’d circle a spot on a map, and we’d hop on and off buses until we found wherever it was we wanted to go—which sometimes was a music shop from a flyer stapled to a corkboard. If we didn’t find the place, we enjoyed wherever we ended up. That was my father at his best. He could fill even the coldest, dreariest day with fun.
Unlike my mother, I didn’t want to change him. Reality was a challenge for him. Asking him why he avoided facing it until it was too late was like wondering why a butterfly would avoid battling a cat. He’d tried to be the man my mother had wanted him to be and failed.
“I’ll get there soon as I can. We can figure it out.”
“Bye, Penny Pot,” he says in his very familiar way. I once asked him why he called me Penny Pot and he said it was because I knew how to value even what others might overlook.
I sit in the living room of my sister’s expensive apartment and wonder if my own paycheck has cleared this week so I can take the bus across town. The cost of one vase on my sister’s stone mantel would probably solve my father’s financial issues.
He wouldn’t take her money, though. Kylie couldn’t give it without a lecture and a plan to prevent him from ever finding himself in that situation again. But he would stumble, and I’d find myself in the middle once again.
It’s not something I can solve, so I push it from my mind. I promised my father a visit, and now I have to make that happen. Glancing out the window I watch the rain come down in sheets, blown by the wind. There’s a thud on the other side of the wall, the one that butts up to Dalton’s apartment and I try to remember which direction his office is. I could ask him for a ride at least that far. But something tells me there would be strings attached to that request.
I’m still reeling at his blatant pronouncement that he wants to fuck me. And confused at how abruptly our evening together ended.
There’s a sadness to him that makes me wish I knew how to show him that not everyone is money driven. After hearing about his childhood, it’s not surprising he’s afraid of caring about anyone. I bet he did care about some of his father’s wives. No one starts with a closed-off heart.
Each time they left his father—they left him too.
My heart aches for the young boy that must have been devastated.
He’s not a child anymore, though. He’s a grown man, and even though I want to help him, I refuse to fall into the trap of thinking I could change him. I’m not my mother. I don’t believe my way is the only way.
Dalton is successful in his field. If his claims are to be believed, he doesn’t lack for companionship. He’s fine.
I definitely don’t need his help getting across town.
But I can’t stop thinking about how our night together ended. For someone who talks shit and blatantly announces his intentions, he didn’t make a move on me. He helped me get my card key, thanked me for the meal, and walked me to my door.
Just as sweetly as any of the nice guys I’ve dated would have. We’d stood at my door, looking into each other’s eyes, our attraction pulsing between us.
I’d expected him to ask to come in.
I’d half hoped he would kiss me mindless and we would both get swept away in the passion, no words necessary.
I hadn’t expected him to kiss me lightly on the cheek before turning away.
Yes, I can take a bus to see my father, but I want to see Dalton again. There, I said it.
Good or bad.
Right or wrong.
I need to see him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dalton
“Hey, can I ask you a favor?” Penny says as she approaches me in the hallway. I’m on my way toward the car service that takes me to my office every morning. Her hair is still damp from the shower, and I get a whiff of her shampoo. Instant boner. I’m in a bad place.
“Shoot.” As a rule I don’t do favors, but I’m curious.
“I have to get across town this morning, and it’s raining. Are you going downtown? Even if I go as far as your office, it’ll help. Don’t feel that you have to say yes.”
“I never feel that way.”
She smiles as if she expected me to say that. “So?”
“Sure, I may have to make a few calls on the way though.”
“No problem.” She pops earbuds in.
I let her take the lead toward the elevator so I can watch her ass pump up and down in her yoga pants. It’s my favorite look on her. I nearly ask her what she’s doing across town, but I can hear her music and know she won’t hear me unless she takes the earbuds out. Which means I’m the one who wants to chat. I’m not going to give her that satisfaction. Not fucking her was a good choice.
We walk then ride as if we’re strangers sitting by each other on the T. Exactly what I’d want on most occasions, but I don’t like it. I nudge her, and she turns her music off. “We’re nearly at my office. The driver will take you the rest of the way. Where are you heading?”
A strange look flashes across her face before she shakes her head no. I pegged her as someone with nothing to hide, but now I’m not so sure. She looks like she’s choking on a secret.
“I’ll take a bus.”
“Where are you going?” I press.
She gives me a long look. “Does it matter?”
“Maybe.” Although if she insisted I wouldn’t be able to produce a reason why.
“I’m going to see my father. It’s a complicated situation I don’t like to talk about. Okay?”
She doesn’t have to tell me anything. Her entire life is none of my fucking business. If my car had an ejection seat, I would have outed her right then. Instead, I said gruffly, “You looked like something was wrong.”
Her expression softens. “See, you do care about me.”
My heart starts going maniacal in my chest. I probably should go see a doctor. Every day brings a new symptom that something isn’t right with me. “Reading people is part of my job. You looked like there was something you didn’t want to share, and I was right. Nothing more than a test to see if I was correct.” I let my tone announce the subject was one I’d already lost interest in, even though I felt off-balance.
“You sound just like my mother and sister.” She breathes out loudly, looking disappointed in me. “It’s always strategic. There’s always a winner and loser. Doesn’t that get exhausting?”
“No.” Maybe, but I’m not about to admit that.
“You need a life coach,” Penny says, snapping her fingers together. “Someone to show you how to relax.”
“If either of us needs a coach, it’s you. A sex life coach.”
“And I suppose you think you’re qualified for the position?”
“I don’t want to brag, but yes.”
“Is sex all you think about?”
“I’m a man, so I say this with pride—yes. Mostly. I also think about work, and food when I??
?m hungry.”
“Everything’s a joke to you, but I don’t believe you’re really having great sex.”
“And I doubt you hit the threshold to even file income taxes.”
“Ouch. You really got me there.” She taps her chin. “But do I care what you think of my employment choices? Um. No.”
“You should. Money is power and power is everything. Your sister understands that.”
“I’d love to see you out of that suit—even if it’s for only one day.”
“What a coincidence, my first tip to you would be to lose your clothing too.”
“You’re hopeless.”
I lean forward and hit the button to close the partition between us and the driver. “And you’re curious.”
“I’m not,” she says, but I can see her eyes flashing with nervousness. I’ve hit on the truth, and she knows it.
I tell myself to stop now. Hadn’t I already decided this was a bad idea? “You’re right. Maybe you should stick to your vanilla sex.”
“Vanilla? What does that even mean?”
She’s started this. Opening the door to this topic. How can I not walk through it? “It means I doubt you’ve had three orgasms in a row. And I’m talking about back-tightening, legs-quaking, screaming-for-mercy orgasms.” I look at her long and hard, raking my eyes over her body. “The reason you can break up with people and remain friends with them is because whatever you did together was sadly forgettable.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re a real ass sometimes. At least the people I’ve been with care about me. Can you say the same? I don’t think so.”
Touché. She is right, which bothers me, even though it never did before. “So testy. You need to get laid—the right way.”
“And you need a friend—one you don’t f—have sex with.”
“Fuck. Say it. It’s the first step toward good sex for you.”
“I have no problem with the word,” she argues back with bravado. “Fuck you. Fuck your opinion of my sex life. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. See, I’m perfectly fine with it.”
“You just made that my favorite word.”