Page 21 of One Pucking Wish

Opening my eyes, I prop myself up on my elbows and look around the room. The bathroom door is open, and the lights are off. Unless Penny has crawled into one of these boxes of toilet paper, it’s safe to say she’s not here. Where she’d be, I have no idea. Snow drifts cover the window, allowing only a few-inch gap at the top to see that the white flakes are still falling. I sure hope they’ve cleared the runways so we can get out of here and back home.

Retrieving my discarded boxers from the floor, I put them on before heading to the bathroom. After I brush my teeth, I return to the bed and check my phone. I have a few texts from the guys, but nothing from Penny indicating where she may be.

The fact is, she may be long gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if I pushed her too far last night. While she wanted it in the moment, the light of a new day could be bringing major regrets.

With that thought, the door opens, and Penny enters. She’s wearing my T-shirt with her pencil skirt and her thin-ass jacket over the pair…and of course, her tall heels—the perfect footwear for any record-breaking snowstorm. Her red hair falls down her back and over her shoulders in big, bold ringlets. The look is mesmerizing and hot as fuck. That wild, curly hair does something to me. Her face is still makeup-free, and I was serious last night when I said she didn’t need all that stuff on her face if she didn’t want it. Her natural beauty is unique and captivating.

I’m so focused on her appearance and what it's doing to me that I don’t notice the plate in her hand until she’s standing before me with a wide smile. A grinning Penny is a little off-putting, another facet of her that I’ve never seen. She’s always so serious at work, and she’s especially somber with me.

“You’re up.” There she goes with that smiling thing again. “I thought I’d venture out to see if I could find us some breakfast. First, let me just say that we’re not going anywhere. Everything is shut down. They’re expecting a bunch more snow today on top of the insane snowfall yesterday. I had a cup of coffee with Frank’s wife, Alice. She’s so nice. But all she had to offer was yesterday’s uneaten donuts. So…” She lowers the plate to my eye level. “Happy birthday.”

The plate holds four donuts with different brightly colored frosting and sprinkles on each one. I swear my heart stops beating as a lump of emotion fills my throat. I haven’t eaten a frosted donut with sprinkles since the last birthday I celebrated with my mother during my senior year of high school. She didn’t make it to my nineteenth birthday, freshman year of college, because she was dead by then.

“You don’t like donuts?” she asks.

I force down all of my emotions. I may have fucked Penny, but we’re not friends. I’m not going to share my deepest regret with her, nor am I going to let her see my pain—the ever-present heartache I feel whenever something reminds me of my mother.

Clearing my throat, I say, “No, they’re fine.”

“It’s not a birthday cake or anything, but they’re festive and really…our only option.” She sets the plate on the bed and kicks off her heels before removing her jacket and skirt. “God, that skirt is uncomfortable.” She sits across from me on the bed, the plate of donuts between us.

“Should we make a wish?”

“We did that at the party last week. I think we’re good.”

She shrugs. “True, but it wasn’t our real birthday, you know? Seriously, let’s just do it. Close your eyes and make a wish.”

I do as instructed because I can’t come up with a good reason not to. When I’ve spoken my wish in my head, I open my eyes.

“Done?” she asks.

“Done.”

“Okay, you get the first pick of the stale donuts,” she offers.

I pick up the one with pink frosting and multicolored sprinkles because it looks just like the last one my mother got me. I take a bite, and a wave of nostalgia hits me. All the little things my mother did for me in the moments of quiet because she wasn’t able to love me out loud come back. She would give me secret looks and smiles, a squeeze of the hand, a whisper of praise, and an early morning birthday donut. In her weakness and inability to protect or stand up for herself, she kept me as safe as possible by keeping me invisible. She allowed herself to remain the target so I wouldn’t be. And because I couldn’t save her, she’s gone.

In all its sweetness, this donut reminds me of the good, but it also brings memories of the bad crashing down, and there was so much bad.

She chews her donut. “Oh my gosh, these are awful. So stale.”

“They’re stale?” I ask.

“Horribly stale.”

At this moment, I realize all the donuts I’ve eaten in my life have been stale because this is exactly what they’ve tasted like. It makes sense. I’m guessing my mom got them a day or two before my birthday, whenever she could get away unnoticed. She could’ve even bought day-old discount ones at the bakery. Money was always tight. As I’ve only ever eaten donuts with my mother, it never dawned on me that I was eating stale ones.

I take another bite of the donut while closing off my traitorous emotions. A self-induced pity party isn’t something I condone.

Penny continues, “But I’m not sure if we’ll eat anything else today, so they’ll have to do.”

“It’s really that bad out there?” I take another bite of the donut.

“According to Alice, yeah. It might take a couple of days to dig everyone out and clear the roads, especially with the snow still coming down. I mean, I really hope it’s not as bad as they say, but I guess we’ll see.”

My thoughts immediately go to our game schedule. “We play Tampa Bay in three days. We better be back by then.”

“Let’s hope so.”

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