Page 122 of One More Chapter

My legs, that not ten minutes ago were itching to get out the door, weigh me down like lead.

“Whatever happened between you and Penelope is fixable, Anthony. I believe you’re capable of so much more than you let yourself believe. Save you and that girl both any more heartache and don’t run away from the best thing life has to offer just because you’re scared that you won’t be good enough.”

I don’t know if he’s talking to me or himself at this point. I stand at the same time that he does, and when he reaches out to hug me, I let him.

“Youaregood enough, son. I don’t think I tell you that enough.”

A sob catches in my throat at those words. Ones I didn’t think I needed to hear.

When I pull back, we both laugh. My father grunts, then slaps me on the shoulders.

“We’re a mess,” he chuckles.

“Little bit.” I swipe at my eyes, and then we both sigh.

“If I know anything about that girl, it’s that she can handle the mess. Don’t make her wade through it alone. Be there to hold her while you do it together.”

He steps back into the kitchen, wraps some tinfoil over the lasagna, and hands it to me.

“I’ll text you the address.”

The issues between me and Pen, the ones we need to fight together, can wait. Right now, all she needs for me is to be the ground beneath her feet. I’ll lay myself down for her to use as her red carpet as long as she needs me to.

forty-eight

penelope

I should have seenthis coming. Disasters always strike me in threes.

First, Ant took the scarred pieces of my heart out and tap danced on top of them like Gene Kelly. Then, I got word that there was a hiccup with construction on my place—they missed a leak, and repairs are going to be pushed back at least another four weeks. The icing on the cake was mom’s accident. She may as well have taken all three.

My brother and I aren’t as close as we used to be when he lived with Mom and me. When his name lit up my screen, I knew something had to be wrong. As Connor and I sift through the junk all over her stairs, it’s easy to see how she tripped down them in the first place. Trash is everywhere, like she hasn’t bothered to clean the place since the guy she followed to Vegas dumped her, just like I predicted he would. I can barely walk, let alone stand the smell.

“How’d she let it get like this?” Connor asks, lifting his hand beneath his nose as we uncover what used to be a box of strawberries before the mold overtook it. “Was it this bad growing up?”

I bite my tongue, knowing that scolding my brother for going with his dad isn’t fair at all.

“I think we kept it a little more under control. She fell apart without us here.”

“Not our problem,” he clips, retreating to the front hallway where we left shopping bags of cleaning supplies, including a box of gloves. We get to work, and I wonder how long we’ll have until Mom wakes up. She has a broken wrist, some bumps and bruises, but the kicker will be the bruise this gives to her ego and to her attitude. I bring up the mental blockers I had growing up, the ones that deflect all of her nasty comments like pebbles against a stone fortress.

“Pen!Penelope Jayne!”

Connor and I eye one another from across the kitchen that we’ve barely made a dent in, lifting opposite brows at the same rate. Must be a Barker family trait.

“Good luck.” I believe his sincerity.

I enter Mom’s room with my arms folded in defense.

“What do you need, Mom?”

She’s sitting up in bed, lost in the mound of pillows we propped behind her when we got home from the ER.

“The remote, for starters. And would you fix these pillows? I’m fucking uncomfortable.”

“It’s probably because of the fall, not the pillows,” I say, more to myself than to her. “Here. I hurt my arm earlier this year. It helps if you prop it up?—”

She yanks her arm away from where I’m trying to help, muttering something aboutdoing it herself, and ends up in the same position she just called uncomfortable. I find her the remote, and she turns on Jerry Springer. I think I’m home free, and am about to ask what she wants for dinner, when her words freeze ice in my veins.

---