Page 114 of Lucky Penny
“Where did your father find you…heaven?” Fia’s voice travels through the hall as I come down the steps.
She’s sitting on the wood floor, being attacked by my dog. Ferocious slobbery kisses and whining like he hasn’t seen her for years.
“How you feeling, Fi?” I grab a drink from the fridge, and she gets quiet, not taking her eyes off Tank.
“Better. Happy to be home.” She must be tired, too.
“Your sister’s taking a nap, she was exhausted,” I add, taking a sip of sparkling water. Penny filled the fridge with this tasteless shit, andI keep finding myself cracking them open, hoping they are better the next time. They aren’t.
Fia purses her lips and pulls herself off the floor, going over to the sink to wash her hands.
“So, you’re dating my sister, huh?” she asks casually, but the words twist my gut.
“We’re not really dating…” My heart starts racing. “It’s complicated. We have a history.”
I’m not lying, I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen. She’s never going to be the woman who just warms my bed on the weekends. She’s Penny, the girl I fell in love with when I was eleven years old, and who has outshone every other person I’ve ever met.
Fia turns around, arms tightly crossed over her chest, leaning back against the counter.“Let me get this straight. You’re hooking up, but you’re okay with Penny going back to the city and seeing other guys?” Fia tilts her head, testing me.
Fuck that.
The idea of Penny with anyone else makes me see red.
I groan, shaking my head, suddenly aware I must look like a complete idiot who can’t even string two words together.
“You better do something about it, then,” Fia snaps at me. “She’s leaving in a few days, you know that, right?”
I’ve never seen her so serious, so protective. She’s going to be a good mom.
“You two deserve each other,” she adds, quieter now.
I chuckle. “Damn, Fia, I can’t tell if that’s meant to be an insult or not.”
This makes her crack a grin.
“It just means don’t fuck this up.”
“Roger that,” I reply as she mumbles something about going to take a shower, leaving me alone in the kitchen.
I gaze into the living room at the Christmas tree, noticing a few neatly wrapped gifts under it. Penny and Fia’s gifts to each other, I’m assuming.
I close my eyes as it dawns on me—I didn’t get Penny a gift.
But maybe it’s not too late.
I take a sip of the tasteless sparkling water and wonder on a level of one to ten how much she’ll freak out if I give her the gift I have in mind.
Possibly an eleven.
The afternoon drags by slowly, until suddenly, I look up and it’s almost dinner time. I think about making a protein shake or something easy, but Penny’s already busy in the kitchen…with a smile on her face. A sight I’m not sure I’ve ever seen.
She insisted she had it all handled, though, as she skirts around, still wearing my black hoodie, apologizing after a string of curse words when she spilled gravy down the front.
“I’m not Martha Stewart, but I think this is going to be okay,” she says as three separate timers go off.
Thismeaning the three-course meal she made.
Fia sits with her feet up, completely lost in a book on her Kindle, but glances at me nervously. We both know there’s a possibility that none of it’s edible and we’ll be eating frozen pizza.
