Page 31 of The Complete Truth Duet
So I played a card I’d been hiding up my sleeve for well over a year.
I called our good old perverted pal, Larry the cop. He was a dick, as usual, and hung up on me. But when I texted him a snippet of a video one of the girls had secretly shot during an unfortunate night with him, I immediately received a call back.
If I’d learned anything over the years, it was that leverage was never a bad thing to have.
Larry was none too happy to be doing me favors. Though he was pretty eager to keep that video from landing in his wife’s email.
An hour later, I got a more informative call back.
Surprisingly—and excitingly—enough, Penn was squeaky clean. Not so much as a parking ticket on his record.
And Drew, well… He’d stolen a car. And then, a few days after he’d been released with nothing more than a slap on the wrist and two years of probation, he’d stolen another one. Dumbass. But it wasn’t a violent crime or related to drugs, and he wasn’t on the sex offender’s registry. In my eyes, that was a total win.
Hope had whispered inside me when I’d seen Angela’s apartment. But, by the time I hung up with Larry, it was a deafening roar.
Maybe decent men still existed.
And maybe, just maybe, Penn Walker was one of them.
With Penn dodging me, I approached Drew about the cleanup job. He denied having anything to do with it. Though he quickly accepted my invitation to come over for dinner and promised to bring his brother.
I spent the better part of the day cooking, cleaning, doing my hair and makeup, and then agonizing over what to wear. It was ridiculous. Especially when Drew showed up alone.
It was probably stupid, but I was crushed.
Drew stayed for several hours, ate half a pan of lasagna, drank three beers, and laughed and talked with Savannah and River.
I spent those hours warming an untouched beer while staring holes in the door as though I could have willed Penn to appear on the other side.
He didn’t. And the weight of my disappointment was stifling.
That very same night around midnight, I was tidying up the living room before making my way to bed when a sound outside caught my attention. A quick peek out the peephole revealed Penn parked in the hall, wearing that same black hoodie from days earlier, while watching my door like it was his favorite movie.
My stomach dipped, and that spark that only he ignited inside me turned into a raging inferno. I convinced myself that he was waiting for me out there.
Spoiler alert: He wasn’t.
The first night, I made an excuse to go out there by setting the trash outside my door as I so often did. He didn’t acknowledge my fun-and-flirty hello, and after a full minute of awkwardly rocking on my toes, waiting for him to reply, I rushed back inside and called it a night. It stung. A lot. But my trash was in the dumpster the next morning.
When he was out there again on the second night, it started to unnerve me. Never one to beat around the bush, I decided to ask why he was sitting alone in the dark.
Maybe Drew snored. Maybe he liked the fresh air. Maybe he was a serial killer. Really, it was anyone’s guess.
His only answer was a grunted, “I like the quiet. It’s easier to think.” Then he stood up and went into his apartment without another word spoken. Thirty minutes later, he had resumed his position. I did not.
The third night, I couldn’t handle anymore rejection, so I casually drank a beer while standing at my peephole and stared at him staring at me. He was beautiful. I was a weirdo. I went to bed.
Night four, I was still a weirdo.
Night five, I forced myself to stop the insanity and instead sat on my couch, watching the same door he was watching, just from the other side. Then I decided that wasn’t any less ridiculous, so I gave up and went to bed.
Wash, rinse, and repeat on nights six and seven.
Each night, I fell asleep staring at Nic’s stars on the ceiling.
But each morning, I woke up with Penn’s piercing, blue eyes invading my dreams.
I couldn’t explain my draw to him. With the way I grew up, with a father who had thrown me to the wolves, then dealing with Marcos and Dante, it wasn’t exactly a mystery why I hadn’t been keen on the Y chromosome throughout the years.
But, when it came to Penn, my body overruled my mind every time.
Too many nights, I’d lain in bed, my overactive (and surprisingly descriptive) imagination as my only company. Those little daydreams had started off innocent enough. In my head, we’d sit in that hallway, talking and laughing. He’d eventually reach over and take my hand or drape his arm around my shoulders. Quiet comfort. Nothing more. Nothing less.
