Page 34 of The Complete Truth Duet
“Hardly,” I replied.
He smiled, his brown eyes warming like smooth chocolate. (So beyond not plain.)
“I have to go down there and patch her up. You guys okay up here while I’m gone?”
His eyebrows perked. “You want me to come with and take a look at the fan?”
“That would be…” The words died on my tongue when movement at the mouth of the hall caught my attention.
His lips were thin and his jaw was hard, but his eyes… They were molten.
Penn. And not the guy who had told me to stay away.
This was the Penn who had held me close and told me to unlearn it.
My whole body roared to life, the fine hairs on my arms standing on end as his penetrating stare drilled into me. That beautiful hum in my veins returned.
“Amazing,” I finished breathily.
Drew gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t worry—”
“I’ll go,” Penn announced so roughly that it was jarring—and mesmerizing. His molten eyes had turned to ash, the pupils so large that I could barely see the blue around them. He was staring at his brother’s hand—but there was no love in that glare.
He looked to me. “You good with that?”
“Absolutely,” I replied immediately.
Drew flicked his gaze back and forth between us in what I assumed was bewilderment, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Penn long enough to confirm.
“You sure about that?” Drew asked.
I had no idea which one of us he was talking to, so I whispered, “Yeah,” at the same time Penn declared, “I’ll take it from here.”
Drew chuckled, but Penn didn’t say anything else.
Penn
I. Was. Fucked.
Plain and simple.
My plan was fucked.
My head was fucked.
Worst of all, I feared Cora was fucked too.
Because this was not going to end well for any of us.
But, God, I was sick of fighting to stay away from her.
So there I was, alone in an apartment with her, feeling like I’d just bet my entire life on red and was waiting on bated breath to see where the roulette wheel would land.
“So, how old are you?” Cora asked as she swirled around the apartment, wearing a pair of ridiculous hot-pink dish gloves. She had a spray bottle of bleach that was burning my nostrils in one hand and a rag so dirty that it registered on the black spectrum in the other.
I readjusted my footing on the ladder and kept working to correct Hugo’s unbelievably novice attempt at hanging a ceiling fan. There had been exactly one screw mounting it to the stud in the ceiling—a screw that was too short. The rest were only anchored into the sheetrock, which made each spin of the blades a literal game of Russian roulette for anyone unlucky enough to be standing beneath it.
It was a miracle Brittany and Ava hadn’t been killed at least a dozen times. Or so I’d been told as Cora paced the room, furiously doing the calculations. Out loud. Explaining every single solitary variable as she solved for X. I didn’t figure she had much of an education, but when she started prattling off formulas and crunching the numbers in her head, I’d never been more intrigued by a woman in my life.
During my time avoiding her, which wasn’t really avoiding her at all—it was more like a lion watching over his lamb—I’d learned a lot about Cora.
She never walked anywhere. If her feet weren’t at least trotting, she wasn’t moving at all.
And she made amazing sandwiches. Soft white bread, deli-sliced ham, mayo, and the perfect dash of salt and pepper. She didn’t use any of the fanfare like lettuce or tomato. It was just a sandwich. But, damn, it was good. I hated that she made Drew and me lunch, catering to us like we were doing her a goddamn favor. Yet she did. Every day. Whether I was speaking to her or not.
She didn’t have the time—or the money—for crap like that.
I’d witnessed her going door-to-door twice, holding an empty coffee mug to collect cash to help one of the other girls buy whatever the hell they needed.
Meanwhile, Cora’s phone remained cracked, her car was rolling on three bald tires and a donut, and the strap on her purse was knotted to hold it together.
But if she cared about any of those things, she’d never let on.
Cora didn’t bitch or complain. Nor was she angry or bitter. Actually, she laughed—a lot.
And she kept doing, and doing, and doing for everyone else until she was dead on her feet. I’d caught her dozed off on the couch once. It made me an absolute creep, but I’d stood there, watching how peaceful she was. Her lips curled up even in slumber.
Her life wasn’t easy, but that fucking woman smiled while she slept.
Who did that?
In the understatement of the decade, it was safe to say that I was not emotionally equipped for going toe-to-toe with the likes of Cora Guerrero. But for no good reasons—and a lot of bad ones—I couldn’t stop myself.
