Page 148 of On His Mind

“You feel so good, Penelope.”

I lift up to meet him.

“Fuck,” he breathes.

We stay tangled in each other for more than an hour. He wants to keep going, but the light is starting to come through the window. I lie on my back with the sheet twisted around my legs and he’s beside me, breathing hard at the ceiling, and I could stay here in this exact minute for the rest of my life.

“It’s morning,” he says. “I need to go.”

“Yeah.” I roll onto my side to see him. “I wish you could stay.”

“One day.” He turns his head and looks at me when he says it. “I promise.”

One day.I take that promise, and I put it somewhere safe, the way I’ve put every other one.

“I don’t think the guys would even mind,” I say softly.

He drags a hand down his face. “Maybe.” His mouth stays open a moment while he catches his breath. “Maybe they would. You don’t know how much shit Benson’s been eating for Lucy.”

I don’t answer. I just watch his chest rise and fall in the gray light.

“Are you afraid of what they’d think of you?” I ask.

He looks over. “I’m not embarrassed by you.”

“That’s not—” I turn my face to the window. “That’s not what I meant.” I feel my forehead pull tight and I do my best to smooth it out before he sees. “You told me once that you never really had a steady home. Growing up.” I don’t sayfoster homebecause every time it’s come up, he freezes. So I choose my words carefully, and I make myself say the rest. “So I’m asking if you’re afraid that if you do one thing they don’t approve of, they’ll put you out.”

I look back at him, nervous about what I’m asking.

His eyes fall shut. “I don’t know.” His voice has gone very quiet. “Maybe.”

“They wouldn’t,” I say, and I mean it. I say it to give him something to stand on. “They love you, Percy.”

The silence stretches so long I think he’s fallen asleep.

“They’re the first family I’ve ever had,” he says finally.

And there it is. That’s the thing underneath everything, the entire cause for all of his actions all this time, and he’s finally admitted it.

“I think I’ve got anxiety about it,” he says. “About what happens if it goes wrong.”

“I think you live too much inside your own head.”

He looks at me, and his face has gone strained and helpless. “I can’t fuck this up, Penelope. I’m sorry.”

I press my lips together to hold the wobble out of my voice. “I’ve been waiting, Percy.”

He exhales and scrubs a hand over his face. “I know.” He reaches for me and kisses me, and there’s something in it that feels like an apology he can’t put into a sentence. “I know. Thank you.”

Thank you.

I take the hand he leaves on my cheek and kiss the palm of it, and I say the thing I’ve been sitting on for weeks.

“I graduate this year.”

He pulls back. His breath catches on the way in, sharp. “Shit.”

NotI know. NotI’ve been thinking about that too.