Page 59 of Bonfire and Bliss Bookstore

I’m not sure where my father has disappeared to but when we open the door to my house, we find it empty. The weather completely turned during our drive home—the sky is practically black in anger and the trees sway perilously.

“I’ll start a fire,” I tell Penny.

“I’ll turn on the oven.”

I smile at the ease with which we both go about our activities. No one else would be comfortable enough in my home to do this. But it’s more than that—not many people would think to offer.

Once I get the fire going in the hearth, I walk over to the record player and get one of my grandfather’s favorite records out. It’s just crackling with the familiar tune when Penny walks back in.

“Oh, I love this song,” she chirps, those copper eyes dazzling with delight.

“It was always your favorite.”

“Who doesn’t love this song?” she says of the Billie Holiday classic “I’ll Be Seeing You.” “It’s from The Notebook.”

“The amount of times you read that book in high school.”

“And watched the movie,” she reminds me.

“How could I forget. Want to dance?” I hold out a hand to her and she smiles as she walks into my arms.

“You really are going for the jugular,” she murmurs, and I chuckle as she settles her head against my chest.

I revel in the feel of her against me—soft and warm in all the right places, the smell of something sweet like vanilla frosting drifting from her hair. Unable to stop myself, I press my lips to the top of her head. “So I’m doing good, then?”

A crack of lightning lights up the entire room and she jolts in my arms. “It’s really raining dogs and cats, huh?”

I laugh. “You always get those wrong.”

“Huh?”

“Idioms. You always say them wrong. It’s adorable.”

She glances up at me, cheeks flushed. “I do not.”

“You do. Senior year you told Mr. Pershing you were going to take the bull by the balls.”

“I knew that one was wrong the second it came out of my mouth.”

I laugh again and stare down at her, pausing our swaying. “And what’s the right saying?”

She twists her lips. “Ummm.”

I chuckle harder before starting to move again.

“Fine, give me another one.” She huffs.

“Okay, tell me what happens when something doesn’t matter anymore. The point is—”

She rolls her eyes dramatically. “I actually know that’s a mute point.”

I smirk. “It’s definitely not. But that’s not what you said in high school.”

“Listen, Joey Tribbiani told us it was a moo point, and now that we have a cow living in town, I’d agree with him. The point is moo. Like a cow’s opinion. It doesn’t matter.”

I burst out laughing. Penny was obsessed with the show Friends when we were kids.

Old rom-coms, Friends reruns, and reading—those were her favorite things. I forgot how much I enjoyed all of that with her, too. She’s grinning at me—her pretty eyes watching with affection—when my laughter wanes.