I wondered if I was her only hookup who didn’t get the line. The term “hookup” rather than something more intimate annoyed me, but I couldn’t stop my brain. That fact became painfully clear as I inched through traffic. Once I’d started down that line of thought, I couldn’t shake the uncertainty that settled into my bones.
She hadn’t given me the disclaimer. Not exactly. She had laughed when I suggested she loved me. Then she’d said she didn’t fall in love at all. Was that the same thing as saying she wasn’t going to fall in love with me? I’d pressed her and she’d refused to deny it, but she hadn’t admitted her feelings either. I chewed on my bottom lip, chasing the thought in circles until my distraction nearly made me rear end a pick-up truck. I shook myself and concentrated on the drive.
That lasted all the way to the office but, once I was there, nothing was enough to distract me from my fears. She hadn’t said she wouldn’t call me the next day but here it was the next day and she hadn’t called. I opened the office and started coffee, resolutely not thinking about how she had given me the night of my life and explicitly not wondering if she would give me anything more. Pen had tried to stop me so many times, maybe I should have listened to the disclaimer.
“You gonna drink that or just stare at it?” Randy asked from the doorway.
It’d been so long since I’d heard him speak outside of staff meetings, that I finally came to my senses. I had been sitting at my desk, my coffee cup in midair, staring into the black liquid. Considering that I’d poured it fresh and now there was no hint of steam coming from the surface, I must’ve been there a long time.
“Sorry, boss. Lost in thought.”
“Whoever they are,” he said with a forced smile. “They’re either not worth your worry or they’re the one.”
“What?”
“The only people that ever made me look that happy and miserable at the same time are my wife and my ex-wife.”
Somehow that made me feel better. Randy didn’t often dispense wisdom. “So which one did I just find? My wife or my ex-wife?”
He saluted with his coffee cup and turned to leave. “It’s always fun finding out, isn’t it?”
When he was gone, I powered on my computer and set all thoughts of Pen aside. Except for one.
I couldn’t help wondering if this was how all the women who’d had sex with her felt the next morning. I allowed myself to think it and then I sent the thought away.
I would feel better about everything when I saw Pen again.
Chapter Thirty-One
Pen didn’t come to work that day. I heard through the grapevine she’d called in sick. Because of her EDS, Pen made it a point not to call in sick unless there was something serious going on. While those of us at HomeScape took more than our fair share of mental health days, the Realtors worked on commission and Pen was conscious that a day off meant no cash coming in. Healthcare was expensive, even with insurance, and Pen’s more than most. Between that and her lavish taste in clothing, furniture, and entertainment, her budget had little wiggle room. The longest she’d taken off in recent memory was two days in the winter when she had surgery to stabilize her ankle. She always bounced back quickly. This time, folks at the office were concerned because they thought she was sick. I was concerned because I doubted she actually was.
She was avoiding me.
She didn’t come into the office on Friday either because she was showing houses in Culpeper again. My gut told me I needed to give her space, so I didn’t text or call. It took everything in me to stay away from her front door, but I was confident everything would work out in the end.
By Monday my confidence had all but evaporated. Tuesday was her rest day, so I knew I wouldn’t see her then, and she still hadn’t returned any of my messages. Almost as concerning was how our personal issues were already starting to affect work. I was stuck in the middle of a tricky title search for the Georgetown property and it was stressing me out. The house was old and had gone through what felt like a thousand owners in the previous hundred years. Sorting through inheritance and sale documentation was bad enough, but DC laws were some of the most convoluted in the country. Their real estate laws were even more convoluted than the rest. The city had a history of hazy property tax laws and an unusual government structure. The capital city of a country founded on “no taxation without representation” had no federal government representation. The hypocrisy of America always confounded me.
Usually a difficult title search involved hours of consultation with the Realtor to clear up questions with the seller. Unfortunately, this property’s selling Realtor was none other than my best friend and new lover who was not currently speaking to me. I was at sea in a storm both professionally and personally. It wasn’t a good feeling.
Uncertainty was starting to nip at me. Uncertainty and a deep dislike of that house in Georgetown despite the beautiful sunroom and the memory of hugging Pen in the garage. My thoughts were full of her scent and the feel of her muscles relaxing under my touch. It was probably the sound of me banging my keyboard that brought Arthur to my door. Aggressive typing was an annoying habit I’d tried hard to curb, especially after Randy complained about having to buy me a new keyboard every year.
“Flowers were delivered for you,” Arthur said, causing me to miss the keyboard entirely and smash my pointer finger into the desk. “Try to act surprised when Carol delivers them in a minute.”
I didn’t have to act, I was surprised. I didn’t peg Pen as one for a grand romantic gesture. Turns out she wasn’t. My heart skipped several beats before Carol arrived, red-faced and glowing. She said it was excitement for me, but I think it had more to do with the fact that she could balance the overlarge vase on her overlarge belly. She was now a week overdue and desperate to have the baby out. My hands shook as I opened the card.
“No need to be excited, Carol,” I said after reading it. Disappointment stained my voice as I explained, “It’s from a client.”
Not just any client, but Hank Prince, Pen’s client who’d made a clumsy pass two weeks ago. Had it really only been two weeks? It felt like a lifetime. After all, I’d fallen in love in the few short days since I’d seen him. I tossed the card in the garbage but kept the flowers. He wasn’t the one I wanted to receive flowers from, but I wasn’t the kind of girl to waste a bouquet of Gerbera daisies.
Carol shuffled back to her desk, puffing with each labored step, and Art asked, “Dating clients now?”
“Not at all. I’m too professional for that.” It was true. I was only unprofessional enough to have sex with a coworker in an alley. “He offered me some advice and was checking up on my progress.”
“What advice was that?”
“To look for love in the real world rather than online.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
I bit the inside of my cheek and eyed my silent cell phone. No new messages. Tears sprang to my eyes. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Have any dates lined up this week?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Surely Pen had to get in touch before Friday? Another five days with no contact might kill me. I’d never gone this long without talking to her and now we’d added mind-blowing sex into the equation. I knew she loved me as much as I loved her. Not even Pen could hold out that long, no matter how confused she was.
As Arthur left, I remembered how stubborn Pen could be. How long she could hold a grudge. How she was always determined to make her point and how, if she decided to drop someone from her life, she didn’t give second chances. I broke two keys off my keyboard before I left for the day.
I nearly ran over Arthur in the parking lot when I arrived Wednesday morning. I’d been scouring the lot for Pen’s car, and I let my forehead drop onto the steering wheel when I didn’t see it. I forgot that I was still moving, but I wrenched my head up and slammed on the brake when I heard him shout in alarm.
Part of me had hoped I’d wake up to a message from Pen that morning.
Something long and explanatory like an email that she painstakingly composed on her day off. Apparently that was not how she had spent her Tuesday because there was nothing. Still, I’d thought as I took a shower that was too long and too hot to be healthy, she had to come back to work today. She hadn’t been in the office since the previous Wednesday. Not even her laid-back boss could let her go a full week without checking in.
Obviously he could. After an extended apology to Arthur and promising to bring him a pair of jelly donuts the next morning, I went to work. I lasted almost a half hour before I wandered over to the real estate side with some bogus excuse about grabbing a file from Pen’s office. I sat in her chair and tried to imagine what she was thinking at that moment. Was she obsessing over me the way I was obsessing over her? Did she regret our encounter? Had her lust that night been born of pity or something real?
I didn’t get any insight despite spending far too long burrowing into her leather chair. I overheard their secretary, a much less efficient Barbie-doll type whom Carol hated, mention that Pen was showing houses all day. I skulked back to my office to pout.
It had been strange not speaking to my best friend in so long. From that first drive back to West Virginia, Pen and I had spoken nearly every day. We went out for drinks. We had lunch together. On slow days she’d come to my office to gossip. On busy days I’d escape to her office to chat. Now it had been a week and I craved the sound of her voice. I started to think that I’d royally screwed things up.
Digging in my purse, I snatched up my Goonies pen and forced myself to go back to work on Pen’s Georgetown mansion. I hypnotized myself with the tumbling gold while I waited on hold for the DC Register of Wills. I made a game out of trying to slam the floating bits against the ends of their little tank but couldn’t force the satisfying smack I was trying to achieve. I’d done the same thing the day Pen had presented the pen to me. She’d called me ridiculous and threatened to take her present back, but she’d been laughing. Pen had a great laugh. All these years I’d loved that laugh, but I hadn’t thought about why. It felt good to hear Pen laugh. Or talk. Or call me an idiot. It hadn’t been friendship that had made it feel that way, though. It had been love and I’d been too stupid to see it.
Tears threatened and I clutched Pen’s pen as hard as I wanted to clutch the woman herself. I realized that I might have to choose between Pen my best friend and Pen the woman I was in love with. As much as I hated to admit it, there was a chance Pen would never love me the way I loved her. I decided I could deal with that as long as I had my best friend back. People lived like that every day, feeling this burning, terrible unrequited love. I could live like that, too. I could survive as long as she was my friend.
“Horseshit,” I breathed into the phone.
“I beg your pardon?” came the scandalized reply.
Too late, I recognized the buzzing that had filled my ear a moment ago as words. Someone had been speaking on the other end of the line while I bargained with the universe over my feelings for Pen. I doubted that my distracted apology quite made up for the request to repeat the long, detailed explanation I’d missed. It might not be a bad idea to send some apology donuts to the Register of Wills tomorrow, too. At this rate, I would need to buy stock in Dunkin’ Donuts.
During the slow, quiet post-lunch hours, I finally realized everything was not going to be okay with Pen. No doubt the realization had a lot to do with my first Wednesday in five years that didn’t include Garlic Whip at Layla’s. I thought of driving over there to see if Pen would show but waiting in a parking lot for someone I knew wasn’t coming was a level of pathetic I wasn’t ready to embrace.
As I threw the plastic container from my vending-machine tuna sandwich into my office trash can, I remembered how Pen spent her Wednesday nights and all the carefully cultivated confidence I’d carried for the last week crumbled. Pen would go to Riveter’s as soon as the sun went down and she would go home with a stranger. Maybe she’d be thoughtful enough to hit one of the other bars she frequented, but she would go out that night and she wouldn’t leave alone. She never did.
I picked up my purse and bolted from the office, not bothering to speak to anyone or even switch off my computer.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Thursday afternoon found me concentrating entirely on my work and not at all on the fact that it had been eight days since I’d seen or spoken to my best friend. I was definitely not thinking about the fact that it had been eight days since I’d had amazing sex with the woman I loved, either. My mind had never once strayed to how and with whom Pen had spent the previous night. I certainly was not stopping every three or four minutes to clutch my chest and bite back tears because everything in my life hurt.
Nope. Of course not.
I was engrossed in the early twentieth-century land-inheritance lawsuit and its impact on the potential sale of a multimillion-dollar row house in one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in the city. That was, admittedly, far more straightforward than the ill-fitting pieces of my potentially broken heart.
The truth was that even if my current task was remotely interesting, I’d have no hope of concentrating on it. I’d barely slept the night before. I’d cried myself to sleep on the couch by seven o’clock, still wearing my work clothes. My brain did me the dubious favor of replaying my encounter with Pen in the alley, which was just as vivid and exciting as the original event.
Dream Pen had me pinned against a brick wall, my skirt pulled up, and I reached out to cup her cheek. Only it hadn’t been my hand. Instead of the sun-bleached copper of my skin, I’d seen a rich, deep sepia. My fingers had been longer, with more prominent knuckles and bubblegum pink nail polish. Pen had looked into my eyes and there’d been a different type of lust in her smoldering gaze. The sort of unrestrained, animal lust reserved for someone you’d never see again.
The dream had flashed as Pen touched me and my hand was now creamy white loaded with gaudy rings. Again and the rings had gone, the skin was paler, a fine filigree of tattoos looped across the back of my wrist. On and on it went, my body replaced during each flash of pleasure with a new set of characteristics nothing like my own. I had watched Pen make love to a dozen women until I had been wrenched from sleep by my own anguished shout.
Needless to say, I hadn’t been interested in falling into that nightmare again. I’d spent the rest of the night scrubbing the walls of my townhouse so vigorously the drywall showed through in places.
A knock at my office door dragged me away from both my fevered thoughts and my dull work. When I looked up, expecting to see Arthur, I was met instead by the sight of the only person who could make me feel worse.
“Hi, Kieran,” said Ashley Britt, somehow managing to look drop-dead gorgeous and awkward at the same time. “Sorry to interrupt your work.”
“That’s okay. It’s pretty boring.”
I took a moment to look Ashley over as she stood in my door, waiting for an invitation inside. The drop-dead gorgeous assessment had been wrong. It didn’t do her enough credit. I hadn’t noticed before—or rather chose to ignore—the fact that she literally had the perfect body. Her legs went on for days and were capped with the smallest waist I’d ever seen. She wore black skinny jeans that must’ve taken an act of god to squeeze into, but the lack of a single ounce of body fat probably helped. Her shirt’s balloon waist billowed around her hips and short cap sleeves showed off her thin arms ending in long, manicured fingers. Every inch of body highlighted by the outfit reminded me of the extra weight I carried in awkward places. I was suddenly very happy that Pen hadn’t seen me naked, but that only served to remind me how many times she’d seen Ashley naked.
“I was wondering if you’ve seen Penelope.”
I hadn’t invited Ashley in and I was petty enough to make her stand there like an intruder for another moment.
“No.” I didn’t want to admit it, but I had to. “Not for a while.”
I could see the panic flooding into Ashley and it made m
e feel guilty for my jealousy. I motioned to the chair at my desk and she slid into it. “I haven’t either. It isn’t like her.”
“I’m sure she’s fine. Just busy with work.”
Ashley ignored the optimistic assessment with all the scorn it deserved. “Is there something going on with her medically? She hasn’t broken a bone or something, has she?”
I had been so wrapped up in my angst I hadn’t even considered the idea. Pen made such a point of being fine that it was easy to forget her EDS. Had I really been so selfish that I could’ve missed something serious?
“I don’t think so. I’m sure she would’ve called…one of us if something was wrong.”
I’d wanted to say “me,” but Ashley, despite or perhaps because of their other arrangements, was Pen’s friend, too. If she didn’t feel like she could reach out to me, she might’ve reached out to Ashley. My fear bubbled up and I gripped the arm of my office chair so firmly my hand ached.
“Penelope has never missed…” She smiled at me, confirming exactly what she was talking about. “Our regular appointment, but she did on Monday. I’d already been waiting ages when she texted to apologize.”
Several things happened inside me at once. Pen had texted Ashley even though she wasn’t texting me, which hurt, but it also wasn’t like her to cancel plans after she was already late. There was also the “regular appointment on Monday.” I wanted more details on that. Was this every Monday? Every other Monday? A certain Monday every month? How many of these appointments had there been? Was there a single day of the week that was safe? Of course, she’d missed this appointment, so that was something.
“And she wasn’t at Riveter’s last night.”
“What?” She flinched when I shouted the question. I took a breath and cleared my throat. “How do you know that?”
“Katie and I went there looking for her.” I missed my chance to beg her not to elaborate, and she continued, “We were interested in…well, you know our arrangement. My wife, Katie, and I thought Penelope might want to join us, but she wasn’t there.”
Swipe Right Page 19