By the time Penn came, we were both covered in sweat, our lips raw, my legs aching. But I was completely sated—inside and out.
He held me as we slept, just like he always did.
But it wasn’t the same.
Even if I couldn’t figure out why.
Cora
Me: Hypothetically speaking, if I were to make you a birthday dinner, what day of the year would I make that?
Penn: On my birthday.
Me: So, like, Tuesday?
Penn: My birthday isn’t Tuesday.
Me: So Wednesday?
Penn: Not then, either. Where ya going with this?
Me: Hopefully somewhere with streamers and party hats.
My phone started ringing in my hand. Penn’s number and a sneaky picture I’d snapped of him smiling while talking to his brother popped up on my cracked screen.
“Hello, gorgeous,” I whispered seductively.
“Baby, my hands are covered in drywall mud. I type one more text to you and my phone is going to become a sculpture.”
Things had changed in the two weeks since Penn and I had finally taken our relationship to R-rated. I wanted to say it was for the better. It felt like the better each night as he climbed into my bed and kissed me breathless before sliding inside me. Or when River and Savannah would leave for school and he’d come over and shower with me. Neither of us got very clean during those showers, but they were effective in other ways.
But it was different.
We still smiled.
We still laughed.
We still played Truth or Lie tit-for-tat.
But the weight that had once only been in his eyes now loomed all around him.
He stared off into space a lot more, and his questions about my past got deeper. He asked about Nic. How it had felt when I lost him? What was the hardest part? Where I would have liked to be if I’d never gotten trapped by the Guerreros?
And, surprisingly enough, I told him a lot of truths.
For all intents and purposes, Penn and I were growing closer by the day.
But there was something between us that I couldn’t figure out.
It’d come out eventually––everything did. I just had to hold on until he was ready.
“Drew kinda sorta mentioned that you were a Gemini.”
“Oh, he kinda sorta mentioned this, did he? It fell into casual conversation? ‘Oh hey, Cora. Penn’s a Gemini,’” he teased.
“Well, no. Not exactly. I may have asked him when your birthday was and he may have refused to answer, citing that he ‘ain’t no snitch.’ But, when I offered him the leftover Swedish meatballs from dinner last night, he cited that ‘Even snitches gotta eat,’ and told me you were a Gemini, which according to my research started last week. I pressed further, but not even homemade cookies could make him give me the actual date. So…I’m hoping I haven’t missed it and it’s like…Thursday?”
He laughed. “Next Thursday, babe.”
I blew out exaggerated relief. “Thank goodness. I still have time to plan.”
“Plan away. But, just so we’re clear, I’m not wearing a fucking party hat.”
“Okay. Fine. But how do you feel about a piñata?”
“Fucking hell,” he breathed. “And on that note, I gotta get back to work. You cooking tonight or you want me to grab some takeout?”
I groaned. Takeout sounded amazing, but… “Savannah requested tacos.”
“They got takeout tacos at a restaurant too.”
I huffed, “No, I already bought the stuff. If I don’t cook it tonight, the meat will go bad.”
“All right. Your call. Hit me up if you change your mind.”
“Will do.”
“Bye, babe.”
“Bye, Penn.”
When the connection was severed, I sat there for several minutes, my eyes glued to my phone, pure happiness radiating through me as I basked in the normalcy between us.
My life was insane. My world was insane. But Penn made it all so manageable.
It was all kinds of wrong.
I’d spent too long trying to escape that place to become content now.
But, with Penn, the days weren’t as long.
They weren’t as hard.
And I had more than enough reasons to smile.
But staying had never been an option. I had plans. Plans that used to be my only reason for survival.
Plans I now had to force myself to follow through with on a daily basis.
Life with Penn was comfortable: the one thing I couldn’t afford to be.
“What about the girls on the third floor?” he asked as we lay in bed later that night.
Unfortunately, we were fully clothed. River and Savannah were still awake, but my fingers, toes, and everything in between were crossed that the taco coma would consume them soon enough.
I lazily traced the defined ridge of his pec beneath his T-shirt. “What about them?”
“While back, you told me about the first- and second-floor girls. But not the third.”
“Oh. They’re the ones who want out,” I admitted.
“And you help them?”
“I do what I can, but ultimately, I’m only one person.”
“Bullshit. One person,” he breathed, catching my hand to stop the movement. “You do the work of an army around this place. You need to own that.”
“I don’t know. I feel like a racehorse with four broken legs most of the time.”
His hand spasmed around mine. “How many girls have you gotten out?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Forty-nine.”
He let out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of lives for a legless racehorse to save. But I can see how that would be hard on you.”
My head perked up. “Hard on me?”
“Yeah. Watching people achieve something you want. That can’t be easy.”
“It’s hands down the easiest thing I’ve done. Those girls. They were mine. Sure, they were the ones who ultimately made the decision to get out. Some went back to school. Some made amends with friends and family in exchange for a place to stay. Some got clean. Whatever it was, they did that. But I helped. So that, in its own way, freed me too.”
His face got soft, his eyes warming. “What would it take to make you free, Cora?”
I didn’t have to think. I knew the answer to this question better than anything else. “One million, one hundred thousand, six hundred, eighty-four dollars.”
His eyebrows shot up.
I offered him a tight smile. “And ninety-nine cents.”
His face was priceless. “Come again?”
I laughed. “Between high school equivalency programs, housing, new wardrobes, counseling, and a few rehab programs, that’s how much it would cost to free all the girls in the building.”
“I didn’t ask about the girls in the building. I asked about you.”
“Oh. Okay. Then only… One million, one hundred thousand, six hundred, eighty-four dollars. If I’m out of here too, I can forgo the ninety-nine cent celebratory candy bar from the Stop and Shop.”
He glowered. “I’m serious.”
“I’m serious too. If I just up and disappear one day, where does that leave them?”
“I’m not talking about Savannah and River. Obviously, they’d go with you. But the rest… They’re grown women.”
“Yeah. Most of them are. But age doesn’t dictate your situation. A person can be a hundred and five and still need help.”
His face twisted in disbelief. “So you’re telling me, if someone comes in here and offers you a life raft, you’re going to refuse it because it won’t fit thirty-plus women?”
I narrowed my eyes. “No. I didn’t say that at all. But you gotta understand: I spent too many years hoping and praying for a life raft. I found a few. But they all fell apart before I made it over the first wave. To get me out of this life, I’m going to need an ark. The kind you have to build on your own. Because, when I get out of here and get my fe
et under me, I’m coming back until every last girl is out.” I paused and offered him a half shrug. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll pick up a drowning man along the way.”
He scowled at me, lips pursed, forehead crinkled, and something between awe and absurdity dancing in his eyes.
I huffed. “Stop looking at me like I’m crazy. I—ooph,” Before I could get another word out, I was on my back.
Penn was on top of me, his upper body pinning me to the bed. “You are crazy, Cora. There’s no other way to look at you,” he rumbled as his mouth came down on my neck.
I gasped, slanting my head to the side while he slid a hand up my thigh to hook my leg around his hip.
“You’re also beautiful,” he murmured between kisses, the scruff on his jaw teasing a path for his hot breath coasting across my skin. “And so incredible that I can’t decide if I need to have you certified as insane or nominated for sainthood.”
I wrapped my arms around him, turning my head to give him more access to my neck. “A vacation in a padded room does sound peaceful, but I don’t know if they allow conjugal visits.” I felt his lips on my neck curve into a smile. “I also don’t know if there’s some sort of celibacy vow involved with being a saint. So perhaps I should do some research and get back to you on that one.”
“Perhaps you should.” He went for my shirt, but he froze when we heard Savannah and River arguing in the hall. “Okay,” he drawled, moving off me and rolling onto his back.
I laughed as he threw his arm over his face, a very noticeable bulge showing behind his sweats.
“Soooo…truth or lie,” he said.
“Nuh-uh. My turn. What do your tattoos mean?”
“I don’t actually know.” His lips thinned as he lifted his arm above us, turning it as though he were inspecting it for the very first time.
“What do you mean you don’t know? You picked them out, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did,” he answered absently, his focus landing on the inked gears on the back of his left hand.
It was a complex design—by far the most intricate of his tattoos—that made his hand appear mechanical, filled with nuts and bolts rather than bones and blood. A circle of Roman numerals surrounded it, giving it the effect of a porthole into his flesh. For several beats, he stared at it, opening and closing his fist, the tendons making the ink dance.
“So why’d you get that one?” I pressed.
He chuckled, but it sounded a little sad and a lot broken. “I blindly chose it out of the artist’s portfolio. I opened to a random page and stabbed a finger down.” The skin between his eyes crinkled, and then, as though he couldn’t stand to look at it for a second more, he dropped his arm to the mattress. “It didn’t matter what it was. I just needed it to be there.” He went silent.
Physically, he was still there. Holding me the same way he had been only seconds earlier.
Mentally, he was at least a million miles away. But the longer he remained quiet, the more I thought a million miles and four years was probably more accurate.
His chest rose as he sucked in a deep breath, and he held it far longer than I’d thought possible.
I waited patiently. Of course I was curious. I would have loved the truth about that tattoo. Mainly why he was having such a visceral reaction to a simple question. But I didn’t want the answer at the price it was costing him.
I slid my hand over his stomach and hugged him as tight as I could. “Lie. It’s okay.”
“I hate lying to you.”
“It’s not a lie if you tell—”
“It’s still a lie, Cora.”
“A wise man once told me that not all lies are bad.”
He sighed but said nothing else.
We lay there together for a long time.
My head on his chest. His hand on the curve of my hip.
Perfectly normal.
Awkward as hell.
When his breathing finally evened out, I glanced up to see if he’d fallen asleep. His eyes were still open, aimed up at the four words Nic had once written in glow-in-the-dark stars across my ceiling. I hadn’t known it when he’d put them there, but those four words became more precious to me than any “I love you” he’d ever uttered.
After he was gone, they were a reminder to live when I didn’t want to.
To breathe when it felt impossible.
To keep going when all I really wanted to do was quit.
As far as I knew, Nic hadn’t been able to see the future, but the day he’d chosen to write those words on the ceiling above our bed, he’d proved that he knew me better than anyone else ever would.
One in. One out.
Now, lying there with Penn, I could only hope they were offering him even a morsel of the comfort they’d given me over the years.
I placed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“Yeah, I do,” he mumbled. “It’s just that there’s not always a lie to give. Not everything is black and white. Sometimes, the most important details are found in the gray. So, with that in mind, this is all I have for you tonight.” His eyes found mine, that weight inside them heavier than ever. “Truth. My tattoos mean nothing.”
I eyed him warily. “That didn’t seem like a nothing reaction, Penn.”
“It wasn’t. But it’s still the truth.”
I narrowed my eyes, searching his face. But, in true Penn fashion, he sucked in a breath, held it for several seconds, then blew it out and went right back to normal.
So. Freaking. Weird.
“I believe it’s my turn again,” he announced.
“Oh, no. This game is officially over for the evening.” I started to roll away but only made it to my back before he caught me.
“What happened to no pity?” The corners of his mouth lifted playfully, but his eyes were still sad and I hated it more than I could ever explain.
“Oh, I don’t feel bad for you. All that emotional upheaval. I’m concerned for your heart. You aren’t exactly a young man anymore.”
His eyes lit. His mouth split. And then he came back to me.
Burying his face in my neck, he burst into laughter.
It was a stupid joke, something I suspected he recognized too. But, in a life like ours, where the dark and dismal were far more prevalent than the light and humorous, you took the few moments of levity you could get.
Penn spent the night wound around me.
I talked.
He listened.
I laughed.
He kissed me.
And, eventually, when we were sure the girls were asleep, he made love to me.
I knew every inch of his body.
His favorite color was blue.
His favorite meal was turkey bacon burgers.
And his tattoos held both a lot of meaning and none at all.
However, the true Penn Walker was still a mystery to me.
But from that day forward, within every word he spoke—every truth, every lie, every sentence, and every syllable—I looked for the gray.
Little did I know, that was all I’d ever find in him.
Cora
“Surprise!” I yelled as Penn returned from his run at twenty past the crack of dawn. He was hot, sweaty, and shirtless—just the way I liked him.
He eyed the pan in my hand, complete with the numbers three and eight burning on top, as he walked over, pressed a chaste kiss to my lips, and then asked, “What did you do, woman?”
“So, I know you don’t like cupcakes. Which is a travesty in and of itself. But it’s your birthday, so I made you a little traditional dessert from your native area of the southern United States that you may recognize as blueberry cobbler.”
He blinked at me. “I’m from Florida.”
I pushed the pan toward him. “I know. Blow ’em out.”
“Florida’s not the South, Cor.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know how to read a map. I’m pretty sure Florida is as south as you can get in the U
.S.”
His lips thinned, suppressing his smile. “No, babe. Florida is not the South in terms of the culture. It’s a literal melting pot for people from around the world. You drive up into Georgia, you’ll find your cobbler. In Florida, though, that piñata you were talking about the other day or a tube of Bengay depending on which coast you’re on would be more appropriate if you wanted to do something reminiscent of my”—grinning, he tossed me a pair of air quotes—“native area.”
“What! Seriously?”
He laughed. “You mentioned you haven’t traveled much. But how far south have you been, babe?”
I twisted my lips. “Indiana?”
It was his turn to be shocked. “Seriously?”
I shrugged. “I don’t get out much.”
He cocked his head to the side. “How far you been north?”
“I’m not sure. What’s the northernmost room in the building?”
“Jesus,” he breathed.
“Now that you mention it, I’m a little offended I haven’t been invited on any of the Guerrero family vacations.” I winked and he rewarded me with a laugh.
He dipped his head, blew the candles out, and then brought his smiling mouth to mine for a lip touch. “Good news though. I fucking love cobbler.” He punctuated it with another lip touch.
My proud grin stretched across my face. “Of course you do. It has fruit in it. That’s, like, the anti-chocolate.”
He laughed again. “Nature’s sugar is better for your body.”
“Then I probably shouldn’t tell you there’s, like, a whole bag of good old-fashioned processed white sugar in it too.”
“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Good. Now I feel better about part one of my Florida-themed birthday party.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “What’s part two?”
I sauntered up the stairs, calling over my shoulder, “You’ll see.”
“Oh. My. God.” Drew gasped as we guided Penn to the railing overlooking the building’s postage-stamp backyard.
I’d sent them both home from work early with strict instructions to stay away from the windows.
Penn had grumbled. Because Penn.
Drew had grinned huge and offered me a high five. Because Drew.
The Complete Truth Duet Page 21