Back in Sheridan Hall, I stop in front of room six, assuming she’s going to follow me in. But when I open the door, she doesn’t. I point my chin inside. “You coming?”
She pouts, not moving from the hallway. “I have a paper due on Friday, so I think I’ll have to forego you tonight.”
“Forego me?” I laugh. “You don’t want to do that, do you?” I join her in the hallway and kiss her neck, letting my hands fall over her ass. I’m so sick of winter and the eight hundred layers of clothes she always wears. I push her coat off and start untucking shirt after shirt.
“I don’t want to,” she whines, “but I have a paper.”
I glance at the basement hall. It’s quiet. Everyone must be at dinner. “Sex will help you write. That’s what they say.” I get to her bra and undo the fastener then move my hands over her chest.
She squirms and murmurs, “That’s what who says?”
“Hemingway.”
“Really,” she laughs, looking up and down the hallway. “Are you going to strip me right here?”
“Maybe.”
We leave half our clothes on the floor as we fall into the room. I lock the door behind her and push her jeans over her hips.
I kiss her mouth and find her tongue. When her hands tangle in my hair, I’m certain I’ve got her focus off her paper. “Please? A quickie?” I beg, just make sure.
“‘Kay,” she sighs, and I hold her back against the door.
She wraps her legs around me. “Condom,” I say between kisses. I carry her to the drawer and fumble for one as I push my jeans down, wishing I could be in her without it. Somehow, I manage to roll it on with Megan clinging to me.
Without hesitation, I fall to my knees and gently lay her back on the floor. She smiles at me, her eyes searching my face. I keep her gaze as I maneuver my hips and enter her in one long, easy movement.
“Ah,” she sighs.
When she closes her eyes, I kiss her nose. “Open your eyes,” I breathe.
She does and wraps her legs around my waist again. “Top,” she says in a moan, and I flip onto my back, bringing her with me, not letting her leave me. With Megan on top of me, I can’t keep eye contact anymore. My hands wander from her ass up her waist to her tits. She moans, and I almost fall apart. “You’re amazing.”
She pushes on my chest as she lifts and lowers herself on me. She speeds up and then stops, leaning over my body to kiss me. “Touch me,” she demands. She takes my hand and guides it between her legs, and then she starts moving again.
She’s warm and soft and wet on my fingers. She keeps one hand over mine and shows me how she wants me to touch her. The feel of her on my fingers, riding my dick, her hard thighs around my hips, drives me insane. She drops her head back, and I know she’s feeling it. She’s almost there.
I reach my free hand to her hair and nudge her head back up. “Look at me,” I say. I don’t know why it’s so damn important, but I want to watch her eyes when she comes.
She opens her eyes again and moans my name. I don’t think I can take much more. I try to keep my hand moving the way she likes, and I talk to her. I tell her how hot she is, I tell her how much I love fucking her, how I love the way she feels inside, the way she tastes. I make her look at me the entire time.
When she moves faster, I watch it happen. She says my name and comes on top of me, eyes open, looking at me like I’d wanted, and I feel it. The connection. Her big, blue eyes pierce right to my heart and everything she wants, everything she is, flows into me. Seeing her, feeling her, watching her give herself to me, makes me fall apart too.
I hold her hips as I lift mine, releasing into her, every muscle relaxing, every nerve ending sensitized. As I come back to earth from wherever she just took me, she collapses onto me on the floor.
I kiss the top of her head. “Jesus Christ, Sweet Meg. You’re fantastic.”
She lifts her chest to look at me. “Me? You’re fantastic.”
“We’re both fan-fucking-tastic together,” I say.
She smiles and peeks over my head. “We didn’t even make it to the bed.”
“We almost forgot the condom,” I point out.
When Meg rolls off of me, I’m cold and want to pull her back. But I stand and offer her a hand, helping her up as we look for our clothes. I find my jeans and pull them up over me.
Meg steps into her jeans too. “I’m going to go to the Health Center and go on the pill. Come with me. We’ll get tested for everything, and then we can do it without.”
“I’ve never done it without.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“Let’s go together,” she suggests. “Fuck condoms.”
I gasp. “Megan Smith! I’m acting shocked, but really I’m just turned on again.”
“Well, if we’re a team, we may as well get our game plan straightened out.”
“With the right equipment?” I tease.
“Something like that. Your equipment’s fine, Riley, trust me.”
A bang on the door startles us, and we both jump. “Yeah?” I call. Megan hides behind me even though the door is closed and locked.
“Hey, Ben. You left some clothes out here.” Rodrigo. “I like your pretty pink bra.”
“Yeah, thanks A-Rod,” I yell through the door. “You should see my yellow one.”
Megan’s eyes widen. “How did my bra end up in the hallway?” Then she flies into a fit of laughter that makes me feel it again. The connection.
Megan
On Friday, I email my paper to my English professor, and Ben and I head to the Health Center for our tests and a birth control prescription. Later, we drive to Fort Lee to have dinner with Penelope and Brendan. Ben looks adorable in khakis and his button down shirt, his beard is groomed and incredibly sexy, his hair is a long, thick mess of brown waves, and his eyes are framed by those long, dark lashes that I can’t stop thinking about. After these past few weeks of seeing him—all of him—it’s amusing that I’ve been obsessing about his eyelashes, of all things.
Ben carries the flowers, and I carry the cupcakes. We knock on the green door of Penelope’s townhouse. I feel a little guilty—my father doesn’t know we’ve met and would probably hate the idea of me being here. But when Penelope opens the door and smiles, I can’t help but resent my father. Anger starts to boil in the pit of my stomach, but I hold it down.
Looking past her, the house is warm and bright, and the smell of dinner greets me. “Hi,” she says, biting her lip and fidgeting in the doorway.
I give her a quick hug. “Penny, this is Ben.”
“Ma’am,” he says, and hands her the flowers. “It’s nice to meet you.”
She studies the flowers and smiles. “They’re lovely. I’ve heard a lot about you. Please come in. It’s freezing out.”
Ben and I enter the townhouse, and the pitter-patter of little feet pummels toward us. Brendan appears in a football helmet, wielding a sword. “Argh!” he says.
Penelope bends down to talk to him. “Bren, calm down. I want you to meet my special friends. This is Megan, and this,” she points to Ben, “is Ben. Can you say ‘hi’?”
“Hi! Wanna play?”
I squat and study his little face. I want to touch him, but I don’t want to freak him out. With his yellow blond hair and big blue eyes, he’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. He smiles and reaches for my cheeks. Holding my face in his hands, he moves his nose close to mine. “You be the pwin-cess.”
When Brendan calls me “princess,” I think of my dad. Then I look up at Ben, who comes to my rescue.
“Can I be the princess?” he asks.
“No,” Brendan laughs. “I’m the bad guy, and you’re the good guy.”
I smile at Ben who grins down at me. “He’s used to that role.”
“Penny,” Ben says, “if it’s okay, can I play ‘good guy’ with Brendan for a while?”
I know the last thing he probably wants to be doing on a Friday night, his freshman year
of college, is playing with my four-year-old half-brother in a townhouse in Fort Lee. But he’s here. For me.
“I think that would be fine,” Penelope says. “Brendan, you be nice to Mr. Ben, okay? No sword fighting.”
“‘Kay,” he says as he grabs Ben’s hand and drags him away.
Penelope smiles, and I follow her through a long hallway to the kitchen. The townhouse is nice. Not huge, but comfortable. Butterflies form and the nerves come to the surface. I twist my hands and sweat forms on my brow. I don’t know what to say, so I fill the silence with chatter. “I… Is it just you and Brendan?”
She goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a pitcher. “Yes. I don’t have time to date really. He keeps me busy enough.”
Penelope pours a tall glass of iced tea and holds it to me. I take it and thank her. “Ben’s handsome. Very polite.”
“He’s the best.”
“I remember him from the press in November. He looks different now with the beard.”
He did start growing his beard out after Frank’s memorial service. “I kind of think it looks good.”
“It does. He’s cute.” She blushes the same way I do. “I was about your age when I met your dad in college. He was a sophomore, and I was a freshman. We lived down the hall from each other.”
“Just like me and Ben.”
Ben yelps from the other side of the house.
“Oh no,” Penelope says. “I hope Brendan doesn’t wear him out.”
“He’s pretty sturdy. He grew up with four older brothers.”
“Did he! How about you? Did you have kids around growing up?” Her voice shakes, and she looks at me over the rim of her tea glass.
I shake my head. “No. Just me.” If I’d known I had a brother… I change the topic. “You mentioned at the diner that you’re home with Brendan. How do you manage? I mean, financially.” I’m digging for information, anything that would support my dad’s theory.
She refills her glass and puts a hand in her blonde hair, fluffing it, as her eyes dart from mine to the tabletop. “I have some investments… inheritances.”
I nod slowly. “Oh.” Maybe there’s something to dad’s theory after all.
An oven timer goes off, and Penelope jumps from the noise. “Dinner,” she says as she walks to the oven. After she takes the roast out of the oven, she looks over her shoulder. “Will you help me set the table?”
I smile and take a mental picture of the scene before me. My mother, preparing dinner, asking me to set the table. It’s so normal. Penny points me to the dinnerware, and I grab what I think we’ll need.
I walk around the table setting dishes and silverware and take a minute to look around the townhouse. Nothing is new or high tech, like in my dad’s house, but Penny’s home is cozy, neat, and comfortable. I can’t imagine the woman with the flower patterned dishes and the lace tablecloth is the evil witch my father and uncle want me to believe. Lots of people live off investments and inheritances, right?
I set Brendan’s plastic kid dishes at the seat with the booster chair. “Tell me more about Brendan.”
Penelope beams at me over the kitchen counter. “He’s adorable, obviously. But like I told you at the diner, he’s a handful. Never stops moving. We just got his preschool picture.” She nods toward the fridge, and I walk over and study the school picture of Brendan.
“He’s awesome. You sound like you’re really proud of him.”
Penelope smiles. “I am. Do you want to go spend some time with him? I have to finish up some stuff, and then I’ll call you in.”
There’s nothing I want more than to hang with my new little brother, but I force myself to ask, “Are you sure you don’t need help?”
She waves her hands, urging me toward the boys. “Go. We have all the time in the world to catch up.” I cringe at her words, knowing that by being here I’m betraying my father’s wishes. I promise myself that I’ll tell him everything in due time. Maybe he’ll feel better knowing that she doesn’t seem to want to do me any harm. She only wants to get to know me, and I her.
I walk down the hallway, following the noise. Through a glass door, I see Brendan and Ben in sword fight. Ben’s wearing a cowboy hat. I remember Halloween at the football frat party when Ben wore a cowboy hat as a costume. I remember everything about Ben from the minute I met him.
The sight of them playing together warms me from head to toe. I walk through Penny’s living room to get to them, and a collage of photos hanging on the wall distracts me.
I stop and move closer, staring at the pictures, seeing my mother’s life. The life she had without me. There are pictures of her holding an infant Brendan. What was he like as a baby? Pictures of her with girlfriends. Do they know about me? Pictures of Brendan with older people, maybe his grandparents. Do I have grandparents?
A photo in the middle of the frame catches my eye. It’s Penelope, a young Penelope with an outdated hairstyle, holding a little baby with a pink cap.
I bite my lip. It’s me. My face is all squishy and newborn-looking, but hers is beaming as she holds me up to the camera. Dad’s not in the picture. He was at the hospital for my birth, wasn’t he?
I study the photograph and Penny’s face as she holds me. How could he? How could he take me away from her?
I shake my head and gather my thoughts, and then I bust through the glass door to what appears to be Brendan’s playroom. “It’s the pwin-cess!” Brendan’s little voice yells as he runs to me.
I lift him and swing him around. Ben catches my eye and tips his hat at me.
I wink at him and yell, “Help! I’m a princess, and I need help!” It’s not entirely untrue.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ben
On Saturday morning, I wake alone in my bed. For the first time since Valentine’s Day, I don’t wonder about Meg’s state of mind. I assume she went for a run or snuck out to sleep in her own bed. She’s the type of person who needs space. I’m going to have to learn to give her that.
Still, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to protect her. Before I think too hard about whether or not to do so, I call Mr. Smith.
“Benjamin! How are you?”
“I’m fine, sir.” Outside my window, the snow has started to fall. I’d almost forgotten about the blizzard.
“Amelia won’t return my calls,” he says. “Is she okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine. I’m trying to get her to call you, but she’s stubborn.”
“I understand. She hasn’t called Pisser back either.” I zone out imagining Grady Pisko, the other half of “Smith to Pisko,” until Mr. Smith asks me what’s up.
Even though the weather is crap, I need to see Mr. Smith face-to-face and try to convince him to come clean with Megan, for my sake, for his, and most importantly, for hers. Maybe if I see him, I can convince him that Meg needs him to be honest. “Are you in New York, sir?”
“Yes, I’m not leaving until I straighten this matter with Amelia’s mother.” I’m sure he has many eyes on her and we’ve been followed this entire time, although he doesn’t mention seeing us in Fort Lee.
“Can I come see you?”
“Amelia too?”
“Just me.”
“Alright, son. Don’t drive though. The weather’s bad. I’m on a conference, but I’ll have the car there in a half hour at the same spot as last time.”
I hang up and race around the room, gather my shower things, and get ready in record speed. I text Megan.
Have to run out before the snow gets bad. See you later?
I add a heart to the end. It’s my “pre-I-love-you,” until the words happen.
I grab my keys and my coat and step out into the cold New Jersey air. I drive the Buick to the Fieldhouse and wait for the limo.
When it arrives, the driver opens the door for me. I slide into the warm, soft seats and doze off. Even in and out of sleep though, I can tell that the weather is building, as is the traffic. It’s slow getting into the city. Salt trucks prep
the roads. The sky turns an imposing shade of grey as the flakes fall faster in a diagonal pattern to the ground. Probably not the best day for a face-to-face.
It takes almost an hour to get across the bridge. By the time I arrive, Mr. Smith meets me in the lobby of his building with a handshake. “Good to see you, Ben,” he says. “How’s the arm?”
I tell him I’m still rehabbing and make up some shit about new exercises. I follow him into the elevator where he inserts a key to activate it. We rise in record speed until the doors open to a foyer with a huge flower arrangement in its center.
He leads me inside. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you.” I walk across the foyer, past the flowers, to the huge window overlooking the city. The view is amazing—the sky is fierce with grey, swirling clouds. Then I look around and try to picture Megan everywhere. Photographs of Big Joe and Meg, Grady Pisko and a woman who I assume is his late wife, line a long mantel. A large trophy case catches my eye, and I beeline for it.
The freaking Haynes.
Mr. Smith holds a glass and swirls it so that the ice clinks against the side. “Want to hold it?”
I nod my head but can’t make words.
He places his glass on the mantel and opens the case. He lifts the trophy and slowly holds it out to me.
It’s heavy in my hands. I wonder if Big Joe thought so too, the first time he held it. I try to imagine what it feels like to have such success—to have your dreams come true. It seems like such a long shot. “Wow" is the only word I can manage as Mr. Smith’s career flashes through my mind, mingled with my own childhood football memories.
I place it carefully into the case.
“It’s a moment I’ll never forget.”
“I hope I have a moment like that someday.”
“You will. Maybe not the Haynes, but you’ll have a moment that will change your life.”
Maybe my life-altering moment came already, that awful day in November.
I look around and refocus on my mission. “So this is the penthouse Megan always talks about. She loves it here.”
“Her presence is what makes it a home. She used to go between here and Pisser and Annie’s house on the East Side. Sometimes she’d travel with me.” He joins me at the window and points to the park. “I used to take her across the park. On snowy days like today, I’d pull her on the sled. She was so tiny that if I pulled too hard, she’d jerk and fall off the back.”
She Runs Away (The Sheridan Hall Series Book 2) Page 21