Dalton
The ease with which Penny moves around my apartment unsettles me. She looks comfortable in my place, and that’s something I’ve worked hard to make sure most people don’t do. There are no family photographs to ask about. There’s no place to hang a coat or lounge comfortably too long and chat. When my designer came through, I specifically asked for an uncomfortable couch because I didn’t want people to stay long.
The designer had scrunched her nose up and giggled, but I cut it short. I was dead serious. She called me an asshole, but still fucked me on that couch the day it was delivered. Women like assholes—that was my takeaway. They shouldn’t. I should be the loneliest fucking bastard in Boston, but I’m not. What does that say about women? Nothing I didn’t already know.
Penny starts unloading her groceries like she lives here. She has a confidence and breezy nature most women I’ve met lack. I bet she’s even happy in her shared studio apartment. A fucked-up broken part of me has this desire to wake her up to the reality that her life sucks. Another shitty reflection on human nature, but nothing I didn’t know about myself. I never claimed to be a nice man.
“So you seriously never cook? Not even for yourself?” Penny is chopping carrots with quick precision as she eyes me incredulously. Her delicate hands draw my attention.
“Why would I? Did you not see the huge assortment of food they brought up from downstairs the other day? Why bother?”
“So you can create your own flavors,” she answers excitedly. “The colors, the ingredients. It’s a canvas you paint and design yourself.”
Damn, she belongs in commercials. I’d be ready to fucking buy whatever she’s selling.
“Pass,” I say waving her off. Even if the idea of cooking and other tasks like that are lost on me, it doesn’t mean I’m not intrigued by her explanation. I can’t think of anyone I’ve met in recent years who had that sparkle in their eyes. Unless they were crushing someone else’s spirit. That tends to make the people I know light up. Sad, but true.
“Then why do you have all this stuff?” she asks, gesturing at the kitchen gadgets and supplies. “It looks like a chef’s kitchen you’d see in a magazine.”
“Because my designer asked if I wanted the kitchen stocked, and I said yes.”
Her look of bemusement tells me I make no more sense to her than she does to me, yet here we are in my kitchen.
Dancing around the desire to fuck each other.
Isn’t that what this is all about?
“Did your parents never cook?” she asks, her back turned to me as she fires up the stove that I think has probably been used twice since I moved in. Both times were to heat some hot wax . . . not intended for consumption, only titillation. I wonder if she’s into wax.
Tonight I’m into whatever she is.
She’s giving me that look again, like I’m supposed to say something of importance. “I never knew my mother, but the women who paraded through my dad’s life weren’t there to cook. And they never stayed long.” What the fuck is she? Some sort of skilled interrogator? I’ve just divulged more to her in twenty minutes in my kitchen than I have to people who have been in my life for decades.
“That’s sad,” she remarks, turning halfway to give me a sympathetic look. No, not again. My temper begins to rise. “Where did they all go? And why were there so many women?”
It doesn’t matter. I take a deep breath and remind myself this isn’t about me or how I feel about anything. It’s a dance of sorts. She’s one of those women who needs to talk first—so I’ll talk. “You know how birds fly south when the weather gets cold?” I lean casually against the counter, folding my arms over my chest.
“Yes.” Her brows knit together, and I wonder what faces she’ll make when I’m eating her out later.
“Women migrate toward money. My dad was a risk taker. He’d invest and win big, and just as quickly he’d lose it all. Women came in and out like the tide. Some played Mommy, some pretended I didn’t exist. I got used to it. The only confusing part was how my father could be surprised each time one left him. He never learned.”
“That must have been really hard for you to watch. No wonder you’re screwed up. It makes sense now.”
Screwed up?
“I’m not the one who’s screwed up,” I cut back with a laugh. “You’re the one who pretends to be happy even when you’re not.”
“I’m not pretending,” she counters, widening her eyes. “Is it so hard for you to believe I can be happy without a personal shopper or masseuse on call? Some people actually believe the old saying about money.”
“Which old saying is that?” I ask, assuming she’s going to drop some ancient philosophy bullshit on me. I’m already creating my counter argument. Whatever some old dude felt about money, doesn’t apply today. The world is a different place, and money is now all that matters.
“Mo’ money, mo’ problems,” she says with a straight face, holding it as long as she can before she breaks into an adorable laugh.
“Deep,” I say, rubbing my chin as though I’m contemplating the words. “I thought you were going to go a little further back in history than that for your words of wisdom.”
“Hey, could you peel those potatoes for me?” She points at the counter.
“Me?” I look around as though someone else will appear suddenly in the room to help her.
“Yes, if you’re capable. I need them peeled and cubed.”
I sigh. If this is what she likes to do before she bangs a guy, I guess I can cut a vegetable. I’ve known some crazy-ass women in my day with all kinds of fetishes. Plus, when she whisks whatever she has in that pot, her tits jiggle. It’s dinner and a show.
I get to work making perfectly square cubes. I do everything with precision and intensity. She’ll see that later. As I imagine what awaits us, Penny catches me smiling and grins.
“Well, look at you,” she says, propping one hand on her hip as she assesses my work. “I told you this was fun. It’s therapeutic. Chopping. Cooking. Chatting with friends.”
“We aren’t friends,” I say and regret my knee-jerk reaction. I don’t want her to be unhappy. I’m just honest.
“You like me. Admit it.” The corners of her mouth creep up enough for me to know she’s not offended, but she still believes I’m faking all this friends are bullshit talk. It’s only fair I give her the real me.
“I just want to fuck you,” I reply flatly as though I’m pointing out the fact that the sky is blue. Because it is and this is as true as that. “I’m being honest.” This time she holds a poker face, and I’m impressed. If I’ve shocked her, she’s not showing it.
She doesn’t skip a beat in her reply. “In that case, wouldn’t it make more sense for us to be friends?” A smug smile rises, and I can tell she thinks she’s landed a solid point, but she doesn’t know how wrong she is.
“Are you friends with everyone you’ve fucked?” She is too smoking hot to have not hooked up with a few nameless guys. Maybe even a couple of guys like me.
“I am,” she replies proudly.
What the hell?
“They are both good friends of mine. As a matter of fact, I went to one of their weddings a few months ago. I gave him and his new wife a nice engraved serving platter.”
“Both,” I say, choking on the idea that this hot girl has only been with two men. I almost cut my finger off. “When is the last time you had sex?”
“Why would I tell you that?” she asks, finally seeming to reach her threshold on my prying. Her cheeks are getting pink, and my insides tangle up. I want to accuse her of lying. Worse, I want her relative innocence to be true. Which only confuses me more. I’m not into innocence or the tedious emotional roller coaster that follows a brush with it. Yet, I can’t look away, can’t convince myself to end this. I’m hooked, but I’m not going down without a fight.
I smirk. “Don’t friends talk about everything?”
“I thought we weren’t friends.”
She’s good. I laugh, but persist. “How long?”
“Whatever. A year?” She shrugs and turns back toward the stove.
She thinks? “If you can’t instantly and vividly remember the last time, then you’re doing it wrong.”
“I am not doing it wrong.” She slaps the wooden spoon to the counter. “I’m good at it. Everything was just fine, thank you.”
“Oh really? Tell me about it then. Tell me about that last magical encounter you can’t remember.”
“No way.” She picks the spoon back up, waves it at me, and I get spattered with something. “Sorry.” She hurries a towel to me. She’s flustered and it’s absolutely fucking hot to watch her squirm.
“So you like to include food, I can get into that,” I joke as I let her wipe my shirt with the towel. Her hand lingers on my pecs for a second and our eyes meet. That’s all it takes to get me rock hard. Again.
She breaks away from me and channels her embarrassment into anger. “And you think the parade of vapid idiots you bring up from the bar is doing it better? Strangers? I’ve heard all about how it works here. No way that’s good sex.”
“I can guarantee it’s better than whatever cutsie buddy fucks you had with your two pals. But now’s your chance; prove me wrong. Describe what you consider good.”
She opens and then suddenly closes her mouth as she moves on to some other task at the stove. “I would if we actually were friends, but we’re not. You don’t do friendships.”
This time it’s not a joke. It’s the truth, and one I don’t deny. “I don’t.”
“Then just cube those potatoes.”
I lay the knife down. Although I find the way she bosses me around adorable, I can’t let this go. I don’t have a need to ask questions, but the more time I spend with her the more I want to know about her. It’s unsettling. “Nothing else riles you up, but a little sex talk and suddenly you’re ordering me around? Wait, is that your thing? Dominatrix? I could work with that.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s blushing. “I’m not riled up. I don’t let anyone or anything bug me. Not this conversation and not my car getting towed. Life’s too short to dwell on the negative.”
Exactly. There’s nothing negative about what I’d like to shift her attention to. Orgasms not only feel good, but there’s medical research supporting they’re also good for a person’s health.
This is my opening to take the flirting to a deeper level, but there’s something in her eyes that stops me. She likes me, and I—I don’t see her the way I do most people. She’s not trying to impress or manipulate me. Right here in my apartment, I am sitting across from a creature so rare I’d stopped believing in it—a genuinely nice person.
Part of me wants to protect her from the very man I am as well as the other men in the building. “You need to be careful. They won’t stop. If anything, not reacting will amp up their attempts to get you out of here.”
“Let them try,” she says defiantly as she plants her palms on the counter and stares at me. “I don’t let other people’s drama and negativity impact me. My sister asked for my help, and I’m not budging. She’s more important than whatever anyone here can throw at me. Once they understand that, they’ll give up.”
I wish I were as optimistic about where this was headed. Although, I can see one thing we have in common.
“I don’t let other people’s drama and negativity impact me, either.” Now that has been my life’s mantra.
My stomach churns with worry that I instantly resent. I don’t want any of this. I want to go back to when Bachelor Tower was my haven from the world and a woman like Penny would come up from the bar for just a few hours and then leave. But I guess that’s the point. There are no women like Penny down at the bar and there never will be.
Shit.
Maybe I hit my head hard this morning and don’t remember it, but I actually want to hear about this sister she says she cares so much about. More questions? Me? Is there any surer sign that I’m losing it? “Is your sister as hopeful as you are?”
Penny laughs. “Kylie? No way. She’s a little like you. Every glass is not only half empty, but she needs to be the one to fill it. We joke that there’s no way we came out of the same vagina, but my parents swear we did.”
I smile and this time not because I’m imagining her naked. She’s funny. I wonder if the two men she’s been with appreciated that humor, and suddenly my mood takes a dark turn. How I’ve gone from being surprised and intrigued to hear she’s been with only two men, to jealous that she’d been with them at all is beyond me. I’m not possessive when it comes to women, but I don’t like the idea of her with another man.
I also don’t know how I like being compared to her sister. “That’s how you see me?”
Penny tips her head to one side. “Careful, you nearly sound like you care what I think.”
I almost say I do. The words are on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I scoop the potatoes into a bowl and say, “I don’t, but I thought it was a better topic than your mother’s vagina.”
Penny starts laughing.
I join in.
And it feels good.
So good it scares me.
I call downstairs to have another new key card brought up for Penny’s apartment. I can’t fuck her. Not tonight. Not when she’s tangling my insides up in knots.
I’m not her friend, but if I were, I’d tell her to stay far, far away from a man like me. Instead of picturing her naked, I’m imagining her baking cookies with her children and laughing when their family dog swipes one.
The image scares the shit out of me because for just an instant I saw myself in that scene, hugging her from behind and laughing along.
I raise my hand to my forehead, positive I must be fighting a fever—there’s really no other explanation.