Penny didn’t want to get in the damn van. She did, and she didn’t. Until this second, she hadn’t realized that she’d been looking forward to tonight. To crawling into the tent and looking up through the pine trees at the night sky. She had a list of topics she wanted to discuss with Brett, but not out in the sunshine. Not when the others were around. Not even back at their apartment. The dark, quiet woods felt right.
“I second that!” Kelty stalked past Brett and motioned for Penny to follow her. Brett obeyed first, tossing her things onto the bench through the open side door. He stepped to the side for Penny to slide her duffel onto the floor.
“What’ll I do without my heater?” she teased, but Brett didn’t laugh. Her heart jumped into her throat when she realized she may have given too much away, so she didn’t look at him. Penny reached past him and slammed the side door closed, then grabbed the passenger door handle and climbed in. “Thank you!” she called out to the others before closing herself in and buckling her seatbelt.
Kelty wasted no time in starting the engine and pulling out onto the road. If Penny had felt like an idiot before, she’d doubled down in the last thirty seconds.What’ll I do without my heater?She slumped into her seat and pressed her fingers against her temples.
“Is that—?” Kelty peered into her rearview mirror, then hit the brakes. Penny sat up, whipping her head around to see why Kelty had stopped.
“What?” Penny murmured as Sean caught up to the van and slowed next to Kelty’s now open window.
“What the hell, Sean? You couldn’t text?”
Sean held up a finger as he caught his breath. “Can you come back to the site?”
“Did I forget something?” Kelty asked.
Sean nodded, then opened the side door and hopped in. Kelty pulled into the empty site on their left and turned around, then drove back to the campsite. She put the van in park then hopped out with Sean.
Penny watched, trying to decipher through terrible lip reading what was happening outside the glass. A few short moments later, Brett walked toward the van carrying his bag, and Penny’s brow furrowed just as her stomach swooped. Was he—?
Brett pulled the side door open and shoved her things further down the bench, then climbed in.
Penny whirled around. “You’re coming back, too?”
Brett nodded. “I mentioned to Sean I need to do a work thing. He said he’d bring the tent and mattress back.”
Penny nodded as Kelty jumped back in, and her pulse quickened. Why did “I need to do a work thing” sound a lot like “I need to get a power strip?” She was about to ask him whatkindof work thing when he said, “Plus we have that PT session Sunday.”
Her heart plummeted.Right.Brett was focused on playing next season, and he needed her to keep to the schedule so he could have any chance of getting there. “Of course. That makes sense.” She turned back around, and Kelty pulled out of their campsite a second time.
“So it’s actually a good thing you mixed up the date,” Brett added.
A good thing.Penny swallowed hard. “Glad it worked out.”
“Me too, actually. I have something I wanted to show you, Brett.” Kelty blasted the new Nickelback single three times in a row before Brett finally gave up three more people on his hate list: Shredder from theTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ALF acting as himself in Season Ten Episode Four of the Simpsons, and Xander fromBuffy the Vampire Slayer.
By the time they got home, Penny had heard a full-on debate about two out of the three, and her stomach had gone from aching out of regret and guilt to aching from laughter.
Kelty pulled into the driveway, and Brett and Penny got out and grabbed their things. They thanked Kelty for the ride and Penny made her promise she’d text and let them know she got back up to the campsite safely. That and allow her to pay for gas money. Penny knew she wouldn’t agree, so she’d already stuffed a twenty into the cupholder.
As they walked up the front steps, Brett spotted a package sitting on the front porch. “Did you order something?”
Penny shook her head. The porch light wasn’t on, so Brett pushed it out of the way to open the door, then flicked the switch. When she saw her name scribbled on the cardboard, the blood drained from her face.
She knew that handwriting.
Brett held the door open for her, so she dropped her things inside on the floor, then picked up the box and stepped over the threshold. “Do you know what it is?” he asked.
Penny shook her head. She could barely wrap her head around how Danny would’ve gotten this to her. How did he know where she was living? She mentally flipped through every person she’d told about her situation here with Brett, and couldn’t think of—
Her veins iced over.Sheryl.She’d emailed and asked if she could mail her last check, and Penny had given her Brett’s address. She hadn’t received the check yet, but this?
“Are you going to open it?” Brett closed the door behind her and flicked off the light.
“I don’t think I want to.”
Brett took a step back and stared at the box. “From your ex?” She nodded. “Do you want me to—”
