Always has been.
Whynot’s golden girl, the one every girl wanted to be, and every guy wanted to be with. Homecomingqueen, smartest in her class, full scholarship to Duke, and the first to pack up and leave for bigger things. She’s two years older than me and was always way out of my league, but yeah… I had a crush on her. The only reason she knew I existed was because Whynot’s so small, you can’t help but know everybody to some extent.
I watch as she moves a bucket from table to table, removing stacked chairs and wiping them down with vigorous energy. She constantly blows a stray lock of hair that’s fallen into her face, but she never slows down. Every summer during college, she’d storm back into town and work at Central waiting tables to earn extra money.
I stop outside the door, debating if I should go in or mind my own business. Putting the puzzle pieces together—flour on her face, scrubbing things down—it seems Central Café might be fixing to open.
Curiosity wins and I knock on the glass door. Penny jumps, whirls around with her sponge raised like a weapon. When she sees me there’s instant recognition and fear melts into relief.
She tosses the sponge into the bucket, removes the yellow rubber gloves and comes to the door.
When she unlocks and opens it with a neighborly smile, she says, “Jesus, you scared me, Sam-Pete.”
“It’s just Sam,” I say with a grin as I step in. “And is it… still Penny Bean?”
She laughs and shakes her head. “My nickname never bothered me. Call me what you want.”
I glance around. “Didn’t mean to scare you, although I do enjoy seeing a woman ready for battle before sunrise.”
“What are you doing lurking around at five thirty in the morning?” she asks conversationally, resting a hand on the back of one of the wooden chairs. “Can’t sleep without the sound of beer taps?”
“Day off,” I say easily. “I run on my days off. Helps me keep my boyish figure.”
She snorts. “You’re still working at Chesty’s? I saw you walking in on my way into town yesterday.”
“Sure am. Keeps the lights on, but I’ve got something else going on the side.”
Her brows lift with interest. “Something else?”
I grin, wiping sweat off my temple with the hem of my T-shirt. “Yeah.”
“Well, that’s cryptic.”
I wink at her. “That’s because it’s none of your business, Penny Bean.”
She laughs again and damn it’s pretty. For a second, it’s 2013 again—me at seventeen, her at nineteen, standing by the lake while she and her friends argued over whose turn it was to swing off a rope into the murky waters. She laughed at something one of them said, quick and genuine, and it branded itself into my memory. Thatcarefree, gorgeous girl who dazzled all around her.
I clear my throat, glance around pointedly. “Is Central Café opening back up?”
“Hopefully in two days,” she says, and I can hear the fatigue in her voice.
“And you’re…” I let the sentence drift, an indication I’d love a little more information.
“And I’m taking some time away from my job to help Muriel out,” she says with a wan smile. “She’s not allowed back in this place for another eight weeks and financially, it’s going to put her under. I stepped in and well… you’ll be seeing me around a lot more in the coming months.”
“That is not a hardship at all,” I say, and yeah… I meant it to come out flirty. I’m not the same seventeen-year-old who crushed on Penny.
She blushes and drops her gaze. That’s very unlike the Penny Pritchard I have imagined… a Washington, DC lobbyist who probably eats congressmen for lunch.
“I can see you’ve been up to no good in the kitchen.”
Penny frowns, head tilted in confusion.
I enlighten her. “You’re covered in flour, but I don’t smell biscuits.”
“Ah,” she says in understanding. “I’m practicing Muriel’s recipe. While Johnny and Betsy are great cooks, Muriel did all the baking. I was going to pop them in the oven, but I can’t get the oven to light. I think the pilot’s dead.”
I toss my head toward the swinging double doors that lead into the kitchen. “Want me to take a look?”
