James throws on his denim jacket, journal and pen in the pocket, and as they’re ready to walk out the door, he excuses himself to the bathroom to scribble,Nelle rides with Penelope to the café.
Nelle sits in the passenger seat on the bumpy ride into town. James isn’t paying much attention, preoccupied with his memories of last night. Nelle’s wetness on the sheets, how hot she throbbed against his lips, how she tasted. It tookallhis self-control not to give in to their mutual impulses.
The “café” is a charming food truck parked beside a cluster of picnic tables. In the back seat, James pulls out the journal and writes for Nelle. They find a table while Penelope orders. James taps his shoe to Nelle’s.
Her lips twist. “What?”
“I wanna kiss you.”
“Which part of me?”
James adjusts his pants before Penelope sidles onto the bench beside Nelle with a tray of food. The right moment better comesoon.
Breakfast is delicious: hard-boiled eggs sprinkled with pepper, beans and toast, juicy slices of bacon, and some sort of onion-pepper-potato hash. He doesn’t realize how hungry he is until his plate is scraped clean and his stomach growls for more.
“How often do you come here?” Nelle asks.
“Every day,” Penelope laughs. “The last thing I want to do when I wake up iscook.”
Nelle squints at the bright morning. “It’s a nice view, too.”
Green hills swell alongside the black water. A breeze hustles in from the vast Atlantic, raising goose bumps on James’s arms. He drapes his jacket over his shoulders. Far across that water are his parents and Midi, going on about their lives without him. He misses them, but not Lincoln. That town might be too sleepy to ever draw him back.
He thinks about Jessie, and his heart clenches as it strikes him, not for the first time, how badly he misses New York.
Chapter 23
Four days later, Ptolemy reveals himself during a heated game of rummy. A white ragdoll with blue eyes pointed in different directions, he waddles out from under the couch and leaps onto the coffee table, scattering the cards. Nelle fawns over him. James mourns the ruined game. Penelope cackles, scooping Ptolemy into her arms like a baby. He only allows it for a moment before he squirms away and retreats to a corner of the couch.
“Does this mean he likes us now?” James asks, gathering the cards.
“Tolerates you,” Penelope corrects. “Now that he’s met you, he will decide if he likes you.”
“How will we know?” Nelle asks.
“You’ll wake up with him on your chest, staring at you like you committed a crime.”
“Seriously?”
Penelope nods grimly.
“Sleep with the door shut,” James says. “Noted.”
“If you do that,” Penelope adds, “then he will never like you.”
Nelle leans back, eye level with the cat. “Is that true, Tom?”
He hisses, mouth pink and fanged.
Penelope takes the cards from James. “He hates nicknames. Trust me, I’ve tried them all.”
“You have a very particular cat,” James says.
“What can I say?” She pats Ptolemy’s round head three times and he blinks, blinks, blinks. “He gets it from his mommy.”
Ptolemy meows, then jumps off the couch. He circles the coffee table once before walking away, brushing his duster of a tail against a door James assumed was a closet.
“Is that Ptolemy’s bedroom?” Nelle asks.
