“You can never be too successful, Sebastian, so long as you have a happy balance between work and family,” she says.
The words aren’t new.She says them often.
“Nana, I’ve made so much money I won’t be able to spend it all in my lifetime, much less yours or Ma’s.I might have to adopt an entire football team of kids just so it doesn’t go to waste when I die,” I half joke.
“I have nothing against adoption, but don’t you want kids of your own?Or is there something you want to tell me?”
“He’s not gay, Ma,” my mother says as she sits on the cushioned wicker couch.
“How do you know?He’s never brought a girl home,” Nana quips.
“He’s never brought a man either, but don’t you remember the way his face lit up when he talked about that girl who tutored him in high school?”
I freeze in disbelief.
For fifteen years, I silently begged for whatever breadcrumbs I could find of Penelope, now, in one day, I not only quite literally bumped into her, but my mother also casually brought her up in conversation?
Life is too cruel.
Realizing I never told her how young Penelope was at the time, I snap my mouth closed so fast my teeth audibly click together, and I speedwalk across the rooftop.
I may have been an eighteen-year-old blockhead, but I was not sexually attracted to a twelve-year-old girl.If my face lit up when I spoke about her, it was because she was brilliant.
She still is, except she’s an adult now, and I am very much attracted to her.
It’s too much to explain.
My matriarchs shout for me, but I yank open the door and descend the stairs as fast as my legs will carry me.My mother’s laughter follows me down the hall and to my apartment.
I close the door behind me and drop my forehead to the cool surface.
Unsettled, I sit down with my laptop for a few minutes of work only to curse an hour later when I realize I went down a research rabbit hole and confirmed Penelope’s educational prowess.
I need her expertise.
And her.
Fuck.
I’m smitten.
Chapter 3
Penelope Miles
I wake sweaty and disorientedas my phone vibrates in my fist.My ears, face, and nipple piercings throb from tossing and turning through my nightmares all night long.I sit up and pull my shirt down, brushing my knuckles against the charm on my belly button ring, and cover my stomach as I survey the damage.
My thrashing knocked over the unopened water bottle I keep on the floor beside my beanbag, and the rug I use to delineate my sleeping space from the rest of my room sits completely askew with the corners flipped at odd angles, but the soundproofing panels remain on the walls, my headphones lie on the floor safely out of kicking reach, and my workstation shows no signs of being affected.At some point, I half woke, took off my headphones and bra, and tossed them onto the floor, but the rest of my clothes still hug my body.
My fear-sweat-soaked body.
With a grimace, I rise and check my ear and facial piercings before unzipping my bean bag cover, tossing it into the hamper, fixing my rug, and stripping.With all the dirties in the hamper, I tidy the rest of the things before locking myself in my tiny bathroom and showering.The routine doesn’t wash away the memories, but I take enough comfort in the familiarity to face my naked, dripping reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the door.
Part of me still refuses to recognize the scarred and pierced woman staring back at me, but her curves and natural beauty assure me I’m no longer the young, lost, and abused girl of my youth.I survived.I’m here.
Not everyone does.Not everyone stays.
My chest tightens at my bare ring finger.
