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“No. It’s for the one that got away.”
Her eyes flash back up to mine, and I think…
This is it… this is the moment when she realizes it.
But I see only a void in her pupils. A distrust that I wish I could wipe clean.
I’d give anything just to see her smile at me as she did across the room in that frat house where she was standing with a group of friends around the kitchen island.
“She dodged a bullet,” she says. “Lucky girl.”
Fuck… ouch.
Does she really hate me that much?
And should it surprise me?
Then she swiftly spins her head back to the printer and lifts the top flap up, laying my license on the flat glass. She sets the printer flap back down and hits copy on the control panel.
The loud sounds of the machine gearing up to make a copy of my ID fill the space around us.
She has no idea I meant her.
She thinks I met someone in Canada and that I got this tattoo for that relationship.
I’m not so sure that setting the record straight at this point will help things. But I don't want to let her believe that there is anyone else… or has been anyone else.
I want back what I had with Pen—or, I guess, what Win had with Pen. She was falling for him; I could feel it because I was falling for her. But if I tell her that I deceived her to bypass Coach Roberts' rules in order to get closer… I might end up getting slapped with a restraining order and kicked off the Hawkeyes team.
All I can hope for now is a ceasefire and at least coming clean with her about why I got the tattoo in the first place.
“Penelope,” I say, taking half a step closer, though there’s little room left. “I need to tell you something.”
My chest presses slightly up against her back.
We’re close—closer than we’ve ever been. I can smell the sweet essence of vanilla in her hair and a hint of the spicy chai that I brought her to drink earlier.
The loud sound of the AC unit kicks on behind us from somewhere, causing us both to look back over our shoulders towards the door.
The door to the closet abruptly slams shut at the forced air vent that must have come through the ceiling and pushed the door closed behind us.
“No!” she yells, dodging around me and jumping for the door, but it’s already shut.
“What?” I ask quickly, not understanding her panic.
I watch as she shakes the door handle vigorously without it budging.
“The door is locked from the inside. You can only open it from the outside,” she says, her voice mumbling against the solid wood door.
Oh… shit.
“You can’t open the door from the inside? What stupid design is that?” I ask.
I reach around her and try the door myself. What contractor would put a doorknob like that in any office, let alone this one?
She seems to give up for a second as I try the door a second time. Her shoulder slumps into the door as if she already knows our fate.
Her head rests against the door now, too, as she watches me jiggle the door handle in vain.
