She dropped into the comfy armchair she'd picked out last week. "You're not mad at me for yelling?"
"No. It's not the best way to deal with things, but sometimes our emotions get the better of us and the only way to express them is to yell." He shrugged. "I've done it on occasion."
Penny laughed. "I doubt it."
"Maybe not so much now that I'm an adult, but at your age? Yeah, I let rip a time or two." Jack leaned his ass against his desk, his hands curling around the timber edge.
"Really? I can't see it. You're always so calm. Even when my sister is being an idiot."
"Hey! Enough of the name calling. She's doing the best she can."
"No, she's not. She's cutting you out. Not that I expected her to do anything different."
He agreed with Penny; Alyssa didn't want help with anything whether she needed it or not and he had expected her to continue to keep him at arm's length in spite of their marriage and their decision to be a united front when it came to Penny. "Let's leave that for later. Want to talk about your birthday?"
Her gaze met his, her expression wary. "No. Why?"
Shrugging, he kept his body relaxed and said, "Don't know. Thought you might want to discuss what you wanted to do to celebrate."
She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. "Is this because you worked out I've never had a party?"
Jack nodded once. So much for subtle.
"Right. Well, it's not just that." Penny sighed and slumped down in her seat. "I've never had a present either."
He clenched his jaw, grinding his back teeth together. Strangling was not good enough for Gina Drummond.
"Don't feel sorry for me, Jack. It's not like she'd ever have given me anything decent anyway."
"She could have given you something. A cake at least."
"Yeah, cake would have been nice, or she could have told me I had a sister."
"How did you find out about Lys anyway?" They hadn't talked about how Penny discovered she had a sister or where she was.
"I found her birth certificate with mine in a shoe box stuffed under Mom’s bed the night that guy came over for dinner. The night I left."
"So, you found out about Lys and suddenly you knew where she was?"
"No. I waited until morning, then went to the library when it opened and used the computer to search the internet for her."
Smart. While Lys didn't live on social media, she did have a presence, one that shared where she lived. "Okay, so you knew to come to Sunnyville; that doesn't explain how you knew her address?"
"DMV records."
Jack blinked. DMV records? She didn't just admit… "You hacked their system?"
A smirk turned up one side of her mouth. "Wasn't hard."
"Jesus Christ." He scrubbed a hand down his face. "You can't do that. Don't do it again."
"Ah…okay, no more hacking into the DMV."
"Penny."
"What? Isn't that what you said?"
"No. More. Hacking. At. All." Fuck. He would have to get Roark to talk to her. "Promise me," he demanded.
