We laugh as my dad swings the door open and I step out to the hallway. Then freeze in place.
Decker leans against the wall across from me, one foot flat against the baseboard, staring at his phone. His hair is doing that thing it does after practice—pushed back, slightly damp, looking freshly fucked in an effortless way.
He lifts his gaze from his phone, and it lands directly on me. There goes any plan to escape unnoticed.
“Hey.”
Does he practice that easy, unaffected tone he always uses around me?
I hate that about him.
“Hey.” I hold up the folder in my hand as if it explains everything. “Just dropping in on my dad.”
“Hey, Deck.” I inwardly roll my eyes at my dad using a shortened version of his name.
I also hate that my dad holds no grudges.
Dad’s phone rings, and he kisses my cheek. “Thanks again, slugger. See you Saturday.”
He’s already moving, already shifting gears as always—one thing ending, the next beginning, with no space between.
“Give me a minute, Deck,” he says.
Decker pushes off the wall. His eyes go to the folder then back to my face. “Slugger, huh? Do I need to ask?”
I laugh but try to swallow it down fast. Of course, he’d remember that when my dad calls me slugger, it means he needs something from me. “Just another project.”
I shift the folder against my chest and hover in the doorway.
Feet, get moving. Walk away. You’ve done it before.
“Well, see you.” I lift my hand in a small wave.
“Yeah, bye, Penelope.”
I wince at him using my full name.
I hate that too.
I head for the end of the hallway and don’t look back, because there are only two options I might find if I do. Either he’s watching me or he’s already in my dad’s office—and both will break me.
When I push through the door at the end of the hall, the afternoon light warms my shoulders. I tell myself that the tightness in my chest is just the air in my dad’s office. Poor ventilation in an old building and nothing more.
I’m getting better and better at lying to myself.
Chapter
Thirteen
Decker
* * *
I’m still coming down from seeing Penelope here. I don’t have a better word for it than that because it always feels like a high when I see her. I’ve been chasing the dragon named Penelope for the majority of my life. I wish I didn’t still feel that thing that shall not be named the second I saw her.
I’ve been in Ripley’s office enough times that I know how to avert my eyes from any pictures of Penelope, so I take the chair in front of his desk, keeping my focus on him. Last year, I made a bumbling fool of myself because he has a picture of her with a younger Hazel, both laughing at something just off camera, and I couldn’t stop glancing at it. At one point Ripley asked me a question, and I gave him an answer that had nothing to do with what he’d asked.
He finishes his phone call and leans back in his desk chair. “Glad you got my note.”
