Even still, it’ll be a good way to break the ice. That is, if he even texts me back at all. At this point, I can’t say for sure that he will.
After all, how many times can you go running in the opposite direction before someone starts to notice a pattern? I wouldn’t blame him if he never speaks to me again. Lord knows I probably wouldn’t.
I let my mind wander on the drive home. I think about Cat and the baby. About what will happen if Penn and I work it out. I think about the vision I had standing in Penn’s front yard, of the children I didn’t even know I wanted but suddenly are all I can think about.
I picture what our future could look like.
Penn running his family’s fishing business.
Me running my own dance studio.
Coming home to Penn every night.
Falling asleep in his arms.
Waking up in his arms.
Listening to the sound of laughter and love filter through the house.
It’s all I want.
Penn.
Kids.
The white picket fence.
Everything I’ve spent the last seven years convincing myself I didn’t want because I didn’t think it was possible to have both. I thought in order to have dance, I had to give up everything else. Now, I see that I gave up everything for something that was never going to last. Even if I didn’t get injured, I couldn’t stop the clock from turning. Age is a dancer’s worst enemy—outside of injury, of course.
It felt like the most important thing in the world back then. Now, it feels insignificant. Empty. Lonely. A dream destined to fail.
But dance wasn’t my dream. I only thought it was.
My real dream is Penn. Deep down, it always has been.
“IT’S NOT WHAT IT LOOKEDlike.” Are the first words out of Josie’s mouth when she calls me an hour after I walked in on her and Alec butt freaking naked.
“You sure about that? Because I think it’s exactly what it looked like.”
“I went there for you.”
“For me?”
“To talk to Penn. To tell him what a jackass he’s being by not groveling at your feet.”
“And that equated to you naked on top of his brother, how?” I laugh, the sound foreign on my lips.
When was the last time I laughed? Or even smiled, for that matter?
I don’t have to think on that very hard. I know when. I know the very second my happiness came shattering down around me like a chandelier that had fallen from the sky.
“I... He...”
“Josie, you’re a grown woman; you really don’t have to explain.”
“He’s just so... Annoyingly hot,” she finally says after a long moment. “Every time I tell myself it’s the last time, he smiles at me and I turn to putty in his freaking hands. It’s a real problem.”
“Weirdly, I can understand that. That’s exactly how Penn makes me feel.”
