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“She’s fine,” Penny said. “She’s been running a modeling agency in New York, so she keeps busy all the time.”
It was a neutral answer that didn’t reveal a damn thing about what brought Penny back to Chicago after years of staying away. I suspected Nikki had a lot to do with it. I let it go, though, as I turned to look at Alyssa.
“Ok,” I said. “Come in. Get settled. Maybe we could have some lunch downtown later?”
A smile brightened Alyssa’s face as she looked over to Penny. “That would be great, Dad. We can walk around a little bit, too. Do you have to work this week?”
“I’ll be in the office a few days, but I blocked out my schedule for a majority of the time you’re home.” I leaned in to kiss Alyssa on the temple with a smile, and I wrapped an arm about her shoulders for a hug. “I can’t work with my baby girl home. Get unpacked, the both of you. You can show Penny where the guestroom is while I finish up a few things on my computer.”
I caught Penny’s eyes in a lingering glance. That heat ignited again in the pit of my stomach, but I forced myself to walk in the direction of the living room. I smoothed a hand through my hair with a shaky breath.
What the hell is wrong with me? This is Penny Marshall. My daughter’s best friend. The little girl that I used to play with for hours with Alyssa.
I sat back down at my desk to c
heck through a couple of emails while the girls settled in. After thirty minutes, I rose from my desk while my laptop powered down for the weekend.
The door to Alyssa’s bedroom was cracked open when I stopped in front of it. I reached up to knock on the door, but it was Penny’s voice that stopped me short.
“Some women are into older men,” she was saying casually. “I mean, you know how many of our classmates have imagined having sex with one of the older professors at school?”
I stiffened in surprise at the statement.
“That’s because they are desperate for good grades,” Alyssa replied cynically. “It’s gross, Penny. Don’t even think about things like that.”
“I’m not thinking about it. I’m just saying that not everybody likes dating the douchebag frat boys at our college, is all.”
“Oh my God, yes. They are the worst—” Alyssa opened the door, and jumped in surprise to see me standing there. “Shit, Dad. I didn’t know you were standing right here.”
She opened the door all the way to reveal Penny sitting on the edge of Alyssa’s bed. Her cheeks turned a shade of pink when our eyes met.
“I was just seeing if you ladies were ready for lunch,” I said, clearing my throat. “Probably should get going before the snow really hits.”
“Good idea,” Alyssa said. “Come on, Penny. Let’s go. I’m starving.”
I held back to give them room in the hallway. Penny passed by me with a tentative smile tugging at her lips. The smell of vanilla lingered in the air when I inhaled deeply.
I was in deep shit.
CHAPTER TWO - PENNY
I knew that coming back to Chicago would be tough, but I certainly didn’t expect to feel the dark tug of grief dragging down my heart. It had been years since the last time I even thought of coming back to Chicago for a visit, but when Alyssa offered a place to go away from my mom’s over winter break, visiting Chicago had jumped high on my list again.
It never occurred to me that just being here would bring back those bitter memories, until I walked down the hallway in the direction of Alyssa’s condo that she shared with her father. The building itself hadn’t changed from how I last remembered it as a young girl, clutching my mother’s hand in fright while I watched our things being hauled away in moving trucks, never be seen again.
“Life isn’t going to be the same. We’d better accept that now.” I remember her saying. Blood shot red eyes from tears of mourning - not only from the loss of her husband, but also the loss of life as we knew it.
I didn’t realize it then, but our condo had been emptied out in an attempt to pay off my father’s debts at the time. That was when we moved to New York to live on the little money my mom had managed to keep while we made a living for ourselves there. We stayed in the basement of a five-family house in Queens, until we eventually managed to move to the city when mom’s modeling agency took off.
It had been a strange twist of fate when I had run into Alyssa Bradley on campus years later. She was a nervous little freshman, needing directions around before we both realized who was who. Ever since then, I had latched myself onto a part of my childhood that had been a good part at least. Playing with the little girl down the hallway had been the highlight of my life for a long time as a kid.
While the building had remained the same, thoroughly decorated for Christmas, there were a few things that had changed since I left as a child - Gabriel Bradley, for example.
He stood tall and proud next to his daughter, with his dark hair smoothed back from his bearded face. His green eyes flashed happily from behind his black, square-framed glasses, while he listened to his daughter compliment the private pilot that he’d sent to retrieve us before the snowstorm. My heart rate increased as he turned to look over at me, standing nervously in the middle of the marble foyer while I waited for them to have their moment.
I didn’t remember his muscular frame, but I’d never forgotten the strength he had in his arms when he would lift me up in the air as a kid. He approached me with a broad grin that showed off white and sparkly teeth, and his broad shoulders shifted beneath a dark green sweater.
He asked me about my mom, and I gave him a perfunctory answer, revealing as little as possible. I didn’t want to spoil my vacation talking about her and why I had chosen not to spend the holidays with her in New York.
