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“Super,” I said.
“Awesome,” he says, heading off to shower.
Out of respect for his boundary that I’ve crossed with the hanging of this bra, I take it down and march back to the great room and hang it on the pull chain of the ceiling fan using a piece of fishing line.
Chapter 10
Josh
Thirsty. So thirsty.
I reach for a stainless steel cup in the kitchen because if I take a glass one, I’m likely to bust it in my fist.
Penny is still hanging out on the futon, getting her scent all over it, when I finish my shower.
Somehow I gotta have an outlet for this pent-up anger at the pervert who stole her undies before I track him down and pound him into the ground.
“Please tell me they caught the guy who did it,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Wow, you’re really invested in this story,” she says, looking up from her book.
Lady, you have no idea.
“I can’t stand creeps.”
She nods in approval but fixes me with a curious look. “Well, we never made a case out of it, but I think I know who it was. The neighbor was always a little weird around me. He would sit on his mom’s porch and watch my girlfriends and I play basketball in the driveway. We asked him to play once, but he said no, he just sat there making us uncomfortable. Out of the blue, he asked me to prom. I said, ‘Dude, I’m 17 and you graduated five years ago, why would you care about my prom?’ And he said, ‘You smiled at me; I thought it meant something.’”
“Gross.” This dude seriously makes my skin crawl.
She nods vigorously. “Yeah, so if I don’t smile it makes guys upset. When I do smile, they accuse me of leading them on. So now I just say ‘fuck ‘em’ and live my life.”
Suits me fine. “Whatever keeps the creeps away,” I say, a little bit too growly. And any other dudes but me, for that matter.
But she won’t have to do it alone now. I’ll be the one to keep the creeps away from now on.
“If guys have such a history of behaving like sleazebags around you, why would you…why would you be okay with sharing a cabin with me?”
That’s my million-dollar question. Why would she not be afraid of me? She should be. I jerked it just last night because I couldn’t stand to lie awake all night thinking about her stumbling to the bathroom in those tight PJ bottoms.
Penny’s response is to soften her face, stick out her bottom lip, and give me puppy dog eyes. “Because,” she says, standing, flitting around the kitchen island and wrapping her arms around me. “You’re my Josh. And I know you.”
I know it’s a friendly hug, but she’s not wearing a bra. My arms squeeze her tight against my frame. She says she knows me, but if she knew what I think about her, what I’m going to think about her tonight, she would peel out of here and never look back.
“My vacation friend Josh would never do anything to creep me out,” she murmurs, her voice vibrating into my chest, setting my pointless man nipples ablaze. God help me, I bow my head and sniff her scalp. Her soft, earthy scent hits me with that same ache, my body and my brain working in tandem to speed this process along.
She lets go slowly, but I have no intention of letting her get away from me just yet. Her face turns up toward mine, and my lips land on hers in a soft, tender kiss. Her lips taste like peppermint.
“Josh.” Her voice is not reproachful. I should stop now.
“Goodnight, Penny.” The kiss to her forehead is brief; I let go and set about making up the futon for the night. I don’t turn around because I’m about fifty percent ashamed. I shouldn’t have done that.
She says nothing but goes to her room and closes the door. I quickly shower and brush my teeth and find my way to the futon in the dim light. We’ve got an early start tomorrow, so even though it’s still light out at 10 p.m. this far north, too much sleep is better than too little.
Staring up at the ceiling, something strange is hanging from the pull chain. I sit up to examine it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Surely she did this to taunt me.
I stand up and yank it down angrily, taking half the pull chain with the bra.
