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“Then you’ve got to catch me when I fall,” she whispered.
“Deal,” I promised.
“Deal,” she agreed.
Chapter Nineteen
Penelope
THEDAYHADBEENPAINFULLY LONG.
It was hard to believe that it was only this morning I’d woken up in bed with Macie. It was only a few hours ago that Carter professed he loved me, and I didn’t say it back. That had been chewing away at me for much of the day. He didn’t seem upset about it. It almost seemed as if he didn’t even realize he had said it. That was part of the reason I couldn’t return it. Not because I didn’t feel it. I did. I always had. But also because I knew once I let the words leave my mouth, there would be no going back. It would all become real.
It was an emotionally draining day, but I felt that in a good type of way. I had no doubts anymore about Carter. I knew the way he felt about me. I was ready to fly with him. Prepared to fall into him. I knew eventually there would be harder conversations to be had between us, but for now, I felt at peace with all of it. I felt like I could trust him.
Getting to this point had been tiresome. I hardly slept at all last night. I tried speaking with Macie about what had happened between her and Jeremy, but she wouldn’t tell me, especially since he was in the room with us. I asked again at the airport, and she just promised we’d talk later.
By the time we arrived home, I was so ready for a nap that I hardly noticed the awkward tension between us as we said goodbye. I wasn’t ready for anyone to know about us yet, and he must’ve understood that look in my face because he didn’t even so much as hug me. He grabbed my bag out of the trunk after Maddie had driven us back home, setting it on the doorstep. He thanked Maddie for picking us up and disappeared through the back fence of his parents’ house. I bound straight for my bedroom, texting him that we’d talk soon before I fell asleep.
I woke to the golden light of the evening sun shining through my shades, and the clinking of pots and pans in the kitchen as my parents made dinner. I stretched, yawned, and wondered if I should call Carter. It had been precisely two hours since I’d texted him. He responded with a thumbs up emoji. I wasn’t sure how these things worked. Relationships– the start of them. I’d only ever known secrets. I wasn’t ready for our families to know because I wasn’t sure what we were myself. I wanted the space for us to figure it out for ourselves. But I also wanted it to be as easy as calling him and asking him to come have dinner with me. As easy as holding his hand and falling asleep next to him at night.
Except now, I felt like a teenage girl who just got home from her first date and doesn’t know what the next move is supposed to be. I felt naive. Unprepared.
I looked at my phone just as a text popped up on the screen.
Carter: I’m coming up.
Only a moment later, there was a knock. Not on my door, though. I flew to my window, pulling up the blinds and throwing it open. Carter squatted on his knees, his entire body fitting into the panel of my bedroom window.Thatgrin plastered on his face.
“Are you absolutely fucking insane?”
He didn’t answer, and before I could yell more, his hand came around the nape of my neck, pulling me halfway out the window until my lips met his. This kiss was soft, tender, yet playful. As if he was expecting me to flip out on him, and he found his lips to be the antidote for shutting me up. He pulled away, laughing. I almost pulled him inside, but the sun sprawled across my cheeks, making the night unseasonably warm. Purples, pinks, oranges, and golds began to splotch the sky. So, I crawled outside with him. We leaned back against the window, arm to arm.
“How in the hell did you even get up here?” I asked.
“Your parents have a trellis against the side of the house. It’s so overgrown with ivy it almost can’t be seen, but I was still able to climb it.”
“You are actually insane,” I gasped. “You could’ve just walked right through the front door. They wouldn’t have cared.”
He smiled. “I thought the climbing would be more romantic. You know,Romeo and Julietkind of thing.”
“As you pointed out,Romeo and Julietis a tragedy. They both die by the end.”
“Well, even better, then. Since Penelope Mason hates romance.” He winked.
I shoved him. “Ass.”
He only chuckled as his arm slipped behind my back. He pulled me between his legs so that my back fell against his chest, his chin resting atop my head. Both of his arms moved down my shoulders, down my own arms, until they reached my hands. His fingers interlocked with mine as he brushed his lips along my temple.
I settled in against him. It was only a few weeks prior that we’d been sitting in this same spot. That I felt he may have wanted to kiss me but was so sure he never would. “Anyone could walk outside and see us out here.”
“Would it bother you if they did?”
“I don’t know,” I breathed. The honest answer. “You know how our families can be. I– I don’t know. I want us to be able to explore this—whatever this is—for ourselves first before needing to explain it to everyone else too.” I tilted my head up to look at him, trying to read his eyes.
“We don’t have to explain this to anyone, Pep. We don’t owe anyone anything, except ourselves.” He inhaled. “But I understand. I don’t want you to feel like there is any pressure on this. On us. I want this to grow naturally. If you think that keeping things between us for right now is the best way to do that, then I agree with you.”
I nodded into his chest. I lifted my arm, and his came with it. Opening my hand, I ran my fingers along the length of his. I studied the veins that ran up the backside of his hand, the calluses beneath his knuckles. I rubbed my thumb across his palm as I said, “I need you to be patient with me.”
