Four very perplexed, very in-one-piece women blink up at me.
Miss Lucille has got a fistful of Penny's red hair wrapped around the barrel of some hair-curling contraption. Iris is painting a glittery red varnish onto Penny’s fingernails. There’s a mobile clothing rack in the corner of the room and Lexi is busy steam-ironing a fancy, floor-length dress. There are high-heeled shoes and shimmery handbags and fashion magazines everywhere.
Is Penn entering a beauty pageant or something nobody told me about?
“Walker?” Penny shrugs off her aunt’s hands and ambles off the high-stool she’s sitting in.
I glance around the room and nod in greeting at the group of baffled women. “Hey, ladies.”
My girl takes a step closer and gently places a hand on my bicep. Her forehead crinkles with concern. “Is everything okay?”
My focus settles on her beautiful face and my heart is racing all over again. And it’s not the coats of slick, red lipgloss on her mouth or the ten-inch lashes sitting on her eyelids or the layers and layers of sparkly stuff on her cheeks. It’s her. The woman I see beneath all the other stuff. She is beautiful to me.
“We need to talk,” I tell her. My focus stays on her face but I feel three pairs of curious eyes boring into the side of my head.
She gives her shamelessly nosy friends the stink-eye. “Sure. We’ll have more privacy in here.” She leads me down the hallway to the bedroom she occupied as a teenager.
Gosh, it’s been a decade since I’ve been in this room and the crush I had on my best friend back then has now morphed into full-blown love for the mother of my children. I’m ready to make her mine.
She softly closes the door and turns to face me. She brushes her fingertips along my jaw, eyes narrowed with concern. “Why do you have a bandage on your chin?”
I give an impish chuckle. “Run-in with my barber’s razor,” I explain, feeling kind of silly.
My gaze sweeps her again from top to bottom. She’s obviously getting all dressed up for a special event. A hot dagger of possessiveness strikes my chest.
“You’d better not have plans tonight,” I growl, sounding like a damn neanderthal.
It is what it is.
She’d better not have plans because I have zero intention of letting her leave this room until I’m sure that she’s mine.
I’m done tiptoeing around the issue. I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried to earn her heart the noble, polite, civilized way.
But I’m done being polite.
Now, I’m doing things caveman-style. I am ready to swoop her off her fucking feet and tell her that she’s mine, and every inch of me is hers.
She swallows, blushes, knots her fingers in front of her. “I…I was coming to see you, actually. To talk. I wanted to…to look nice.”
My heart beats hopefully when she says that. Her words give me the courage to step even closer. “You’re always beautiful, Princess. Doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.”
I know I should probably ease us into this conversation but I’m damn tired of beating around the bushes and playing games.
I look her in the eyes and utter words I’ve ached for years to say. “I’m in love with you, Penny. I’ve loved you my whole life.”
There’s a momentary silence. She stands there, staring at me, an array of emotions flashing over her face. Her eyes fill with tears. Then her bottom lip starts to quiver. I have no clue what she’s thinking and it’s driving me insane.
I trail a palm down her arm. I’m anxious to coax a response out of her. “Penn, you can just—”
“Do you know how many times I wore booty-shorts for you?!” she blurts out.
My eyebrows furrow. I blink.
Well, this is not the response I was anticipating.
“You what…?”
Penny’s watery emerald orbs glare up at me from beneath those thick-ass, ten-inch eyelashes. “I wore booty-shorts for you. And dangerously high heels in the snow. And tiny, little shirts to show off my belly piercing. Even when it was freezing outside. I’d be shivering my ass off. In booty-shorts. For you. So you’d notice me. So you’d think I was pretty.”
“Penny, I…I…” I don’t even know what to say to that.
“My point is, I tried so hard and for so long to get you to notice me. You made me feel invisible, Walker. It hurt so much. So now, you’re here, telling me you love me all of a sudden and I don’t know what to think.” Frustration bleeds through her voice. She’s not trying to hurt me with her words. She’s just trying to make me understand.
Fuck, I’ve been such a fool.
Scorching regret burns the hollow of my belly. “Invisible? All I see is you, Penny. You’re all I’ve ever seen.” Tears pour from her eyes. I cup her face. “God, you're so special to me, P. I look at you and I see all the best things in the whole universe rolled up into one pretty, smart, funny, perfect package.”
She softens beneath my touch. “I’m sorry for being so skeptical. But you’ve got to understand why this is hard for me to process. I’m trying to wrap my head around it.” Trembling, she reaches out and lays her hand on my chest. Her fingers gently grip the front of my shirt. “We’ve known each other our whole lives and I’ve always wished you’d make a move and now you’re suddenly in love with me and—”
“Suddenly?” I scoff. “Baby, there’s nothing sudden about this. I have always been in love with you. I just didn’t have the balls to say it.”
She peers up at me. “Why didn’t you tell me, Walker?”
“I used to tell myself it was because we were friends. I told myself that you were off-limits. I figured that my fear of ruining our friendship was a good enough reason to keep my distance but really, I was probably just a coward, just afraid you’d think I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“What the hell?!” She
