Best Friends Forever

I would love to have my own company. I have a whole raft of ideas that haven’t even seen the light of day yet. I could do it. Well, maybe not yet. But I could, maybe someday.

I might even surprise myself one day.

Chapter 21

Clay

I set the bags on the counter, careful to not let the contents spill out. I’m a little bit later than I meant to be, but this will totally be worth it.

“Hey, Pen, I got us some of these giant shrimp from the fish market. How about I make us some—oh, jeez.”

She looks up at me, startled, from where she’s half-seated at the dining room table. Her eyes are narrow, one hand twisted in the hair behind her head.

“What? What are you saying?” she mutters in a distracted, irritable tone.

I back away cautiously, considering my options.

“Never mind,” I follow up quickly. “You just do… whatever it is you’re doing. I’ve got this. No worries.”

She squints at me suspiciously. “Why are you talking to me like that? Is everything okay?”

“Well, because you look crazy right now. You’ve got that look in your eye, Pen. You’re on a mission. I know how this works. I will just stay out of your way.”

Her nostrils flare as she breathes quickly, probably considering whether to go back to whatever it is she was doing on her laptop or come into the kitchen and tussle with me. I like teasing her and everything, but this is a whole other level of the Penny Experience. She is not to be toyed with at this moment.

“Did you know that it’s sexist to call a woman crazy?”

Keeping my eyes down, I get the shrimp into a colander in the sink.

“I did not know that,” I reply in a calm tone, “but I will keep that in mind for the future.”

Temporarily satisfied, she goes back to her project. I know that I can cook for her and she will eat. This kind of thing usually lasts anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days until she tuckers herself out. It’s best just to let her see it through until she comes to some kind of conclusion.

Happily cooking, I do keep an eye on her to make sure she’s okay. Maybe I should give her a glass of wine? No. That can wait until dinner is ready. But wine makes her thoroughly horny, so I have quite a lot of it on hand now.

In college, she would

go on these benders of frenzied activity every once in a while. Usually at completely inconvenient times, like in the middle of finals or something, she would suddenly get the idea that the cabinets all needed to be rehabbed. One time I came home and found her waist-deep in the shrubbery outside our windows, trimming the tops of the dense, prickly bushes with a pair of evil-looking farm implements she had gotten at a thrift store. She said the scratching noise kept her up at night and she wanted the branches below her window line.

It’s crazy, but not completely crazy. Sort of a sensible idea, just with a bat-out-of-hell kind of execution.

But the shrimp look amazing. I hope she’s going to be in the right frame of mind to eat them with me. I dress them with some simple olive oil and white wine and garlic, turning them over when they are just pink. I’ve got some pancetta and spinach to go with them. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Cautiously I get it all plated up then walk over to the table and slide her dinner to the edge of her laptop with a napkin and fork. Silently, I settle into a chair across from her.

She squints at the screen, gnawing on her upper lip. Her fingers tap lightly against the keys and stroke the touchpad.

“You’re staring at me,” she mumbles.

“You’re pretty,” I shrug, chewing happily. “And your dinner is amazing. But you don’t have to eat it right now. I can warm it up for you again later or whatever…”

Finally she looks up at me, though it takes her eyes just a moment to focus.

“You really don’t know that it’s sexist to call a woman crazy?”

“Honestly, I never even thought about it, but if you say that it is I believe you.”

“Are you making fun of me?”