Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

“Low blow.”

“Tell me about it.” I wanted to chop off his balls and feed them to him, I was so mad at him. “Anyway, I told her to come into town with Amy. I kind of want to pick them up when they get in on Friday. So…can I borrow your car?”

Penn finished prepping the steaks and then turned to face me, leaning back against the counter. “That would be a no.”

“Ugh, really? I don’t want to take the bus, but I don’t have a car here. It’d be so much easier.”

“I could drive you though.”

“That would not be necessary.”

“Come on. That’s what friends do for each other, Natalie.”

I gritted my teeth as he threw my own words back in my face. “It would just be there and back. It’d be boring. You wouldn’t want to come.”

“No way. You can’t do that to your sister. You know what the best thing for a breakup is, right?”

“Icing?” I guessed.

Penn laughed. “Icing? What the hell?”

“Amy’s mother has this thing that, whenever something goes bad, she cracks open a tub of icing and eats it straight from the jar. It’s a tradition now.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “I was going to go with getting wasted in the city and having sex with a stranger.”

“Oh my god, we are not going to take my seventeen-year-old sister out in the city, so she can hook up with someone.”

“And here I thought you wanted her to get this guy.”

“I want her not to think about him, not make the same mistakes I did,” I said, standing.

“Haven’t you ever heard the phrase, The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else?”

“Of course, but she’s my little sister. And it’s not like you would know anything about getting over a breakup!”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You’d be surprised.”

Well, now, I was surprised…and intrigued.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

He shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“All right. I’ll drive you on Friday then. It’s a date.”

“It’s not,” I grumbled with the shake of my head.

“See you for dinner.”

“That’s not a date either,” I warned him.

“Didn’t say it was,” he said with a wink.

“Oh, oh!” I cried, pointing my finger toward the two brunettes standing on the sidewalk at JFK International Airport. “That’s them.”

Penn veered the Audi through the traffic toward where Melanie and Amy were waiting. Totle stood up on my lap with his head halfway out the window and barked at them. I laughed, holding on to him so that he wouldn’t jump out of my lap as Penn pulled up to the curb.

I handed Totle off to Penn and then hurried out of the car. I threw my arms around Melanie first, and then Amy crashed into us. “Oh my god, I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too,” Melanie said, already sniffling.

Amy shook her head and released us. “I mean, you’re all right.”

“Shut up. You missed me.”

“Obviously. But I do love the perks of your job.” Amy’s head swiveled to find Penn stepping out of the car and walking toward us. Her eyes rounded. “All of the perks.”

Melanie furrowed her brows at Amy’s statement, and then she glanced over at Penn. The furrow disappeared, and her jaw dropped. “Is that…the guy you’re living with?”

“Yes,” I said tightly. “Melanie, this is Penn. Penn, my little sister.”

He held his hand out with a bright smile on his stupid pretty face. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Uh, yeah, definitely,” Melanie said.

“And you must be Amy,” he said, moving to my best friend.

“That’s me. The BFF. The one who knows all her secrets,” she said evenly. She might find him hot, but she was still my bestie. The one person who knew how heartbroken I really had been after Paris. And the person I’d called after our kiss last weekend.

“Ah, so you’re the person I bribe to get her to open up?” Penn asked as he reached for her bag.

“Good luck with that,” Amy said.

“I can be quite persuasive.”

“I bet you can,” Amy drawled.

Penn just laughed, clearly entertained by Amy’s antics. He popped the trunk and deposited the suitcases in the back.

“Don’t mind Totle,” I told them as I opened the back door.

Totle stood on all fours and stared out at them with big puppy-dog eyes. Both Melanie and Amy melted into a puddle of goo in one look. Forget Penn Kensington. Totle was the real chick magnet.

Melanie scooted in first, scooping Totle into her lap and cooing over him like he was a newborn baby. Amy followed behind her, reaching for the puppy and forgetting me entirely.

“Attention hog,” I muttered.

Penn looked over at me and grinned. “All set.”

“Great. Let’s get back.”

We dropped into the front seats. I turned down the radio and swiveled to look at my sister and best friend. Sometimes, I thought that they looked more like sisters than Mel and I did. I had white-blonde hair down to my waist and blue eyes. Melanie had shoulder-length brown hair and hazel eyes that looked green against her green dress. I preferred comfortable, bohemian styles, and she liked short, skintight attire that showed off her dancer body. She was as dark as I was light. Two sides of the same coin.