“Stop,” he grumbles. “You’re being a dick.”
I open my mouth with a witty retort when his dad rounds the corner, his face red with fury.
“I thought I heard you come in,” Jason snarls as he storms over to Penn. “Your mother told me something pretty unbelievable.”
Penn flinches and I square my shoulders. I step closer to Penn to offer my support against his dad. Like old times.
“I broke my hand last night,” Penn blurts out, yanking his shirt up his arm to reveal the cast.
Nothing like ripping off the proverbial Band-Aid.
Jason’s eyes widen. Then, with lightning fast quickness, he backhands Penn across the face. Penn cries out, crashing against me.
“What the fuck?” I roar at Jason.
“You dumb sonofabitch,” Jason sneers at his son. “Lisa said you got into a fight. Was it worth it? Was it worth ruining your future and embarrassing me over kicking some punk’s ass?”
Penn is quick to gather his senses because he jerks away from my hold and shoves his dad. “Touch me again, asshole.” His voice drips with venom.
Jason’s brown eyes that match his son’s exactly gleam with violence. Before they get into a brawl on the foyer floor, I yank Penn back.
“Come on,” I growl, practically dragging him behind me.
Penn is a bomb about to detonate. I physically haul him back to my house and to my room. As soon as the door is closed behind me, I let go of him. He paces the room, his eyes wild with rage as he pulls at his hair.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” he bellows.
I grit my teeth as I notice his cheekbone swelling. He’ll be bruised by tomorrow. While he stews, I turn on some Radiohead and find a bottle of tequila I stashed from my dad’s liquor cabinet. I unscrew the lid and swallow down the nasty shit before thrusting the bottle at Penn. He drinks from the bottle while I tear off my shirt and yank off my boots.
“You can stay over,” I tell him, taking the bottle away. “You both need to cool off before you go back.”
He pulls off his hoodie and shirt, leaving him in just his track pants. It’s been a while since we were two boys running around shirtless in my room, hating on our dads. We’ve both grown a few inches since then. Penn looks like he’s been hitting the gym pretty hard for football. Makes me feel skinny beside him.
“Nice pecs,” I joke, pinching at one of his hardened muscles.
He cracks a crooked smile. “Some of us aren’t lazy asses.”
“You don’t get these from being lazy,” I tell him, curling my arms to show my biceps. Dad may have never allowed me to join the swim team, but I love to swim. I spend hours in our heated pool swimming, which is great for the shoulders and biceps.
And football is clearly good for pecs and abs.
And a motherfucking V.
He smirks and looks down at his stomach that still bears all the sharpie markings from earlier. “What?”
“Nothing,” I mutter. He’s right. I’m too lazy to do any actual weight training to obtain oblique muscles like his, but I still envy them.
While he flops down on the bed, I fumble with my window to crack it open. Ivy is usually the instigator whenever I would smoke, so I haven’t picked it up at all today without her influence. Yet now…with Penn back in my room like old times, pissed at his dad, looking much different than I remember, I can’t help but have the urge to take a drag.
He watches me from the bed, the tequila bottle cradled against his side under his arm like a football, and wears a frown of disproval. “Smoking?”
I pull out a cigarette from the pack and push it between my lips. “Yeah, so?” I ask, the cigarette bobbing as I talk.
“I always thought that was more your girlfriend than you,” he utters, stealing another sip from the bottle.
“Ex,” I remind him. “And it was. But sometimes when I’m on edge, I like it.”
I grab a lighter from my end table and flick out a flame. With my eyes on Penn, I light the end of my cigarette and suck in a deep inhalation of much needed nicotine. I blow out the plume of smoke and skim my gaze back down along his chest.
No wonder Dante was trying to get into his pants.
I’m not even gay and I can appreciate his perfect male form.
“Remember that time we decided to whack off to that Skinemax movie we saw when we were like fourteen?”
He laughs and takes another sip of the tequila. The liquid going down his throat makes his Adam’s apple bob. I find myself fixated on the action.
“Francesca caught us and was so pissed,” he says, still grinning.
“She yelled at us in Spanish for an hour.” Memories of my old nanny losing her shit over finding two teenage boys beating off to soft porn is hilarious to this day.