Trouble (Dogwood Lane 3)

“Well, my two had a little meaning behind them,” he says.

I slow, my heart picking up speed. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He touches my elbow. I turn in a half circle until I’m looking up into his eyes. He looks uncertain, as if his normal swagger and confidence are missing and he’s not sure why. Uncertainty is still the name of the game as the confidence that usually oozes from his pores is missing.

A microphone shrieks behind us as someone does a sound check. Music begins to play, and the voices around us begin to talk louder to be heard.

Penn steps closer.

“I got those to remember a girl named Abby. The girl that listened to my story one night by the lake and didn’t judge me. Didn’t tell me what to do or feel. Didn’t tell me I was right or wrong. That was the first time that had ever happened to me.”

I sag, the weight of his words sinking into me.

Over the last decade, I knew that night was special . . . to me. I never dreamed it was so important to him.

“Abby felt like someone finally liked her despite her bad dye job and weird lipstick,” I say past the lump in my throat. “That boy listened to her rants and commiserated with her situation, and she really believed she could’ve told him there was an article about her on the newsstands and he wouldn’t have cared. That was the first time that ever happened to me.”

He sticks his arm around my shoulders and pulls my head against him as we start back down the road.

“You had enough of Dogwood Day?” he asks.

I look up at him. “We said we’d have dinner at Dane’s.”

“We did, but I think I need to be alone with you more.”

The look in his eye suggests sex, but I’m still not sure if he doesn’t want me to be a part of his world. Everyone knows him, and although the people we’ve met have mostly been friendly, he hasn’t been at ease. He did say to me that he wasn’t sure how to do this and we are a pretty new thing, so I need to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It’s just that I want him to want me as much publicly as he does privately. That’s my problem and not his. Maybe I’m just reading too much into this. It’s possible he’s trying not to lead me on, and if that’s the case, it’s the right thing for him to do.

I needed time to tell him we’d slept together. Maybe he needs time to come to terms with this too.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”

He lays his cheek on the top of my head and guides me back to the car. We get looks from bystanders and the occasional wave as we pass different booths. But he never stops to say hello. And I wonder why.

He opens the truck door and holds it as I climb in. Before he shuts it, he peers up at me.

“I had fun with you today,” he says. “Thanks for coming with me.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. The door closes.

As I watch him walk around the front, I think about his reactions to things. He’s coming around slowly. Changes don’t happen overnight.

I hope.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

PENN

There he is.” Matt steps away from the plans Trevor dropped off yesterday. “Hard time getting out of bed this morning?”

I survey the room. Besides Matt and his wonderful attitude, it’s empty.

Avery left my house a few hours ago to go by Harper’s for clean clothes, and then the two of them were going to have breakfast together. I, on the other hand, needed sleep.

I’m exhausted. Tired in every way. Physically worn out, which I didn’t think was possible from sex, and mentally beat from overthinking this whole thing every time I get a quiet moment.

Dogwood Day fucked me up. It was the first time she and I were together in front of everyone in the entire damn town. A part of me was proud as a fucking peacock that she was there with me, yet another part of me was paralyzed. What will those people say when they see me in a few months and Avery is with someone else?

That thought makes me want to punch something hard, but that doesn’t make it any less true. She’ll finally see me for what I am and leave. It’s bound to happen.

I’m just not sure how I’ll fare when it does.

I dream about her at night. We’re at a cabin, and she’s sitting by a window with a paintbrush in her hand. I’m standing in the doorway, watching her. I’m so damn happy. And then I wake up and feel the loss of that immediately.

“Well, you’d have a hard time getting out of bed, too, if you’ve been through what I’ve been through,” I grumble.