Trouble (Dogwood Lane 3)

I slam the speaker to the wall. It rattles a little basket of fake flowers that Harper has just above the magazine rack. I let go, praying the speaker holds. It does.

“Interesting way of doing that,” he says.

“No one asked you.”

Lorene and Harper choose this moment to stop chatting. Of course they’re listening. I’d listen too. But I’ve had enough public embarrassment to last me a few days.

“Will you leave?” I ask.

“No.”

“Then please move so I can get down from here.”

“I’m glad you got a new ladder.”

“Move.”

“No.”

His face is impassive. It’s only his eyes that show what he’s feeling, and if I had to guess, I’d venture to say he’s feeling about as happy as I am right now. The problem is he won’t admit it. Or fix it.

“I’m not doing this with you in front of people,” I say.

He stands tall. “Actually, that’s a great idea.”

“Then move.”

“No, we’re doing this right here.”

“Penn,” I warn. “Move, damn it.”

He takes a deep breath. The apprehension in his usually confident persona makes me nervous. I have no idea what he’s going to say. I don’t know if I should even care.

“I messed up,” he says softly. “I messed up in a bunch of ways, and none of them were your fault.”

My nose burns like I’m going to cry. I grip the top of the ladder and squeeze, hoping it’ll distract me enough to not make a fool of myself.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he says, his voice tinged with disbelief.

A bundle of emotion begins to creep up my throat. I do my best to block it out, to force it back to where it came from. I have to stand my ground. It’s now or never.

“I’m going to scare the shit out of you if you don’t move so I can get down,” I say with all the force I can muster.

“I’m not moving until you listen to me. If I let you down, you’ll run off or something, and I want you to hear me.”

“What if I don’t want to hear you?”

“Listen to him, honey,” Lorene says. “If for nothing else, do it so I can think about this for the next week.”

My cheeks heat as I stand at the center of everyone’s attention. I don’t want to do this, especially here, but it’s apparent I don’t have a choice in the matter without throwing a tantrum.

“Make it quick then,” I tell Penn.

He wastes no time.

“I was wrong.” He looks me dead in the eye. “I got scared. I thought not putting a label on things would protect what we had together.”

“But ‘friends’ was a label.”

“I know.” He gulps. “And by not being honest with you, or myself, I couldn’t protect anything. I stood to lose it all. And I did. I lost everything. I lost you.”

I can’t take the sadness in his face. My heart hurts for the man I know has struggled with feeling loved and feeling love. This is new to him. Heck, it’s new to me because I’ve never felt anything like this either.

“I was afraid I couldn’t be what you want,” he says. “I heard you talking about marriage and kids, and that’s like light-years ahead of me. I’m just figuring out how to be here, where I am.”

“I want marriage and kids someday, Penn. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not next year, even.”

“But your babies would be so beautiful,” Harper says. When we look at her, she gasps. “I’m sorry. I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did,” I say. “Shh.”

I turn back to Penn. He’s biting his bottom lip as he waits for me to continue.

There’s no shield up, no poise to jump in and correct someone’s opinion of the two of us. Just a man trying . . . and isn’t that all I can ask?

Maybe. But I also need him to understand where I am. And maybe, too, I need to be honest with myself about where, exactly, my thoughts are now.

“I want to create a life with someone,” I tell him softly. “To figure out what I want and what they want and give and take. And bake two desserts for the football games on Sundays because I like cheesecake and he likes brownies. I want that. Arguing late at night because we both are passionate about something. Kissing until morning because we love each other that much. I want to know someone is there to catch me when I fall. Long walks around town and lazy afternoons at the lake. That’s all I want.”

He clears his throat. The sound is heavy and snotty, and his eyes blur.

“And you could be that guy, Penn,” I say, my voice cracking. “You caught me that night at the lake. You were the first person to see and hear me. I left here thinking that there was hope because you existed. I held on to that all these years.”