I must be losing my mind.
Turning to ask him where we’re headed now, I catch him staring at me. My cheeks flush. “What?” I ask.
“Am I doing a good job of being your friend?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Because I’m not sure what that really looks like. I’m just doing my best.”
“You’re friends with Claire and Alexis, right?”
I hold my breath because I’m not sure what to expect his reaction to be. I’m not even sure what his friendship with either of them really is . . . and I might not want to know. Although given Claire said I was the only person she’s ever seen shoot Penn down, perhaps that’s my answer. And I really don’t want to know.
Penn grins and drops his chin. “Yeah. Totally the same thing.”
He laughs quietly before raising his head again. His eyes swim with an emotion I can’t quite name, but it makes me smile.
“Now let’s get back,” he says. “I have some fish to catch.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PENN
I hand Gerald, Mucker’s delivery guy, twenty-five bucks. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, man,” he says.
“No problem.”
I shut the door and head down the hallway toward the kitchen.
The walls of my rental need to be painted. They’ve needed to be painted since I moved in six years ago. I keep thinking I’ll bite the bullet eventually and just do it, but I also keep thinking that maybe I won’t live here forever.
I’ve had a dream for years now, ever since I was a teenager, of building my own place out by the lake. Building it with my own hands. It would have a big fireplace in the living room and a kitchen large enough for my friends to come over and watch a game or exchange presents on Christmas Eve like we used to do at Grandpa’s.
It would take a lot of money and even more energy, and I halfway think it would be a waste since it’s just me. I don’t need all that. And when I think about other options, like finding someone who would be happy living like that, too, I backtrack really fast and reconsider painting.
“Here ya go,” I say, sliding the pizza box onto the table. “Half sausage and pepperoni for me, half sausage and mushroom because you’re gross for you.”
Matt looks up from his phone. “Dane just sent me a text. He’s coming home early.”
“Why?” I open the box and take out a slice. “I think if I ever went to Florida, I might not come back.”
“Right?” He puts his phone on the table. “I guess Mia stepped on a shell and sliced her foot, so the ocean and even walking hurts. And I guess Meredith called him.”
“Why? We’re there. Why did she bother him?”
I chomp the pizza harder than necessary.
“I guess her schmoozing with the permit people didn’t go well. She stayed after I left and I didn’t see her again, so I didn’t know how it panned out. Dane said she said they won’t budge on joining her two little brainchildren, convinced that animals and kids together are a liability.”
I point at him. “Makes sense.”
“Now she’s determined to open some kind of animal sanctuary or some shit, and Dane thinks it’s a big opportunity.”
My pizza hits the box lid with a thud. “I’m never getting a vacation, am I?”
Matt laughs. “Falling off a ladder will get ya six weeks.”
“Except I’m not a baby and could never live with myself for pussying out like that.”
“You’d have a hard time living with a bleeding spleen too. Just saying.”
We exchange a grin. It lasts a half a second before he can’t take it anymore.
“You aren’t going to eat that pizza, are you?” he asks.
I pick up the piece I tossed on the box. “You mean, this one?” Sauce squirts onto the table as I take a giant bite. “Yup.”
“You’re going to die of some strange bacteria. You can’t just eat things that have been lying on random surfaces.”
“What’s the difference between the top of the lid and the bottom? It’s the same thing, bud.”
“It’s not. I can’t explain it, but it’s not.”
“I think they took a part of your brain out when they fixed your uterus.”
“My spleen, damn it. Spleen.”
I get up and find a couple of glasses. I fill them with ice and grab sodas. “It pains me to say this, but Meredith hasn’t been quite as pushy this time.”
Matt takes a cup and a soda from me. “I think she just has her hand in more cookie jars this time. She can’t micromanage us if she’s not there.”
“Don’t say that,” I whine as I sit back down across from him. “You just jinxed us. The universe is now handing its beer off to Meredith’s poodles, saying, ‘Watch this.’”
Matt laughs. “Sorry. You’re probably right.”
“No doubt I’m right, and I’m blaming you.” I reach inside the box and flick a mushroom from my side to his.
“Dude, don’t touch my food,” Matt says.
“Don’t taint mine with your fungus.”
He settles back in his chair. “Speaking of taint . . .”
“Totally not where I thought this was heading.” I pop open my soda and pour it into the cup. “But whatever. Go ahead. What’s wrong with your taint?”
“Shut the hell up, Etling,” he says, shaking his head. “I was trying to segue over to discussing Avery.”
“And you were doing that with ‘taint’? What kind of animal are you?”
“I was angling toward you tainting her, but you cut me off before I got it out.”
I take a long drink of soda. When I set the cup back down, I wipe my mouth off with my hand. “Do you just sit around and wait for the proper segues? Or do you ever just say, fuck it, and say what you want?”
“I try to be polite about things.”
“That’s your first problem.” I take another bite.
As I move around, my chair, a yard-sale find when I moved in years ago, creaks under my weight. One of these days, I’m going to sit down and it’s going to drop me on my ass.
“What’s going on with you two?” he asks. “I can’t figure y’all out. She’s not fawning over you, and you’re not chasing her tail like a dog in heat, but you clearly want each other. I’m perplexed.”
Me too. Me fucking too.
I shove the rest of the slice of pizza into my mouth to give me a couple of extra seconds to contemplate my answer. I get what Avery and I are doing for the most part—nothing. She wants to be the female version of Matt, I think. How do I put that into words for someone else?
Do I say we’re friends? Matt will laugh me out of the kitchen. He knows me too well. He’ll say the only girls I’ve ever been just friends with are Haley and Neely and Claire—and almost not even Claire.
There’s no way I can say I don’t want to fuck her because I’m not sure I can get past the first two words without calling bullshit on myself. I. Want. Her. I want her so much that I’ve not even been with anyone else since I met her. And it’s not because I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Fuck that. It’s because she’s the only one I’m thinking about, and when Alexis or someone hits me up, I instantly compare them to Avery and opt out. It’s unnerving.