His chuckle peters away, and a silence descends on us. I know he’s wondering why I’m here.
An energy jolts through my veins as I try to get the courage to tell him. I want to word vomit and run. Just spew, “Hey, we slept together a bunch of years ago and I’ve known it from the minute I saw you but didn’t tell you and now I feel like an asshole so we’re cool, right?”
I force a swallow and eke out a nervous grin. “Penn . . . ,” I say but am stopped when his phone rings through the room.
He gets up and finds it next to the paint can. I watch him look at the screen. He silences it.
“It was Alexis,” he says.
“Oh.”
His shoulders move in a circle as if he’s working out a knot. He crosses the room and sits on the limestone again.
“I haven’t talked to her since that night at Mucker’s.”
“Penn—”
“No,” he says, waving me off. “I know you probably don’t care, and that’s fine. I just wanted to say that for whatever reason and I did and now we can move on.” He works the towel between his hands as he looks at the floor. “I probably just made this super weird, didn’t I?”
“Actually,” I say, forcing a swallow, “I was going to make it weird. So, I’m glad you did it first.”
His head snaps to mine. A look of concern splashes over his eyes as the towel stills. “What do you mean?”
I don’t know.
Suddenly, I’m not sure what I’m doing.
My mind races, wondering why I thought this was a good idea and pointing out that even if I level with him, all it is going to get me is knowing I did the right thing. Why stir the pot when the pot was fine to start with?
I look into his eyes.
My heart beats so loud that I can’t hear him speak. I see his mouth move and watch his jaw tighten in suspicion. It’s not a look of anger, but one of worry. Like he’s worried about me. Not about what I’m going to say or how it will affect him, but how it will affect me.
I want to cry.
“What’s going on, Ave?” he asks softly.
I take a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you.”
“Nice.”
I smile. “You’ve really been an open book with me. I don’t think you do that a lot, do you?”
“Nah. People know what’s happened in my life because they’ve been around for it. But I don’t talk about it. It’s none of their business.”
“But you told me.”
He flinches at the observation. It’s as if it’s never occurred to him that telling me intimate details about his life was an anomaly. He works it over in his mind before tossing the towel on the floor.
“I guess it just came out,” he says.
“Well, it occurred to me tonight that I haven’t really told you anything about me.”
“No. You haven’t.”
“I know.”
“Why not?”
I move around until I’m as comfortable as I can be. I have so many things to say and I don’t know where to really start but starting with “we had sex” seems rougher than my family. So I go there.
“My mother is Jasmine Perry,” I say point-blank.
“Okay.”
I wait for the name to sink in. For the slow blink. For the gush about how wonderful her movies are and if she’s as amazing in real life as she is on-screen and if I really know James Hollyfield, the biggest actor in Hollywood who my mom is (correctly) rumored to have had an affair with.
When a few seconds pass and Penn doesn’t even blink, I figure I’ll break it down for him.
“Jasmine Perry from The Breaker Party. Cull and McGill,” I say, naming off a couple of her biggest movies. “Top Shelf.”
He nods slowly, as if the pieces of who she is and who I am are hard to fit together.
“I know. It’s hard to believe,” I say. “She looks like she’s twenty-five and is in better shape than me and—”
“She’s a picture on a screen, Avery. She doesn’t hold a fucking candle to you.”
It’s not the words so much but how he says it that stills something deep inside me. The genuine kiss of the words, the honesty in his tone assuages my anxiety over this whole conversation a bit—not to mention how amazing it makes me feel for him to say something that sweet. No one has ever said anything like that when it comes to comparing my mom and me.
“Penn . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“‘Thank you’ works fine.” He grins. “So that’s why you were talking about not embarrassing her and people using you. Your mom is famous.”
“Basically.”
He folds his hands together and rests his elbows on his knees. “Is there a reason you’re telling me this?”
“I told you. I haven’t said much of anything about me and you have, and I wanted to even the playing field a little.”
“I’m not in this friendship for information.”
My throat tightens. “Then what are you in it for?”
He stands as if he can’t sit any longer. He moves aimlessly around the room. “I don’t know. You’re just really easy to talk to and not bad to look at.” He grins at the floor. “Really, though, being with you makes me feel like I’m seen. Like you don’t care that I allegedly blew a snot rocket into Mrs. Johnson’s gradebook my freshman year. And you don’t look at me and see the goofy guy that everyone knows I am.” He looks up at me with a hesitation that stops my breath. “You see the guy I think my grandpa told me I could be.”
My chest heaves as his voice starts to crack. “Penn, don’t you make me cry, you dickhead.”
He laughs, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. A white streak of paint is left in its wake. “Now I feel like Matt, all pussified with feelings and shit. If you ever tell him I acted like this, I’ll deny it.”
“I would never,” I say with a laugh. “But you’re right. I do see a man that could be anything he wanted to be. You work harder than anyone. You don’t miss a detail, whether it’s when you’re building a wall or looking at sketches or listening to Matt tell a story. You’re kind and can be sweet and—”
“Let’s stop there. I’m starting to feel weird.” He makes a face.
I laugh. “Fine. But you get the picture.”
“One I’m going to try to forget,” he jokes. “So, your mom’s a movie star. What about your dad?”
“He directs movies. He hasn’t had a hit, though, in ten or fifteen years, which is why my mom called to tell me she’s divorcing him for a guy with better connections.”
“That’s harsh.”
“What? The way I said it or the way she’s acting?”
“Both, but I don’t fault you for it.” He runs a hand down his chin. “You and I are alike in a strange way.”
“How do you figure?”
“Both have fuckups for parents. Both turned out okay, more or less—more for you, less for me, but you get the idea.”
“Stop that,” I say, shaking my head. “You turned out great. Especially considering the circumstances. You have to stop all that negative internal monologue.”