Chapter 56: Penny
I’m so full I could roll home like a human dumpling.
The second I step into my house, the silence feels deafening after the warmth of the Hayes‘ place. Laughter still echoes somewhere in my brain. Mrs. Hayes lasagna is still in my stomach, taking up prime real estate, and honestly, I’d fight someone to have one more bite. I close the door behind me and press my back to it for a second, sighing.
That family is dangerous. Like, in the best way. Cozy, welcoming, lasagna–making dangerous.
I climb the stairs slowly, careful not to let the house creak too loudly. Being alone again makes it more noticeable the clicks, the hums, the shadows. But I shake it off. I’m not going to spiral. Not tonight.
I peel off my dress and hang it back in my closet, slipping into soft pajama shorts and a tank top. My legs sigh in relief. I do a couple stretches by my barre – hamstring, calves, back just to get the dinner weight to settle better. Then it’s off to the bathroom: toothbrush, skincare, brushing out the curls that somehow still haven’t frizzed even after the storm yesterday.
–
By the time I’m padding around the house to turn off the lights, everything feels still. Too still.
I reach for the switch in the hallway and pause. My hand hovers.
The robbery.
I hate that my brain still calls it that – the robbery, like it’s this dark little chapter I never closed. I guess I didn’t. Tyler told me countless times that I should put it behind me, that the guys are in prison and that it won’t happen again but… sometimes, when I walk in the dark, I still half expect these guys to show up in front of me. Or when I see a gun in a movie, all I can think about is what it felt like to have one 2 inches from my face.
I might be dramatic, I know. Tyler told me so. I know I have to move on. I just don’t know how.
I flick off one light, then pause and leave the kitchen one on, just to cut the edge of the shadows.
It’s dumb. I know it’s dumb. But I still do it.
Upstairs, I crawl into bed and open my laptop. I pull up the new episode of that absurd survival show the one where they drop influencers on a deserted island and ask them to find clean water and build shelter with zero experience.
The guy with perfect hair just tried to spear a fish using a selfie stick. I giggle into my comforter. A girl in a hot pink tankini is crying because she accidentally mistook a scorpion for a crab.
These people would last two hours in the ballet world. Tops.
My phone buzzes next to me.
I smile, expecting it to be Tyler with some over–the–top “sleep tight my lil ballerina” message but the screen lights up with a name I wasn’t expecting.
Ash
–
“are you okay
I blink. Sit up straighter. Did I…? Did he mean to text someone else?
Wait.
The group chat. Right. Tyler added all our numbers. He must’ve gotten mine from there.
My thumbs hesitate. Then I type:
me
Asher?
Chapter 56: Penny
It takes two seconds.
Ash
yeah”
“are you okay”
Okay, weird.
Weird but… not unwelcome?
me
“I mean, I’m alive. Bloated with lasagna but otherwise functioning.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then:
Ash
“you’re ridiculous”
I grin.
me
“You’re surprised by this?”
Ash
“not even a little”
“but you’re really okay?”
I bite my lip.
me
“yeah. I left the kitchen light on like a proper adult.”
Ash
“good”
There’s a pause, long enough for me to think that’s the end of it. But then:
Ash
“now you have my number”
“if you need anything”
I don’t know what to type. My fingers hover.
Ash
in case tyler doesn’t answer”
о, генпу
That… lands different.
It’s casual. It looks casual. But I read it three times, and each time it hits harder. Something about the way he just knows Tyler sometimes doesn’t answer. Something about how he’s not making a big deal of offering to step in.
me
“thanks.”
Ash
“see you tomorrow.”
I stare at the screen. My heart’s beating too fast. I don’t know why. Or I do, but I don’t want to admit it.
It’s just a text. From a guy I barely know.
A guy I’m not supposed to be thinking about at night.
A guy whose voice is always low and dry and careful.
A guy who remembers the kitchen light.
I put the phone down.
Then I pick it back up. Reread the texts. Twice.
Nope.
I grab it, go into settings, and place it far across the room on my desk, as far as possible. Because if it’s near me, I’ll keep rereading. I’ll keep wondering.
I sink into my blankets and press play again.
Someone on the screen is trying to cook rice on a rock. It’s a disaster.
I try to laugh but it comes out small. My mind won’t stop spinning.
He didn’t have to check on me. But he did. And it wasn’t a group
text.
It was just to me.
1 roll onto my side, curl into the blankets.
Try to let my brain slow down.
But every time I close my eyes, that little message buzzes behind my lids:
are you okay
Eventually, the sounds of fire crackling on the show and waves crashing against a TV beach blur into the background, and sleep finds me – somewhere between the warmth of lasagna and the echo of a voice I shouldn’t want to remember.
Falling for my boyfriend’s Navy brother
Chapter 57: Penny
