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sixteen

Penelope

M iles should be here any minute and I’m back in my bedroom, changing my shirt for the sixth time.

I’m not sure what I should wear. I want to look cute, but not like I’m trying to look cute. So I have on a crop sweatshirt from college with the neck off, a pair of leggings, and my hair up in a topknot.

Cute, but casual.

“Mom! Someone is at the door!” Kai yells.

I take a deep breath, blow it out, and head toward the door. When I open it, it’s not Miles there, it’s my brother.

“Quinn?”

He smiles broadly. “Hello, sister.”

I blink and my pulse races. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, completely fine. I’m just here to see you and Kai. I wanted to call but thought it would be more fun to surprise you.”

“Fun. Right.”

As much as I absolutely love my brother and always want to see him, fun isn’t the word I would use for any time he just shows up. The minute I saw him, all I could think was—this is it. We have to leave again.

“Are you angry?” he asks.

“No, not at all, just ... you know, when you show up without a call, it’s not usually because you missed us.”

“I’m sorry, Pen. Can I come in?” he asks sheepishly .

“Of course.” I step back and allow my brother to enter.

Kai pokes his head out and yells as soon as he sees his uncle. “Uncle Quinn!”

“What’s up, bud?”

He scoops him in his arms and then ruffles his hair. “I had an awesome day at hockey today! I got a goal two times.”

My brother smiles, pride showing on his face. “I knew you’d be great at sports, just like I was.”

I fight back a laugh. “You weren’t great.”

“I was better than you,” Quinn tosses back.

He’s not wrong. I swam, but more because my mother said I had to play one sport or join band. Since I have zero musical ability, I went with swimming since I was fairly decent at it. Quinn was a three-season player and was marginally good at each one.

“ Anyway , neither of us were great.”

He chuckles. “You’re ruining my street cred.”

I place my hand over my chest. “I’m so sorry.” My eyes meet Kai’s. “Your uncle was the best there ever was.”

“Better than Coach Miles?”

“Probably not, but for your uncle’s sake, let’s pretend.”

Quinn huffs. “I heard that.”

I smile. “I wasn’t whispering.”

Quinn places his hand on Kai’s shoulder. “Did you finish the Lego set?” Kai shakes his head. “Why don’t we work on that in a little bit. I’m just going to hang with your mom for a little, okay?”

Kai looks at him like he hung the moon. “Okay! Can I go play my game, Mom?”

“Go ahead.”

He rushes out and Quinn looks to me. “He reminds me so much of you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you loved games and I freaking hated them. Gabriel is the same. All he wants is to play that one building-a-world game online or watch people on the internet do it. Which is a whole other level of confusion for me.”

I laugh softly. “Yeah, I don’t know how that became a thing. Kai likes to watch them play, almost more than I think he likes to play. ”

It honestly confuses me. What is fun about watching someone build a world when you could do it yourself? What’s even more confounding is some of these people are making a fortune. While I’m just making coffee.

“Kids are weird.”

“I’m glad we weren’t like that.”

Quinn scoffs. “Dad would’ve kicked our asses right outside.”

“He didn’t need to. We wanted to be outside from the minute we woke up.”

It was a different time. I know this, but truly we longed to be outside playing with our friends. Quinn and I would scarf down our breakfast and be out the front door before we finished chewing.

Now it’s like pulling teeth to get Kai to play out back.

To be fair, there’s not much to do as an only child. I had the luxury of a brother who had no shortage of ways to find trouble.

“Well, I’m glad you came to say hi.”

He pulls me against his side. “Me too.”

We head into the open kitchen area, and my brother looks around. “Were you expecting someone?”

“Huh?” I ask, surprise in my voice.

He tilts his head toward the table. “You have three place settings.”

“Yeah,” I say quickly. “He’s a neighbor and ... umm ... Kai’s hockey coach. He was going to come by.”

Quinn, who doesn’t miss a damn thing, crosses his arms over his chest. “He?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“What do I think?”

That this is a date, which it’s not. It’s just a coincidence.

I’m such a liar. It’s totally a date.

“I’m not dating anyone. I’m not going to make the same mistakes,” I explain.

My brother steps forward, his arms dropping. “Whoa, whoa, Penelope, slow down there. Way to jump to conclusions.”

“I’m not. I’m just saying that I don’t want to relive history. I’m not going to put myself or Kai in that situation again.”

“That’s not what I was thinking. I don’t think you’re stupid or going to be in a worse-off situation. I think you’re brave and strong to have called me and let us get you out of the position you were in. I think you’re an incredible mother who has literally sacrificed everything just to keep Kai safe. If you want to date, you should.”

I shake my head. “And what? Where does it go? How do I explain any of it?”

He sighs. “I don’t know, but we put you in Ember Falls because it’s safe. I’ve gone over every lead, trail, anything that could lead anyone here, and it doesn’t exist. Our communications and cyber guys do constant checks and leave bad intel just in case his people were to find anything. You’re safe here, Penelope.”

I wish so badly that I could believe that. “Did you put me in an unsafe situation in Tennessee?”

“No.”

“Then why am I in Ember Falls? Because nothing is safe for too long. They found me then, they’ll find me again.”

Quinn comes closer. “No, they won’t.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“You’re right. I can’t.”

The admission causes me to jerk back. “What?”

“I can’t promise it. I can’t promise that a tree wouldn’t almost fall on your house either. I can’t promise that things won’t go wrong. I shouldn’t have said that to you.”

I hear his words and a part of me hates them. “Okay.”

“I also can’t promise that Edward’s men won’t meet their untimely demise. That you’ll spend the next ten years in Ember Falls without a single issue. I can’t promise you anything, Penelope, other than you’re safe right now and I’ll do everything to keep you safe.”

He doesn’t get it. “And that means that dating someone isn’t a good idea.”

“Why?”

“Why?” I repeat him, my anger growing. “Because I could ... I could fall for Miles.”

“And?”

I swear, I love my brother, but I might have to kill him.

“That would be terrible.”

“You know, you’d think after being married for years, I’d finally understand women, but I don’t. So what if you fall in love? You can’t predict the future, Penelope. Miles is a great guy from what I can tell.”

Now I’m stunned. “What can you tell?”

“Did you think I wasn’t going to run background checks on everyone you’re around? Miles has an exceptional military service record. Not as good as mine, but, you know, I’m a grade-A badass.”

“I had another adjective in mind,” I say, cutting him off.

“He’s loved by his staff as well as all the students he’s taught and been around. The town loves him. I couldn’t find any red flags, and trust me, I looked. I know this might sound stupid, but if you were going to fall for someone in the town, I’m glad it’s him.” Quinn takes a step forward. “He’d protect you, Penny. Honestly, I feel better just knowing there is someone like him in this town.”

Little does he know, he already has when he thought I was in danger. I think about Miles’s face when he got to me. How he drove up this road, during the worst of the storm to make sure Kai and I were okay.

I can’t imagine he’d ever let anything happen to us.

That said, I never want to test it, and I will always choose Kai’s safety, even if it means I have to hurt myself or anyone else.

“I don’t want to hurt him or Kai.”

“I think you’re worried about another person hurting too, Penny.” My brother calls me out, just like Ashton did earlier.

“I’m worried about everyone getting hurt.”

My brother takes two steps forward. “I’m doing everything I can. We keep searching, and I promise I’m trying to make sense of the information.”

“I know, and I’m stuck because I can’t go to the police about it. I can’t explain these half theories to anyone. They’d laugh and they’re also involved, if I understand the part of the book I read.”

Quinn, who has been trained to hunt, kill, protect, and always do what’s right, steps closer. “I will find the answers. I know it’s been years. I know we’ve been working on it for what feels like forever, but when you have a crime ring this big, this ... established, it’s not easy.”

Both he and his team have explained it, and I’m fully aware. This involves people with a lot of money and even more power. When we are able to do something about it, we will, but until then, this is my life.

“And that’s why I can’t let myself get sucked into this pretend life.”

Quinn reaches his hand out, resting it on my shoulder. “That’s where you’re wrong, Penny. This is the life you have. We only get one. We don’t get to go back and make different choices based on the knowledge we get afterward. You aren’t living anything pretend, this is what it is, so take hold of it and live it, Penelope.”

“Just to lose it?” I ask as my tears come unbidden.

“I would’ve rather ripped the heart from my chest, stomped on it, felt every ounce of pain possible, than to never have loved Ashton. Take the hurt, because without it, you will never know what real happiness feels like.”

That might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I think about his words and what it all means for me. Is it better to protect my heart? Is staying away from Miles even possible? I like him a lot. I want to be with him, but the fear of what could happen keeps me from taking that jump.

I think about Kai. How much it would hurt him to get closer to Miles and then to have to leave.

“And what happens if I get close to him, I have to build a relationship on a bed of lies.”

Quinn’s face falls slightly. “I know, and I would bet he knows how hard keeping secrets is. There were so many times I couldn’t tell you the truth about where I was, what I was doing, and lying is never fun, but you don’t have to lie, just omit parts of your past. Once we have this missing person file under control, which Gretchen is working on, I’ll let you know it’s safe to tell him more.”

“I’m scared,” I admit, wringing my hands.

“I think you have every right to be, but you have a lot of people who are doing what we can to protect you. Trust us. Trust me, Penny, I wouldn’t let anything hurt you.” A tear falls down my cheek and my brother, unable to handle any type of emotion, shakes his head and steps back. “All right, enough of that shit, now I’m going to build Legos with my nephew and crash your date.”

I go to grab my phone to send a text to Miles, warning him that our date is really not going to be a date, since my brother is here, but before I can fire off a text, there’s a knock on the door.

“Penny, your date is here!” Quinn yells, and I groan.

“Please behave,” I implore my brother.

He chuckles and I can imagine the shit-eating grin that’s probably on his face.

I send off a silent prayer that I can get through tonight without my brother making me want to scream and open the door. “Hey.”

Miles has a wide smile and then moves his hand from behind his back, and I wait to see flowers, but ... it’s a garden hand shovel. “Hi.”

“Oh. Umm. Thanks?”

“It’s so that you can plant around the tree.” He chuckles nervously when he sees the expression on my face. “You know ... I should’ve just gotten you flowers.”

“No! No, it’s perfect. It’s really thoughtful and cute. Thank you.”

His eyes narrow slightly. “Liar.”

“I’m not. I love it.” I extend my hand, taking the shovel from his grasp. “However ... I have to warn you.”

Apprehension fills his eyes. “Warn me?”

And then my door opens a little from behind me and I gasp. “That her brother dropped in unexpectedly,” Quinn says, and I realize my prayers are not going to be answered.