Redemption(13)
My fingers grazed his jaw and lightly stroked his lips. I didn’t think I was ready to meet friends, but I knew I wanted to make him happy.
“They’ll love you. You and Annie are so much alike, I promise you’ll have a good time. Nothing fancy, just drinks. Casual.”
“I don’t have any clothes with me other than what I wore to work.” As if that should matter.
“Then we’ll get cleaned up and go by your house.”
“Have you already committed to going?”
He gave me a shit-eating grin. “Maybe.”
Playfully, I swatted at his chest. “Dan. What if I’m not ready to meet your friends? That’s a pretty big step.”
His laughter caught me off guard. “Penny, that would have been a big step six months ago. It’s hardly like I’m asking you to meet my parents. Brett’s my best friend, and I love his wife. I want to introduce you to that aspect of my life.”
Dan seemed unsettled by my apprehension. While I chewed on my bottom lip, his eyes assessed mine. He sat up, looking down at me. I rolled onto my back, still naked as the day was long, to watch him.
“Lissa, am I missing something?”
My brow furrowed in confusion. “What? No. I just don’t want to mess things up.”
“By meeting my friends?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what I was doing. Matt had really been the only man I’d ever dated seriously. We’d broken up my first year of graduate school, and I’d played the field, sort of, but other than that, I’d never been in a serious relationship. We had gotten back together, and that ended any further dating.
“Why the resistance? Are you seeing someone else?”
“You know I’m not. How could I? I’m always with you or at work.”
“Then come out with me tonight. Let me introduce you as my girlfriend.”
That last word played in my thoughts on repeat. We were in our thirties, it seemed such an odd way to describe your significant other—juvenile.
“Is that what I am?”
“Is that what this is about? Do you need a label to feel confident meeting them?”
“No.” My eyes drifted down in insecurity. Maybe I did, but more than anything, I was always afraid new people would recognize me. That was not how I wanted Dan to find out about my past.
His fingers found my chin forcing my sight to his. “Penny, I’m falling for you. I don’t want to see anyone else and haven’t since the day we met. I don’t have any desire to share you with any other man. Will you go steady with me?” A smile played on the corner of his mouth. He tried to contain it without laughing but failed miserably.
In an effort to keep it lighthearted, I replied the only way I knew how. “Only if I can wear your class ring and letterman jacket.”
He roared with laughter, shaking the bed and then popped my bare behind. “Come on. Let’s go get you changed so you can meet the two most important people in my life…next to you.” He winked at me, but his words were anything but playful. He had just made a commitment, he’d showed me his hand—now the question became how I would play it.
6
Chapter Six
Past
The police station had been godawful, but nothing compared to what I would face when I got home. I had talked to three different detectives who all had the same questions asked in a slightly different way, but my story never changed. I’d been exhausted. I had lived on three to four hours of sleep for months, and my body demanded rest. I had done the responsible thing. I pulled over when I realized I was too tired to drive. It was the afternoon on a busy interstate in Texas. The rest area was buzzing with people, taking a quick nap should not have resulted in anything catastrophic.
Despite the number of times I recounted what I knew, another officer came in and repeated the same steps as though they were trying to get me to falter, but there was nothing to mistake. I didn’t remember anything between locking the doors and waking up in the hospital. I’d sobbed with each officer, begged them to believe it had been an accident—but each one left the room with pained expressions. After six hours of questioning, they’d finally released me with charges pending and advised me to obtain an attorney and not leave the state. I hadn’t formally been charged, but I knew it was coming sooner rather than later.
I’d called in to the Dean that morning. He had seen the news stories and agreed it would be best if I took the week off to sort things out. I couldn’t get a read on whether or not he felt sorry for me or detested me the way everyone else had. The end result was the same; I wasn’t to return to my classes until I met with him Friday afternoon. He hoped I would have more information on formal charges and how I might be able to proceed. The truth was I didn’t have the foggiest notion how anyone thought I could go on at all. It took everything in me to even draw the next breath, much less think of a future. Every decision immediately in front of me was daunting and excruciatingly painful. I had no idea how I’d ever recover from any of it, much less be productive.
With two tasks out of the way, I did the thing I dreaded most next to planning a funeral for someone I’d loved. I drove home in the car that had determined my fate. I didn’t deserve the tears I shed, but I was able to release them there without condemnation. The fear of rejection hadn’t stopped me from expelling them at the police station or on the phone with my boss, but here, there were just silent drops that went unwitnessed—there was no proof they had ever existed.