Page 52 of While the Sun Shines

“I—did you want to come?”

“Yes! And she’s the one who fucking invited me! Not you, Drew.”

“Okay,” he says slowly. He didn’t get enough sleep for this. Or didn’t have enough coffee, but the sight of his cup makes his stomach twist. “Okay, but you had that bartender thing today, and now Abelardo’s here and—”

“Yeah, and you know why he’s here? ’Cause I was talking to him about how fucking lonely I am in a house of my best friends, so he cleared his entire schedule and showed the fuck up to see me.”

“I didn’t—you’re—you feel like that? I didn’t know—you didn’t tell me any of this,” Drew says.

“Because you don’t fucking talk to me.”

“But you don’t tell me this stuff,” he says. “I didn’t even know about Abelardo. He just showed up, and you’ve never mentioned him, not once!”

“You don’t fucking listen,” Penny says. “And when you do, I’m at the goddamn bottom of your list. You talked to fucking Cooper about me! I live with you, Drew. We share a fucking wall, and you told Cooper—you, what, you love me?”

“Pen—”

“Were you ever going to bother saying that to me?”

“What?” He lets out a laugh. It sounds strangled. I never said that, he wants to claim, but no, she was there. And she’s here now, glaring at him. “I—no.”

“Drew!”

“I wasn’t.” He holds up his hands. “I didn’t want you to—it would’ve put you in such an awkward position.”

“It could’ve put me in an awesome position!”

“D—did it?”

“Did it? Fuck you, Drew.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No!” She slumps back against the passenger seat, her hands over her face. “No, a real, actual apology is you finally figuring out how fucking hurtful it is for me to come second to your goddamn farm all the time, and for you to actually bother to do something about it.”

Penny pulls her hands from her face and wipes her thumbs under her eyes.

His stomach sinks. “Pen—”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re—” He fumbles through the armrest of his Jeep. Receipts he needs to enter into the farm books, a stray pen, napkins—he holds them out for her.

“Don’t be nice to me,” she says but grabs one anyway.

“Sorry.”

“Stop.”

“So—fuck.”

She wipes her face as she turns away from him. “Did Ab leave?”

“I can drive you home.” And then—what? Probably just walk into the rain and lie down in a puddle and live with this horrible ache in his gut that he made her cry. “Penny, are you okay?”

She throws the crumpled napkin down by her feet. “I’m fucking lonely.”

“Pen…”