Page 56 of While the Sun Shines

Beside him, Penny slumps against the window, her mouth working in her sleep.

We kissed, he thinks again. Holy fucking shit they really, actually kissed.

And now Penny’s here next to him as he steers toward the exit off the highway for his aunt’s house, snoring softly with her cheek resting against her seatbelt. He brakes on the curve of the exit ramp and she blinks awake. Quickly, he picks up the coffee cup and holds it out to her.

“When did you stop for this?” Penny asks as she takes it.

“Right about when you started drooling.” Drew tosses a napkin toward her casually, like he’s been planning. As if his stomach isn’t knotted, and his hand isn’t so clumsy with nerves he’s surprised when the napkin doesn’t hit her in the face.

“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Penny murmurs.

“Just imagining eating a bagel with toppings on it.” He slows at an intersection and then turns into Aunt Lucy’s neighborhood.

“You’re a goofball.”

I’m a mess, he thinks. He twists his hands over the steering wheel, sure they’re leaving behind sweaty marks from his palms. “Is that still hot enough?” he asks.

“S’good, thank you,” she says, taking another sip of her coffee.

Penny stretches out her legs then sits up straighter, turning to face him. Drew looks at her, then back to the road; he waits for a beat, glances at Penny again. She’s still staring.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

He looks both ways at a stop sign, then over at her once more. “You’re staring at me.”

“I’m thinking,” she says.

His hand feels too large as he taps the turn signal. “About?”

“Stuff.”

Drew steers down Aunt Lucy’s street, looks at Penny again, then back to the road. Curves into the driveway, glances over once more, and Penny’s brown eyes are on him, piercing and calm.

“Pen?”

But Aunt Lucy throws open the front door to the house as Drew shifts into park before she can say anything.

“Can it be?” Aunt Lucy shouts as he slips out of the truck.

I’m gonna steal you away from those cows, she used to tease him, tickling him until he couldn’t breathe as he laughed and laughed and laughed. The best type of threat whenever he’d seen her, whisking him away to go get ice cream or to the town pool, where he’d splashed around with Julie, free from the farm and Aunt Mary’s and Uncle Bert’s rules.

Aunt Lucy hugs him before he can make it up the porch steps, holding him tight like he’s little again and doesn’t tower over her.

“You little stinker,” she says. “I didn’t hear from you. I figured a cow ate you.”

“Nah, they know he’d taste funny,” Penny says.

Aunt Lucy pulls Penny into a hug without letting go of Drew, smashing their shoulders together and kissing their cheeks in turn, back and forth again. Julie waves from behind her mom’s shoulder, and Drew wrestles an arm free to wave back.

“Hey smarty,” Drew says, “where’s the cap and gown?”

“M’saving it for Halloween,” Julie says. “Hi, what’d you do to be able to make it here, bring all the cows with you?”

“You don’t want one for your very own? I can hook you up,” he says.

“I’ve shoveled enough cow shit in my day, thanks,” she says. “Guess you haven’t since you just love it so much.”