Page 70 of While the Sun Shines
He sucks in a breath. “Yeah?”
“You alive?”
“No.” He slides his hand down the length of her leg and drags his palm back up. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Too bad.”
“Yeah.” Slowly, he pulls out of her. His hands are shaking. His whole body is. “You—fucking hell, Pen, you good?”
“Hmm, yeah.”
“Okay.” He sets her leg back down. Lies next to her and tries to catch his breath. “Okay, yeah, wow.”
“Yeah, wow.”
She laughs. And then rolls toward him, snuggling up into his side. She props her chin on his chest, circles her finger around his nipple, then pokes his ribs, right where he’s ticklish. “You wore two different flip-flops to that concert we went to.”
“What?”
“In Albany, a couple years ago. Remember? We got there, and you looked down at your feet and then spent like twenty minutes searching through your Jeep to see if you had another pair of shoes so you wouldn’t look so ridiculous all night.”
Drew lets out a soft huff of a laugh. “Oh yeah, I do remember that. Wasn’t my fault, though.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Cooper had been visiting. He kept ‘borrowing’ my stuff.”
“Sure, blame Cooper. And okay, that time Bert told you to fill up the farm truck with gas, and you didn’t, and we got stuck on the side of the highway, and then you tried to cover your ass and tell him we meant to be out all afternoon.”
“What are these, Drew’s top ten moments?”
“You asked for all the embarrassing things you’ve done. How about that time you were telling Whit over and over again that you got the hammock strung up in the backyard perfectly fine and went to prove it to him.”
“Oh, please don’t—”
“And sat in it and fell right on your ass?”
“I had a bruise for like a week after that.”
“I’ve never actually seen Whit laugh that hard. Honestly, we should recreate it for Cooper. It’s a shame he missed it.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“And okay, remember—”
“You keep going, I’ll remind you of that time Coop made pizza and you went to carry it to the table and tripped and it landed on the floor.”
“An honest mistake.”
“And then you and Cooper still ate it.” Drew turns onto his side, rolling Penny over with him until he’s spooned up to her back, arm over her waist, their legs tangled. “You wanna go to another concert this summer?”
“Sure, but only if we can do a shoe check before we leave the farm. I have standards, Andrew.”
“I know you do.” He presses his face into her hair. “And you should.”
I love you, he thinks. And could stay here forever, in a bed that smells like them, her body cradled in his arms, her skin still flushed and her limbs loose.
“Pen?”
