Page 75 of While the Sun Shines

“Yeah?”

“Sounds like a question, kiddo.”

“Cooper and Whit are better at it than I am,” Drew mumbles. His face feels too hot. “All I’m good at is making cheese. And even that, I have this huge order I haven’t filled and I can’t get to it ’cause the hay and the sheep and then I came here instead and—”

And Penny. Penny. Kissing him. Laughing, her body pressed against his. Letting him see her naked, the vulnerability and closeness and fun of sharing sex. Sleeping as Drew drove them here, like she used to do on those long drives to concerts, back when he had time to go to them with her.

“I’m messing up,” he gets out. “With everything.”

“Then stop,” Bert says. “Get your head on straight and get your life together.”

“I’m trying, Uncle Bert. I’m trying so hard but I just get more and more behind no matter how hard I work and I—”

“Then try something else, if what you’ve been doing isn’t working.”

“Like—like what?”

“Well, I used to tell your dad to just turn on the damn radio before he sung himself hoarse,” Bert says. He tousles Drew’s hair and then, to Drew’s surprise, leans over and kisses the top of his head. “Just ’cause he liked doing things the hard way, doesn’t mean you have to too, okay?”

“Okay,” Drew mumbles and Bert doesn’t let him go until he nods.

When Penny comes upstairs, she holds out her empty coffee cup and Drew fills it.

“Breakfast?” he asks as he opens the refrigerator to grab the milk. “Cake?”

Bert holds a finger to his lips and points to the stairs. “Don’t tell Lucy, but…” He reaches into the back of the fridge, past cans of beer and containers of leftovers to a plain paper bag. “From Mary.”

“Oh hell yes,” Penny breathes as he opens it.

“Florida’s rhubarb isn’t half as good as picking it fresh up here, but I think she did okay.” Bert tips the bag so Drew can see the perfect tarts packed inside. “What say we warm these up? Early birds get the baked goods, and then you two can get on your way.”

Though by the time Drew’s backing the Jeep out of the driveway with Penny in the passenger seat, the sun’s fully risen and it’s not just Bert they wave to on the porch, but Lucy and even Julie, her fist in front of her mouth as she yawns, clearly on her way back to bed.

Breathe, Drew thinks again, like he’s not far too aware of himself as he reaches for the gearshift, conscious of how close it brings his hand to Penny’s thigh.

How many times have they sat in this very car? And now, his fingers feel thick as he turns the wheel, overthinking how badly he wants to set his hand on Penny’s headrest to look out the back windshield.

“You gonna drool the whole way back again?” Drew asks as lightly as he can.

“No, ’cause I can only handle your music choices for so long.”

He presses his hand over the stereo knob. “My car, my—”

“Nope.” Penny bats his hand away and oh her skin on his, the brush of her fingers.

He pretends to fight back until he has to shift gears. Behind the dark curtain of her hair falling forward over her shoulder, she smiles.

The barnyard’s quiet when Penny and Drew finally drive in. Socks lounges in the sunlight, and a sheep sticks her head out of the barn, sees him, and ducks back inside. Well, she’s got the right idea ’cause Drew wouldn’t mind hiding from his day with the farm staring back at him now that he’s here. Wouldn’t mind hiding from Penny, too.

Beside him, she gathers up her phone and the empty paper coffee cups they’d collected. She’s already unbuckling her seatbelt as he parks.

“Um,” he says as he turns off the engine.

Penny must want to get out, stretch her legs, get on with her day after a long drive. But she waits, her eyes on him.

“So.” Drew scratches at his neck. “You wanna…”

She waits. Oh God, yeah, she’s going to wait, see if he can get words out, not do this for him.