Page 95 of While the Sun Shines
“Yeah, a couple hundred. You got any roommates?”
“Yeah.” Penny grins. “And I’ve got this huge crush on one of them.”
“Oh, funny, me too.” Drew bumps their shoulders together, jostling her lightly. “Hey, remember that time I gave you a block of cheddar and you ate the entire thing?”
“Which time?”
“The first. In, what was it, sophomore year? You said you’d do my Spanish homework for me in exchange. I gave you the cheddar and you ate it plain, not a cracker in sight. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.”
Penny lays her palm on his thigh. “Glad I can impress.”
“That was maybe the second batch of cheddar I ever made. And you asked for more so I had to figure out how to keep making it.”
“I did?”
“I burned Aunt Mary’s good pot and had to save up for two weeks to buy her a new one, and then one day you said you liked Brie, and I spent the whole summer before junior year learning how to make it.”
“Did I like it?” Her eyes widen. “Oh, I do remember that. You brought me an apple with it.”
“I went through the entire apple tree, the one next to the hammock, and found the absolute perfect apple.” Drew lets out a slow breath. “That was—I figured, you know, if I gave you a wonderful specimen of an apple and a wheel of homemade Brie, it’d be very obvious that I liked you.”
Her forehead wrinkles. “But didn’t you give some to Whit, too?”
“Yeah, but your apple was rounder and shinier, and I think the one I gave Whit was all lopsided. You were supposed to figure it out. That was like, my grand plan. And I was really hoping it’d work ’cause my backup plan was saying absolutely nothing and waiting for ten years.”
“At least it wasn’t twenty.” Penny tucks herself closer. “You gonna still marry me?”
His chest warms. “I mean, yeah, if you want to. I’d—Pen, I’d marry the shit out of you. Just tell me when and where.”
“Well, I just figured we got to ’cause Cooper’s basically got the entire thing planned.”
“He hasn’t shut up about that?” Drew asks.
“He told me yesterday that he’s already training Sadie to carry the ring basket. Which is ridiculous ’cause we all know she’d be the flower girl.”
“Are we sure these aren’t all plans he’s going to use for himself and Whit?”
“Huh.” Penny tips her head to the side. “Maybe. I guess so. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“That’s kinda what I figured. He seems very into the idea,” Drew says.
“Well, in that case…” She looks at him. And grins. “I get to—”
“I’m going to be—”
“I’m calling it, I’m—"
“Best man,” Drew says.
“Best person,” she says.
“I got dibs,” he says. “I said it. I said it. All the sheep heard me, right, girls?”
“No fucking way. I said it first. Farm reg twenty-three point seven—”
“Dibs are immutable. Farm law.”
Penny throws the wine cork at him. “Laws now?”
