Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

I picked up my dish and brought it into the kitchen.

"I've got that, sweetie." JoAnn followed me to the sink and took my plate.

"Oh, I can help. House rules, right? One cooks, the others do the dishes."

"You're a guest."

I felt far too at home. More than I'd ever felt with anyone in my life, which said something since I'd been shuttled around to more foster homes than I could count or remember.

"Rules are rules." I took the plate back.

She sighed and stood next to me. "Fine, then we'll do it together."

I couldn't complain since it was her kitchen. "I don't think I've had lasagna that good since I went to Italy for research."

"You went to Italy?" JoAnn turned to me, her brown eyes wide with excitement. Those eyes were Penn's eyes. "I've been saving to go there. Hank isn't as excited about the prospect, he's a homebody. Raised in Crescent Cove and never wanted to leave. I fell for the town too, so I guess I can't fault him."

"Where are you from?"

"Another small town." She laughed as she twisted her braid up and away with a clip. "I thought for sure I would get away from Winchester Falls and go to the big city. Or at least one where everyone didn't know all your business." She took a plate from me. "Then I met Hank at a concert."

I grinned. "Who?"

"Exactly that." When she saw my confusion, she threw her head back. "We saw The Who."

"Oh. Duh."

"Me and my girlfriends snuck away to their concert in…gosh, had to be the early 80's." She bumped me with her hip. "We won't talk about how the eighties are somehow fifty years ago."

I laughed. "Some of the best music. When I was…" I trailed off. I didn't generally share my background with people. But I'd also learned to keep other people talking so I didn't have to share myself with them. JoAnn and Hank made it far too easy to get comfortable with them.

JoAnn took the plate from me and tucked it into the drying rack, then turned me to her. "You don't have to share anything you don't want to, honey."

I sighed. "When I was fostered."

"Oh, sweetie."

"It's okay." I hurried on, not wanting to make it a thing. "I survived. But they placed me with a lady who loved her record player. She didn't really have money for cable, but I was too young to really miss it. She loved hair metal. We'd listen to Def Leppard and KISS on repeat all day long."

Molly had been one of my favorite fosters.

She never made me feel like I was just a check, even though I obviously was. But she never treated me badly and gave me a deep appreciation for eighties' rockstars.

When I looked over JoAnn's shoulder, Penn was there.

Oh, good. Just in time to hear that part of my life. Perfect.

Penn's mom followed my gaze. "Why don't I let you two talk? We're all cleaned up."

I glanced at the lasagna pan still waiting to be scrubbed, but she all but shoved me at Penn. "Really, I want to help."

Penn came into the small kitchen and hustled me out and to the back door. "C'mon, the sun is setting. We've got the best seat outside." He slid an arm around my back. "I knew I'd get to the bottom of why you didn't write fan fiction."

I bristled.

"C'mon, Rita. It's not like that. Do you know how impressive it is that you created an entire career for yourself without any help? To come up from that and be the successful author you are? Believe me, I had plenty of help. Scholarships and parents who saved for years to put all their kids into college if they wanted to go."

I relaxed and let him lead me to the deck, then down the stairs to where a huge basket swing was tied to a massive oak in the Mastersons' backyard. "How many girls did you sneak out here to do this with?"

He laughed. "You got me. This was the kissing spot for all of us." He gripped the top of the basket in an oversized egg shape. "We won't talk about how my parents were probably the first ones to christen it."

I shook my head. "It's not going to snap, is it?"

"Have you seen the size of my dad?"

"I have. And yet, you are…you." I skimmed my eyes over his broad shoulders and lean frame. I knew firsthand that there was a host of ropey muscles under his clothing, but Penn definitely leaned toward the small end of the spectrum compared to his father and two of the brothers I'd met so far.

Just met.

Not so far.

Don't get ahead of yourself, girl.

"Runt of the litter?" He sat in the swing and hauled me in with him. "Didn't seem to bother you a few days ago."

"Penn!" I grabbed the top of the basket, but the rope and chain groaned a little and held.

He swung my legs across his lap, and I settled against the worn green cushion. Worn in the way that meant it was so very loved. I wiggled and fished behind my back to find a smaller circular pillow covered in crocheted granny square stitches in a rainbow of colors.

"Maddie," he said easily. "My sister went through a crochet phase when she was pregnant with her little girl. Crocheted blankets, scarves, and booties for everyone she knew."

I tucked the pillow in front of me and wrapped my arms around it. "I like it."

His legs were long enough to set the swing to swaying. We sat there for awhile as the sun flamed behind the trees of his parents' neighborhood. It was unseasonably warm, and my sweater was more than enough even when the sun made its slow descent in the sky, a perfect hot pink that said tomorrow would probably be another beautiful day.

I liked that Penn could be quiet. I wasn't aware he had it in him, but he just lightly stroked his thumb along my knee as we swung for a long time. The lights from his folks' house were a cozy warm yellow, leaving us in shadow.

"Going to tell me about earlier today?"

"And I was just thinking how nice it was that you were quiet."

He grinned, a flash of white in the dark. "Maybe it'll make you feel better to tell someone who doesn't know anything about it. I'm not up on all the drama of the regular author world. There's plenty in the graphic novels and comics to keep me busy." He gripped my knee lightly. "Or you can tell me about foster life."

"Huh, are those my only choices?"

"Pretty much. Unless you want to make out."

I tapped my finger on the pillow. "Make out."

He laughed. "Is it really that hard to talk to me, Duchess?"

The dark helped the honesty that I rarely let out into conversation. "It is. I'm not used to talking to anyone about my life."

"Not even?—"

"Jenelle?"

He sighed but squeezed my leg again. "I can't imagine losing my best friend. Who is also my business partner."

"But you had history with Larsen, correct?"

He waited a beat, the swing picking up a little speed. "A lot of history. I assume you did with Jenelle too?"

The memory of our first meeting was an old one. "At a convention. I was scared shitless, and she found me throwing up in the bathroom."

"Well, there's a first meet."

I laughed. "Auspicious, to be sure. My whole world changed that day. Jenelle was shopping a book. Back then, we were still thinking that it would be easiest to work with a publisher. I didn't know what the heck I was doing, and I had an appointment to do my elevator pitch, I guess you'd call it."

I fell back into the memory. "The heavily lemon-scented air freshener is burned in my brain. You know the kind that smells so fake it makes your stomach twist?"

"Like school."

"Maybe your school. Mine smelled like piss and shit." I swore under my breath. "Sorry. I didn't mean to?—"

"Rita, it's okay. It was your memory." His hand was so warm and sure on my thigh.

Pushing those less than great memories away, I went back to the conference. "I was so nervous about my pitch because the pitch appointments were like seven minutes max. I just knew I was going to fuck it up. Jenelle cleaned me up and let me try it out on her. We discovered we had a similar kind of story."

"You sure it was similar, or did she take your idea?"

I frowned. "No, she wouldn't. I saw her notes…didn't I?" Now I couldn't remember. She was so sweet to me, and I'd had so little kindness in my life.

God, so many years ago. I couldn't believe every part of it had been a lie.

"She brought me up to her hotel room. A lot of the conference people had rooms because it was a multiple day thing."

"But you didn't."

He didn't even question it. How did he know?

"No. I scraped all my money together to take the train to Boston for the conference. The rest had been to cover a professional outfit." One that I'd bought secondhand at a thrift shop that helped people buy clothes for interviews.

It was the biggest interview of my life.

"But the shoes didn't fit, and Jenelle saw the blisters on my feet, and I'd ruined the blouse in the bathroom. I was a mess. She cleaned me up and we did our pitches together. We didn't get picked, but we became friends that day. Started writing together a few months later."

Had she really played me from the start?

How many of the ideas for our books had come from me?

I struggled out of the swing, nearly falling out of it before my boot sunk into the grass.

"Hey!" Penn tried to grab for me.

I held a hand up at him and stalked away to pace. The backyard was lit with Edison bulbs hung around the fence line that had slowly glowed to life once the sun had set. The lawn was littered with children's toys and a swing set in the corner, but there was plenty of room for me to pace.

"Rita?"

"God, has she actually never been my friend? All this time?"

He tried to slow me down, but the anger crackled under my skin like fire ants on attack mode. "I didn't mean to convey that she wasn't your friend."

"I don't even know if she was. Would Larsen cut you off for four million dollars?"

"What?" Penn's face was mostly in shadow with the string lights highlighting his sharp features. His eyebrows snapped down over his glittering eyes. "Four million ?"

I laughed, but it sounded hysterical to my own ears, and I couldn't temper it. I bent at the waist for a second as the lights seemed to be far too shiny right then. "My best friend came to me on New Year's Eve and told me she wanted to sever ties. Came right to my house." I stood and strode toward him. "Can you even imagine? On the day before the new year where we had come up with so many plans, she came to me and said, "I don't think things are working, Rhi." I laughed. "She called me Rhi in her effortlessly crisp voice. Never my full name. Always Rhi this and Rhi that. Oh, Rhi, we will make so much money!"

I turned away from him and fisted my hair. "When we went viral for Date with Disaster, she practically crowed about how much of a genius she was. She was always looking for money. Jenelle Matthews who had never had to work a day in her life. Her parents gave her everything. Covered her apartment and cars so that whatever we made on our books was simply play money to her. It wasn't to me. Every dime was to get me into a place for the first time since I'd turned sixteen."

"Rita." Penn's voice was hoarse.

"Oh, yeah. Want to know the real truth about Rita Savage? Foster kid who bounced around from home to home—never knowing how long I'd get to stay. Yep. Until I was sixteen and just couldn't stand the thought of getting placed one more time. I took off. Lived on the streets and worked whatever under the table jobs I could manage. You know, because I didn't have an address to put on an application."

Slowly, Penn walked toward me. "I'm so sorry, baby."

"But the street wasn't so bad most of the time. I found places that were safe, and I was small and fast for the times they weren't. So many had it worse than me."

He cupped my face. "Don't diminish it. You're amazing for coming out of that and making something of yourself—all on your own."

I gripped his hands. "I thought I'd made it. Thought I‘d found an amazing friend after all the years I had no one." My voice was wobbly, and I hated it. "But she threw me away just like everyone else."

He hauled me into his arms, his hand at the back of my head, holding me tight to him.

I sagged against him. "She threw me away. Threw our career away. And now I have to do this all on my own. I'm so tired of being on my own."

To my horror, the tears came in a flood. There was no stopping them.

He didn't shush me.

He didn't say it would be okay.

He just held on—so tightly.

I looped my arms around his back and let myself hold on. I knew the embarrassment would come, but right now, I just didn't care. When the storm was over and my head ached, I tried to pull free.

"Nope. You're not going anywhere."

"I'm a mess. God, your shirt is a mess."

"What the washer is for." He eased me back a bit but moved his hands down to link at the small of my back. "I'm sorry Jenelle was a piece of shit. Maybe she didn't start out that way, but she certainly showed her true colors at the end."

I sighed. "I'm sure you figured out that my agent called me with those details today."

"Surmised."

I dug my nails into his back. "Ass."

He chuckled. "So, she got a huge deal for Date with Disaster . Isn't that your book too?"

"One of the reasons I came to stay in Crescent Cove was partly because of the photoshoot your brother did with Bridget. I came early—right after the court date that was the dissolution of our partnership."

"Yes, but you still wrote the books together."

"I know. But the easiest way to split up our books was to each take some."

"Oh, and she took the most famous one?" He let me go then. "She's a real piece of work. Didn't your lawyer advise against that?"

"She did. I was more worried about the books that meant something to me. Date with Disaster wasn't my idea."

"Her idea and you wrote it?"

The accusation hit hard. Mostly because he was right. For the most part, we wrote together, but I definitely did the brunt of the writing later on in our career. I wrote fast and Jenelle took care of a lot of our nitpickier things like print and special editions. I just wanted to write.

"We both wrote it," I said between my teeth.

"Duchess, that book is worth millions. You shouldn't be cut out of it."

"I don't want to be part of it. I don't want any of it."

Especially now. It was tainted by the idea that Jenelle had been hatching this for a good long time. Maybe even longer than I'd ever imagined. Had she just been waiting for us to hit a payday?

"Duchess, I get it. But she is getting millions of dollars for your hard work."

"She can have it."

"I would think you, of all people, would want to make sure you were secure." He laced his fingers at the back of his head. His curls were burnished gold in the lights that had steadily gotten brighter.

"I made plenty on that book when it went viral."

"But—"

"Penn, we made ten million dollars on that book."

He held up his finger for a second. His mouth dropped open, then he shut it and turned around to pace away from me, then back. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, did you say ten?"

"Yes. We got a print deal, and now I'm quite certain she had been making deals behind my back. I don't want the money attached to any of it. I wanted my series."

"The one with the hot clinch cover?"

I laughed. "The one with the couple cover, yes. And now that I know Jenelle is getting a fucking movie deal too—which I'll believe it when I see it."

Penn snorted. "That one I agree. I've been approached for a video game and a movie from my series too. Neither of them was worth the contract they offered."

"Would be kind of cool to see Moksha in all his hooded glory."

"I can't believe you read my shit." He sighed as he walked back to me.

"I read a lot of different genres. I read everything. I lived in the libraries as much as possible."

He took my hand, tangling our fingers. "Lived for real?"

I laughed. "I did hide in the library a time or two, but the security is pretty intense in New York City libraries. But I did make sort of friends with one of the librarians, Mrs. Perkins. She liked me and let me hang out there and write on the computer as much as I wanted. Thank goodness for the cloud. Where I kept all my work."

"You are a wonder, Rita Savage."

"I did what I had to. I bet you would too."

"I never had to find out. Well, beyond the hood-style first apartment. Then me and Larsen made enough money to get a place together. He got a pretty swanky job for the merchandising engineer stuff he does so well. When he went back to work in Scotland for awhile, I finally got my own place in Chelsea."

I sighed. "I looked in Chelsea when I was apartment hunting. But I loved Times Square—even after all the years hustling around the city, I just never fell out of love with it."

He whistled. "Not cheap."

"Why it's a shoebox, but it's my shoebox."

He reached up with his other hand to cup my face, brushing his thumb over my cheek. "I get why you gave up that book, but you're not alone."

I tried to pull back, but he held my hand then slipped his finger into my hair.

"So fucking soft. Your hair makes me nuts." He lowered his forehead to mine. "You have me. If you want me, but I know that you do. Even when you want to smack me."

I couldn't stop the laugh. "Maybe." My stomach jittered and my heart pounded in my head.

"And if I'm right, you have Colette. There are people here that care about you, if you'll let us." He tipped my head back a little and his beard tickled my skin just before his lips brushed mine. "Let me be one of them."

I relaxed into his touch as we kissed under the oak tree that had probably seen so many family barbecues and babies, and maybe even some babies that had been made in that swing.

The Masterson men seemed to ooze charm like a pheromone.

And when he swayed with me in his arms, I fell into the easy box step dance, letting myself just be with him.

For now.