Chapter Text
YEAR FIVE
She hates him.
His hand around her throat, she hates him. She can't breathe and she hates him and it's perfect. It burns through her too hot and too alive, rising fire in this breath she cannot fully take with his strength blocking her air, in the wild smile she cannot turn down, in his sweat dripping down his temple and into her eyes. It burns, and it feels good, and she hates him. Hates his stupid thick cock dragging fire out of her, his stupid thick words teasing her (breathe, come on, can't you? fuck, Pen, so good, just like that), his laugh as his head throws back, evil, like he knows because he does. He's been edging her for nearly an hour, but she needs a breath to come and he knows that, knows everything.
He knows she needs the breath to hate him with, the one to exhale it, the one that allows the fire of her fury to rip through her, knock around the hate and come with his name on her lips, hating and loving it equally.
She needs him.
So of course when he lifts his hand it's only so she can cough out the smoke he's built in her lungs and gasp a few times before the last breath makes it almost all the way and his hand is back right where it was.
It's fire, everywhere, because she hates him and he knows. Because he hates her too and she knows and still, no one gets this deep, no one hits her over and over and over and over until she's hovering over the edge of a sob that can't even escape because she doesn't have enough breath.
He's close though, has been. Close again because he already came and kept going.
“Beautiful,” he says, but it comes out almost mean. He means it, and she knows that, but he's also saying that she looks stupid, flushed red (almost purple) and hot, matted hair and blown-out eyes – stupid for him, as he likes it, wrecked and waiting and so, so fucking angry. So angry it makes her crazy. So angry that she has tears pouring out of her eyes, so angry that she's smiling.
Beautiful, he says. But it means I hate you.
It means I’m so close, and I’m so close to winning, and I hate you.
It means there are only a few more minutes of him fucking his release into her. Of her flying just above the break, of him bringing his thumb to her clit and hovering, evil, evil, evil…
Just how she likes it.
He'd never kept going before. Usually he gives up because he needs to come but needs her to come first more. He releases his hold on her neck and pounds somehow even harder until she screams so loud that he covers her mouth instead. But this time…
It shocked him, she felt that. Felt it rise too quickly, watched it crawl up his stomach and across his chest, saw him shake his head angrily as his eyes glossed over with shock and he let it happen, spilling into her as he gripped the base of her face hard and her hip harder.
She figured he'd just eat her out after as he always does when he loses. Figured he’d leave her there afterwards: spread out, raw, panting, relieved. Figured he’d get dressed and check his hair in the mirror above her dresser and unblock her on his phone. He'd pause. He always pauses. Not quite long enough to feel it though, just a breath, a beat before he gives her a kiss on the cheek and this time is over.
But he didn't pull out, just slowed. Let go of her chin and fell onto his elbows, chest shaking, vibrating as he whimpered and whispered bullshit into her ear (jesus, fuck, just wanna see…) and rocked his hips, slow, slow, slow, slow, until she felt him getting hot and hard again, sliding around in what he'd made of both of them. His whimpers turned to groans, and his words grew louder, and then he was away from her ear and up again, grip harsh, harsh, harsher (fucking knew it, knew it'd be you, knew you'd fucking do this to me).
(I hate you.)
And then his hand was around her throat and she knew she wasn't coming for a long time. One time she tried to accept that, tried to fall into some sort of trance that didn't have her hanging on the edge of begging, so strung out for him, willing to do anything. But he knew, and he hated that, and then he didn’t let her come at all. (He came back the next day to correct that, gave her five. He made her wait for the first one for two hours, made her promise she'd never give up again.)
Since then, if he sees even a hint of ceding he makes it worse, because he knows how to. Knows what to say, knows when to hover, when to drop, when to push his cock so far into her that it gives her a stitch in her side, he knows.
His pace is unrelenting, but he is unrelenting, all of him. Maybe that's why she likes this so much, though she really tries not to question it. Maybe it's because this is the only place where his intransigence makes sense, their incessance.
In a sick way, they find abidance here. Some might call it avoidance, but she couldn't. There is no evading the wickedness in his eyes here, the invasion of his anger and his forgiveness and his cock. There is no way out. No way out but through, and he knows that as well as she does.
In this they're in it, and they're honest about it, and as his hand finally gives way to her breath and she chokes out that sob she's been waiting for… as the fire rises higher and he finds her eyes as she gasps for air, they both know… one, two, only three before she's over the edge with him, over the edge of this.
As she comes back to life she can feel bruises forming along her throat. He cleans her up, sort of – tissues, then baby wipes. It's cold, kind of like this, the after, and it sucks but maybe it brings them back, too.
He ends up on his back for a while at the end of the bed, catching his own breath, hand trailing lightly through the hair on his chest. She grabs her phone and scrolls because they're not speaking yet. Won't, until tomorrow.
He finally stands. She tries not to watch. She tries not to stare, tries not to study the rippling in his back, sheened tone from exertion. There's something in that, that she can see the visible results of the effort here. She’ll feel it, too, later. She’ll get up out of bed and go shower after he leaves, feel the evidence drip down her thighs and watch it fall into the drain. She’ll use the soap she bought just for the afters, chamomile, spend a day or so smelling that and remembering him.
He gets dressed, she checks Twitter half-minded, half-reading. She laughs at something and she feels her throat hurt as it bobs.
Colin turns around, shoving his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. He's still shirtless, but he fixed his hair in the same mirror she forced him to look in earlier as he fucked her at the end of the bed, grabbing his hair and wrenching his gaze sideways. Look, she said, because she's someone else then. Because that someone else wants him to see how fucking easy it is to…
“Jesus, Pen,” he cringes, walking over. She's confused for a moment, but then he's reaching out, sucking in a breath through his teeth as he trails along what she assumes is pretty bad damage on her neck from his grip. “I'm sorry.”
“Is it bad?” she asks, replacing his fingers as his slow away.
He nods, and she crawls out of bed, checking in the mirror.
He's dramatic. It's fine. Just a thumb print the perfect size to pass as a hickey, a couple small marks on the other side, also hickey-esque.
“We're good,” she says. “Arnica will help.”
Penelope turns to the side, assessing his work on her hip. Much worse there, dark and biting.
It's all fine. A few years ago they sorted out the boundaries. They have a safe word and whatnot, but they also know each other well enough to not need it. They've known each other so long, and this isn't…
They've never had to use it. They've never stopped, never had to.
She wants to tell him she likes this part. That she'll spend the next three days watching these fade away and that she probably won't use any arnica at all. She'll dig into the one on her hip when she gets herself off to these memories tomorrow. It's fine. She likes this part. She wishes he'd leave more.
But she doesn't tell him. And by the time she's done grabbing a shirt out of her dresser and looks up into the mirror, she sees him and knows it’s time.
He doesn't say anything, just walks over to her (still completely naked) body and kisses her cheek and leaves.
She doesn't hate him.
—
The thing with Colin is the craziest part of her life. In all other aspects, Penelope is… really fucking boring, actually. She goes to bed at a respectable time and she wakes up early. She eats easy breakfasts – yogurt, porridge, eggs – starts her day right, feels really good about herself. She goes for walks sometimes when the weather is nice, but when it's not she just lights a candle and has a cute morning with her coffee and the lights turned low as she writes. And then she showers, and she dresses the way she likes to because she knows things like that about herself now. The days are easy and boring and good; at work she stocks library shelves and she answers questions to perfect little kids just learning about the written world around them and sometimes, in between breaths, she feels hope.
Her mum and her talk now, and it's weird. Weird and good and terrifying but really, truly good enough. Portia is in therapy, and Penelope probably should be too, but God, she's only twenty-eight, she figures she has ages for that. Phillipa (of all people) is who convinced their mother. Penelope's theory is that she had spent a few too many weeks on TikTok learning about attachment theory and whatever else, and manages just enough elsewhereness to forgo whatever fear Penelope might have had to suggest such a thing. The second part of her theory figures that Portia was so impressed with Pip’s bout of intrepidity that she couldn't find it in herself to say no. Besides, it really is in vogue to be working on oneself, and Portia loves nothing more than a topic (about herself) to speak on endlessly.
Sometimes she wants to meet this now infamous therapist. Because despite her mother’s waxing and waning self-awareness, this woman (whoever she is) does seem to be cutting through. The shifts are slight, but they're shifts, and Penelope often finds herself holding back from texting Philippa something weirdly out-of-tune and overly grateful after one of their phone calls.
Not today, though.
No… today, after forty weird and good minutes of Portia asking questions (and reserving commentary) on the rest of her life, she asks, “And Colin?”
Penelope chokes on the beer she's been sipping on. “Sorry?”
“Colin Bridgerton? Eloise’s brother? You two spend time together, don't you?”
She pauses for way too long. So long, actually, that she forgets to breathe, and then her horrible opening, “Yeah, uh…” comes out squeaked and guilty.
Because the truth is, yes, she and Colin spend time together. She and Colin are, at this point, as close if not closer than she and El are. But there is also the fact that they clash, and that as they've grown older that clashing has turned into full blown fighting, and that at some point in the past five years that fighting turned into fucking. But none of that is what her mother is asking about. She just wants an update. Because after Penelope's dad died Portia moved somewhere smaller to save on expenses; no longer being across the street reduced her access to information, and Portia loves information, and in this new world where Portia tries she also loves information about Penelope.
“He's good,” she says. “He travels a lot.”
“Oh, good. I was always quite worried about that one.”
“Why?”
“He just seemed wound a bit tight.”
She does not choke on her beer that time. It's a pretty astute observation from her mother actually, one driven more by EQ than PQ (popularity quotient) so she'd rather let it go.
What she does say, however, (to her utter horror) is: “He’s found methods of… unwinding.”
After that she just sets her beer down on the coffee table, staring off into space, hoping maybe in the reflection of the TV she’ll see her rather blatant stupidity written across her face and be able to point at it and scold. Nothing, though. Just tired eyes and a really clean apartment. (Also her hair looks really nice.) Luckily, that seems to have set Portia off on a tangent about her own methods of unwinding. She's taking a jazzercise class and Penelope mutes herself to let out the laugh. When she's done, she manages all the right things to say. “That’s amazing, mum. Exercise is a really great way to let off steam. ”
“You should come!”
“I don’t…” she laughs, this time aloud. “I don't know about that.”
“Oh, you'd just love the instructor, Penelope. He's fabulous.”
She goes off on another rant, then, and Penelope minimizes the call tab to text Eloise.
my mum is taking jazzercise
no!!!!!!!!
yes
and she wants me to join her
you have to
YOU HAVE TO
this is glorious
no
please I'm begging, I'll do anything
anything?
anything
plsssssssss
if you come with I'll go
FUCK
—
One of the more ridiculous days of her life, she thinks.
Despite Eloise's complaints for the last week, they are here. Standing outside some fancy gym on the fancy side of town with floor-to-ceiling windows and way too much blue. Blue vinyl floors and blue ceiling panels and blue fucking paint. So much blue she can see it from outside.
Eloise dressed the part, which Penelope has spent the last twenty minutes making fun of her for. She's not even sure how she got her hands on it – this purple windbreaker set straight out of the ‘80s. She has finally stopped laughing enough to start being nervous, but even that feels lame because this is a fucking joke. She's wearing leggings that are already sliding down over her stomach and her bra is digging into her back and she really, really doesn't want to do this.
She's actually not sure why they're waiting, but then her mother walks up, head-to-toe in athleisure and fucking pep in her step and she remembers what they're doing.
Ridiculous.
“Girls!” she exclaims. “Oh, you…” she laughs towards Eloise, and for one horrible moment Penelope actually recognizes herself in the lines on her face. Jesus. “That's hilarious!”
Eloise smiles, a bit wary of Portia’s enthusiasm. Penelope’s been trying to warn her but it really is jarring when you've spent a lifetime hating someone. Eloise hates Portia. Penelope does not… hate her.
Cannot hate her.
Sort of wants to, sometimes.
Also wants to cheer on whatever is working. Whatever is working…
—
Unfortunately she has fun.
She tries not to, tries to fight it through the first three songs. The mirror situation is miserable. It's hard enough to face a full-length mirror standing still (unless he's…) (she shakes that thought). But moving?
Dancing?
But something changes eventually.
Maybe it's the top-40 mix from ten years ago, or the smiles all around the room, but after twenty minutes Penelope actually finds herself feeling…
Good. Maybe even grateful.
It's weird.
Turns out the instructor is fabulous, and dragging Eloise along was the best idea she’s had since… well, anyway. It was a good fucking idea. She's good enough as a physical barrier, though frankly anyone is good enough for that. But Eloise is like a wily puppy, and the second you give her something to do she acts like she’s been freed in a field. Penelope's not sure she's ever seen El more on , reducing the middle-aged women in the room to hysterical tears every time she so much as opens her mouth.
A new song comes on and Eloise pumps her fist in the air and shouts, “Fuck yeah! Let's do it ladies!”
“Someone's out for my job,” the instructor laughs over his headset.
“My calling, truly. Check this–” she says, showing off a high kick. Unfortunately the strength of it nearly wipes her out, but then Portia is catching her and they're both laughing.
Somewhere in the righting of Eloise, Portia throws her a smile – something flying by in her eyes she can't quite make out. It might just be wow, but it feels a whole lot more like I get it now, and Penelope truly can't decide whether the warmth in her chest is from all the laughing or the endorphins or from her.
Too foreign, maybe. Too new. Either way, it feels good, and she gives her mum a smile back because she wants her to know that.
She even thinks she hears a, “I think you're my favorite of them,” from Portia. Knows she did when Eloise snaps her head towards Penelope with her jaw dropped open, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Penelope shrugs. Eloise whips back around, hand above her heart. “Portia!” she smiles, starting in on the moves again. Side step, leg lift, arm pump, whatever. “That is the sweetest thing anyone has said to me in months.”
After that round Eloise whispers in her ear, “Jesus. You weren't kidding, she's like…”
“Trying,” Penelope finishes, eyebrows raised. “I know.”
The next few songs are calmer, though Penelope thinks the instructor might be taking it easy on everyone because they're all out of breath from laughing.
It's somewhere between song eight and song nine that she spots him.
Colin.
In the hallway, pacing, though slowing as they lock eyes.
For a second she short-circuits because the two worlds won't combine. The world where she goes to a jazzercise class with her mother and the world where Colin Bridgerton looks at her like that . And then for another second she’s absolutely certain she's hallucinating, because of course she would – the only other time her heart fucking races like this is with him. She's Pavloved to think of him whenever she sweats, that's it. The next thoughts are more normal, maybe Eloise set for him to pick them up, or maybe she's being pranked – maybe El wanted Colin to see Penelope humiliate herself in a group dance class. But none of that is right, either.
Because she knows. She knows the look in his eye.
He's mad.
He needs her.
He’s never…
And it’s like she's trained, because nothing else matters then. She excuses herself, water. Eloise nods, waves her away, cracks some joke that fades somewhere else and sends the room into another frenzy. She manages to walk across the room and grab that water, hands trembling as she uncaps it and takes a sip.
It's like a tunnel sometimes, she thinks. Like once she knows there's no way to turn around. Just him at the end. Colin at the end. Absolutely blinding light at the end but until then…
Darkness.
She never saw herself here. In all the endless daydreams and borderline delusions she never, ever pictured being something he needed this badly. Because even when she…
Even when she loved him, they were still…
Them.
They were always this way.
So she supposes the blinding makes sense, this thing that comes over her when she sees the clouds fall over him, maybe her own clouds, maybe matching ones, or competing ones – stronger winds to somehow push his the right way, redirect the pattern, combine and make it pour when it needs to, drift away when it shouldn't; she…
She supposes it all really does make sense.
Because he does the same for her, doesn't he?
That thing where they become clouds? Clouded? Blinded by the way?
Forward, really – the only option.
Unless a worse storm comes through.
Colin pauses, back against the wall, not looking away. She stops for a moment to take him in, prepare herself – though maybe she's simply feeling self-indulgent. Because it is at least partially in this, the fun of it – the height of his stance, the weight of each breath. Fingers twitching as he rolls his neck, starts pacing again, the vein in his forehead rising, beautiful.
He's beautiful.
He’s… found her places before. Just shown up, jaw twitching, knuckles white. At pubs. At home. At work. That's not strange. She's done the same.
They've… everywhere.
They've christened half of London with their bullshit.
Parties.
Every single fucking wedding.
He's found her after missed flights. After purposefully missed flights. Fights with his siblings. With Anthony, usually. Fights with her mom.
Bad days. Bad weeks. Bad months.
Longest they ever went was three months.
She shouldn't be surprised. But this must be bad. If he couldn't wait it means it's bad.
She's out the door before she even thinks about it.
“Hi,” she huffs out. She wants her breaths steadier, wants her heart steadier.
She's wanted that for years though. Futile.
His pacing leads him to her, stopping just short of her. She has to raise her chin to look up at him. His breaths are worse than hers. He doesn't say anything.
She swallows. “I think there's a–”
He already knows. Already scoped it. Of course he fucking did. His hand is around her wrist in a second, pulling her down the hall.
"Bad, then,” she says as he turns the lock. The click echoes into the room.
Into her.
He doesn't turn around, just leans his forehead against the door and nods.
“How are you here?” she asks.
“El’s location was on. You weren't home.”
Something’s off.
He's off.
She tries to remember that means he's done the right thing – he's come and found her. That's the deal. But his breathing is wrong. She's seen him like this hundreds of times . Hundreds. Tens of hundreds if you count the times before it devolved into this. She knows him so well, too well, and she knows…
“Are you... wanting to talk about it?"
Very weird thing for her to ask. They don't do that anymore.
Well, rarely.
After, sometimes.
Colin shakes his head still against the door, back flinching. "I don't..."
She sighs. “Sorry, I don't know why I–”
He finally turns around. “Pen, fuck’s sake. Surely we’re not so fucked up that we can't even–”
Penelope crosses her arms. Reflex.
He stops, swallows whatever that was down.
He's so stiff, though acting a bit more patterned now. Cracking his knuckles with his thumb, eyes darting between hers. She can see the weight in his chest as he breathes, rising slow and long. It's taking effort. He's not going to answer.
“Doesn't matter, does it?” he asks.
Rhetorical.
Yeah.
Penelope narrows her eyes, tries to focus, it's…
He's sad, too. That's it. She supposes it's not the first time they’ve mixed. Besides, they say anger is a mask, anyway, (they've talked about that actually – didn't help anything) somehow easier than the rest of it. Is it though? She wouldn't say so.
With him, maybe. Maybe. Maybe only because they do this.
But he's not only sad. He wouldn't be here if it were only that – she sees the easy parts (the parts she knows how to fix) right underneath the surface of the blue, sees the fog he’s fighting, worse every second they maintain eye contact.
He looks away.
“No,” she says. “Look at me.”
Oh, it's really bad. He obeys.
Obeys.
“There,” she says as they lock, tunneling. Softer, “Don't let it go.”
It’s only one breath before he's storming, picking her up by the back of her thighs and slamming her into the wall.
“How long is this class?” he groans, biting up her jaw to her ear. His fingers dig hard into her hip, same grip from a week ago that she's still healing from. It hurts, feels good.
Penelope gasps as he digs harder. He knows. “An hour.”
“Quick, then,” he says, kissing her.
Against his mouth. “Quicker than quick.”
“I'll come see you tonight.”
That means this one is for him.
YEAR ONE
They were both seeing other people when it started. Sometimes she thinks about that, the first time, wonders what her life would be now if…
But that's… too hard. They wouldn't still be talking, she knows at least that. She can picture it so clearly, hence her avoidance of it.
They might've made it a couple more years, might've gotten by on things half-said and half-felt. She sees all the fights they have now, all the ways they let it through and imagines them tighter, wider, fading. There'd be a moment – because there always would have been a moment – where it would have broken. Because it was fragile, always. From the moment she met him it was fragile because they each held an end half-hearted. A piece of glass made of all that they were, her hands sweaty and failing, his mindless, distracted.
One of them would have let go. One of them would have taken a hand off the thing and pointed towards it, but that would've been the end. Two hands, both of them, they both have to be holding it or the thing slips away, falls and shatters.
They'd have tried, after. Falling to their knees, picking up pieces, sustaining cuts. Hoping, futilely, that the shards were large enough to glue back together – easiest. But as they surveyed the damage, not speaking, not feeling, not truly – they'd realize it was lost. One of them would fight, offer another way – maybe we could fix some of the larger fragments? Melt the edges, fuse them. But halfway through that they'd realize they lacked the fire. Lacked the energy to make it.
But what would have been left, anyway? Even if they managed it, they'd be left with just a section of what they were. And sure, they’d tell themselves they were strongest in the broken places, and maybe there would be truth in that. But they'd mourn what they lost too much to trust…
They'd have walked away, eventually. She knows that.
Left the pieces on the floor. Half-surveyed. Half-understood.
It is so, so much better this way.
—
The entire day was a disaster.
Two weeks prior, a dinner was held with every Bridgerton and Bridgerton-adjacent. Everything was normal – food, drinks and games until Daphne stood up abruptly, nodded towards Violet.
Penelope knew immediately.
Engagement announcement.
Scanning the room, though, as the words rang through – the range of emotion was almost too much to take in. The littles’ eyes were bright, so Penelope passed them over. Eloise grabbed her hand, squeezed hard. Francesca just nodded to herself, smiled slightly.
The oldest four had the greatest array. Benedict seemed to shoot into action, excitement – though Penelope couldn't tell how much of it was honest. Daphne already knew, that was very clear. Anthony was calm, smiling, holding Kate’s hand. Seemed to Penelope like he had been prepared, perhaps given enough time to mean it.
But Colin…
She wouldn't even know how to describe him. He was already standing in the corner. But he looked – for all intents and purposes – cornered.
He wouldn't look up. Wouldn't breathe.
Violet and Marcus were getting married. But not only that – they were getting married in two fucking weeks.
The rest of the meeting (best way to describe it, it certainly was no longer a dinner) was run primarily by Daphne, each of them given orders. Penelope spent the next half-hour wondering why they hadn't just hired a wedding planner, but then Violet gave a speech about how grateful she was to build the beginnings of her second marriage with pieces of each of her children’s effort, and everyone was fighting back tears, so…
Penelope was in charge of the cake. Simple enough, she called the bakery the next morning and sorted everything. She vaguely caught the rest of the assignments – Ben on drinks, El and Fran in charge of flowers. When Daphne read from her list and pointed, “Colin, you're on balloons,” the entire room went painfully quiet. Balloons didn't seem very Bridgerton to her – or anyone for that matter. For a birthday maybe, but surely not for a wedding…
When she turned to look at Colin she found him still in the corner, arms crossed, brows furrowing as he too questioned their necessity.
But then Marcus was sensing the temperature, laughing a bit, starting into some sort of explanation about how balloons were an Anderson tradition and…
They all nodded, sure. But it was awkward. Not so many tears with that.
Colin’s eyes went so, so dark.
The second half of the meeting was express orders to have fun. Friday night they'd split the groups, go out for respective stag and hen parties. Saturday morning they'd all head to Aubrey Hall ( with, Daphne said, whatever items needed for your task) and Sunday morning the wedding would be held in the back gardens.
Friday night was…
Penelope had only seen Violet drink like that once or twice, and every single one of the girls seemed hell-bent on keeping up with her.
The night ended late, back at Violet’s house taking horrible shots of Crème de Violette.
At some point Daphne brought out her old roller skates, and by the time Penelope looked up next, Violet had them on. The next hour was spent on the stairs, chin in her hand, smiling so wide, heart so full. Just admiring this woman that created every single one of her favorite people. Grateful. Happy. Exploding, actually, at a near hysterical level of joy as she watched Violet drink some disgusting floral cocktail and skate the halls.
One of the best nights of her life.
So, of course, she woke with the worst hangover she's maybe ever had Saturday morning.
Colin, too, but he wouldn't tell her that until later. She'd never get a recounting of his night, but she can imagine his indulgence had a lot less to do with celebration and a lot more to do with grief.
Originally, she was supposed to drive up with the girls. That fell apart very quickly. She's not sure what happened, whether her alarm failed or she never set it. But when she woke at ten Saturday morning to someone banging on her door, her head banging louder, and her phone buzzing beside her – she knew the day was fucked.
First off, she was supposed to pick up the cake at 9, so that was an immediate heart attack.
But when she went to search the place she had ordered from to call them while heading to her door to stop the incessant banging, she saw fifteen missed calls from El, plus enough texts from her to start her second heart attack.
picking you up in 15
can you send the address to the bakery?
Pennnnnnnnnnnnnnn
r u awake?
jesus, I forgot Featheringtons can't hold their drink
wake up wake up wake up
we’re outside
at ur door. you better be alive
ok Daphne will for real kill me if I don't pick her up at precisely 8, so we'll swing back
Daphne said to send Colin. sry!!!!!!!!!!!
She rolled her eyes, clicked the number to call the bakery. It rang a few times, each trill the length of the throbbing in her head until some woman picked up, sounding very elderly and way too cheery. Penelope gave her information, apologizing profusely for missing her pick-up time.
Second, it was just as she swung the door open to a very angry Colin that the woman told her Penelope had not missed her pick-up, and that it was in fact scheduled for 9 in the evening.
“Fuck,” she let out.
Colin gave her some sort of incredulous expression, letting himself in. She groaned, shut the door. But then Colin was headed towards her room.
“Hey! What are you–”
“Excuse me?” the woman said.
Penelope spun around, hand to her face. “Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Two things happening at once. Listen, is there any way we could move up the–”
“I'm afraid not.”
“Okay,” she said dejectedly, following Colin. “I’ll be there at 9, then.”
Colin whipped, brows furrowed, shaking his head.
“Great! Thank you for call–”
Penelope hung up.
“You are the least organized person I know,” he said, heading for her dresser.
“That's absurd.”
And it was, because it wasn't even true. That had to be Eloise – Penelope was far more organized than Eloise, surely? But then she remembered that El had managed the morning just fine, and so she didn't really have a rebuttal.
Didn't matter anyway, because then Colin was throwing clothes at her – and she opened her mouth to argue about that, too, but everything he was tossing was exactly what she would have chosen, anyway.
And then she wanted to pick a fight about that. Wanted to tell him he had no right to come inside her place and rifle through her drawers, but she couldn't. Something deep inside of her was going all warm from it, sick and wanting.
“I fucked the pick-up time.”
“I heard,” he said flatly. But then sighed, “We’ll stop somewhere for coffee.” He looked around her room, hands on his hips. She saw him take in her luggage beside her bed, packed and ready. See? Not so unorganized. Seemed some part of him acknowledged that, something flashing behind his eyes that he shook away. “You’ll come with me to get the balloons.”
“And then what?”
He shrugged, rubbed the back of his head. “I don't know.”
They weren't in the most… fantastic place at the time. The fighting had been getting worse. Always did when they were “taken,” which she tried not to think about too much. But that time was different. They actually hadn't seen much of each other one-on-one for the better part of a year, which on bad days really tempted her to break it off with Peter.
But that would be insane. She did that once, broke up with a guy her first year of uni because he wasn't him. Stupid. Colin left for East Asia the next day and didn't come back for six months.
“I need to shower.”
“Fine,” he said. “I'll make you something.”
That, too. That. He'd head into her kitchen and open up all her cupboards like he lived there and make her breakfast like he cared. Like he didn't. Like she mattered to him – but making it mean nothing, like she didn't. She knew the truth, of course. He did, too. They both knew they were circling something, holding back breaths.
The rest of the morning was fine. She showered, scarfed down the omelet he made her, surprised he had found the ingredients for it. He loaded up the car while she ate, grabbing everything she needed without her even asking. Phone charger, make-up bag, everything.
He didn't say a word as they stopped for coffee. She stayed in the car, called El.
“Really?” she opened with.
“ Hey, loser. Glad you're alive. Had me worried for a second there,” she laughed.
Apparently she was on speaker, Daphne cutting through.
“How’s my dream team?”
“Listen, I'm so sorry–”
“Penelope!” Daphne laughed. “You were the only one I wasn't worried about!”
“I'm sorry,” she sighed, rubbing her temple. “Honest to God, I didn't know I needed to specify AM or PM.”
It was silent for a second, but she heard whispers and hisses and swatting hands.
“Should be fine,” Daphne offered kindly. “Your punishment is thirteen hours with Colin. Though, honestly, I had thought–”
“Daph–”
Hyacinth howled from the backseat.
Penelope wasn't surprised. Wasn't any secret to her what those girls all wanted, what they all thought. She'd endured years of it before they all caught on to the clashing – but even after that. As she and Colin grew closer, closer… fighting, then drifting. Even more questions then, more looks. Frantic, almost.
Colin opened the car door, holding two small hot cups in one hand and for a moment she couldn't manage another thought. Because she's not… because she's not blind. Because that's crazy, isn't it? Two cups in one hand? Does he have to be so fucking large?
Their hands brushed as he handed it over, jutting it, her name on the cup facing towards her: Pen, meaning that's what he had said to the barista. Something about that sent an actual, visceral pang through her so hard that she wanted to open her door and jump into the oncoming traffic.
Because so long as she was still Pen, they were still…
“Pen?” El cut in.
“Sorry.”
“Listen to me: water, coffee–”
“Colin just got some.”
“Good. Take a breath. He seems… weird today.”
“More like mean,” Hyacinth offered.
Fran laughed. “Feisty.”
“Impatient,” Daphne said.
“All of that,” El sighed.
Penelope whimpered, sunk into her seat. She knew that already.
Worse than that, she felt mean. Feisty. Impatient. She wasn't at all in the state to be handling him, not that she ever really was. That was the problem, wasn't it? They work until they fail, and then they just keep doing that – failing and failing and failing.
“I'll be fine,” Penelope lied.
“Yikes,” Daphne laughed. “Terrible liars, both of you.”
The call ended, and Penelope slammed her head against the headrest. Colin ignored her, took a few sips, started the car again and kept going, heading to the balloon place.
She joined him that time, needing to see what a place that specializes in balloons actually looks like. But when they walked in and saw Colin’s order…
She'd never seen so many balloons in her life. Both of them froze by the door as the overhead bell rang, taking in the world’s largest bundle of balloons in various shades of purple bobbing with helium right behind the counter.
Penelope laughed hysterically, head thrown back. “How the fuck–”
A man came out from the back. “Bridgerton?” he asked.
Colin shook his head, then shook it faster once he realized, changed it to a nod. “Yes, sorry.”
“70 balloons!” the man said excitedly. “Largest order this year!”
“Jesus, Colin. 70?”
“I didn't know… how many should I have ordered?” he asked, walking towards the counter.
“Bouquets typically have, what– 7?” she asked towards the man.
“5 to 12,” he answered, smiling with an almost painful level of sincerity.
“Shit,” Colin hissed.
But then he turned on whatever it is he turns on. Problem is that it never seems feigned, it's just a part of him she rarely caught sight of anymore. So, she really thought…
There are always moments. Always. Moments where it breaks the other way, where they have fun and actually tackle something together. Surely stuffing 70 balloons into the boot and backseat would be enough to give it up. Because it was funny, the impossibility, popping one in just to have another pop out. And when he closed the boot and they heard three pop and deflate in succession, Penelope was certain then that he’d laugh.
But… nothing. Colin wasn't having it. Just pulled in a breath through his teeth, threw her a glare.
She shook her head, annoyed, went back to shoving hers in.
“What?” he huffed.
“Nothing.”
He strode over then, too fast, shoved the last balloon in and slammed the door.
—
They drove around London for a while. She wasn't sure where he was headed, though in hindsight she thinks he was driving just to drive. She checked the time so many times that it had begun not changing. 12:14, still 12:14 the next time she checked.
A few times she thought he was taking her to his flat, but then he'd take a turn that took that away.
Peter checked in with her eventually. Nothing interesting, just:
morning
She rolled her eyes. “God.”
“What?”
“You've met Peter, right?”
She thought she saw a flinch, maybe a laugh. “Like ten times. You're crazy.”
And maybe she was, because that didn't sound right.
“No…”
“Yes,” he laughed. Fully, that time. “Accountant. Twenty-five. You met at a creative writing workshop. He likes tea a little bit too much.”
Jesus.
“Well?” he asked.
“Nothing, just…” She jutted out her phone to him, showing him the text. He flashed his eyes over a few times, frowned.
Shrugged.
“Can I have that, actually?”
“What?”
“Your phone… Fuck, nevermind,” he sighed, shifting awkwardly to grab his from his pocket. “Annie’s, right?”
“They said no, Colin.”
But then he was calling anyway.
She has no fucking clue how he did it. Took all of two minutes, his voice dropped all low and sweet, a completely different person… “Hello! Penelope, I think. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Is Annie in? Thank you.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Annie! Hi love,” he drolled on, turning them around, so fucking sure he'd win. “Yes, I know, I’m so sorry. Seems we got some timing mixed up… Annie, you know you make my mum’s absolute favorite cake. For her wedding, yeah… I… yes, yes , we’re all so excited.”
Fucker.
“Is there any chance… Is it? Yes! Thank you. God, lifesaver, Annie. We’ll be there in ten.”
He set his phone down on the console, smiled to himself.
“You give up too easily,” he said, that tone back, dark.
—
Fifteen minutes later they were on the road, balloons and cake secured, snacking on some danishes Annie had added to the order free of charge.
Penelope was furious.
The balloons were driving her crazy, rubbing up against each other and causing a nightmarish cacophony of squeaking. Every once in a while one would attempt an escape from the backseat and make it to the front, one of them punching it backwards.
And she didn't know what to say, what to do… she could see the hairs sticking up on his arms, veins raging, how often his eyes were flitting to the (lengthening) ETA on Google Maps. He wanted out of that fucking car. He wanted away from her and she couldn't even be hurt by it because she wanted away too.
Everything was too hot. The air, the day, his stare. A few times she imagined the windshield beginning to crack from the heat of his glare… just a small shattered star that'd slowly increase in size until it’d reach the edges and explode all over them.
She moved to turn up the air, but he told her it was broken.
She moved to turn down the (quite frankly, way too fitting and way too intense) atmospheric house playlist he had playing way too loud, his attempt at drowning out the high pitched sound of the balloons. He let her, but only for three or four minutes before they were both twitching at the squeaking again and it was back and louder.
There was very rarely any intent to fight with him. And she never felt that from him, either – no, it seemed to her more like a falling than any deliberate trip or trap.
But they always found something.
Always.
And they very, very rarely let those somethings pass by.
Some part of her knew she wasn't picking the best topic. She could've chatted about the trees (he loves the trees on the way) or the playlist (seemed chosen, not random.) She could've chosen something else. Should have…
Ah, she can't go there.
But there was just something about him that day that was pissing her off. Something about him that had been, honestly. For a few years, at least. And it wasn't untraceable, but the truth of it didn't ever seem…
They were different. They were always different. They thought differently, questioned different things, liked different things. And when she was young that was exactly what she liked about him – he was different.
But that's not…
That's not why.
It wasn't often that she found them fighting about the things they disagreed on. More often it was the things that made them the same that caused the clashing. She's stubborn, but he's more stubborn, so they'll never agree. She's sharp, harsh – something that can be wielded but is so much more often thrown in panic. He does the same.
He's… careful, until he's not. She's tentative, until she's not.
They're both… angry. Angry at themselves, mostly. Angry at their families, for very different reasons. Angry at the world… though sometimes she thinks that's she for him and him for her and not even for themselves.
He's whingey, but holds that back because he hates it in himself. She's judgemental, rancorous – but pretends she's not because it's fucking lame. Problem is they both know. They could spend an entire day with other people who'd have no idea, but all it really takes is them locking eyes.
They've been doing it all their lives. Noticing each other, hitting each other with it. Using… using each other for it.
But it didn't used to be like this. This used to be rare, because he used to be kind above all and she used to be in love with him. They'd bicker when they were young. Fight over the stupidest things like which pints of ice cream to bring home when she, El and Colin were sent out to grab some. Because they're different. Because he's adventurous and thinks everyone should be. (Banana, pistachio, lavender???) Because she's fairly classic, and also too careful. (Surely the right choice was neapolitan and caramel swirl. Please everyone.) Because they're the same, both so sure they're right.
Later, older – they'd argue about her and El joining the eldest four late at night. Argue about whether they should be allowed (allowed!!!) to drink when she knew… she knew that he had been given his first beer far before she and El were. She won on that, because she had El on her side – but neither of them would let it go for months. Because it wasn't about that. It wasn't about his control or her freedom. Never was.
And in the in-betweens… everything. Everything that built the trust that allowed them to fight like that, to disagree. Afternoons by the pool at Aubrey Hall, talking endlessly about books and about life and about the fucking sun…
Nights when he'd text her and tell her he was outside, having come just for a fucking hug.
Mornings he’d show at her door with a coffee or a pastry or just a smile…
So many afternoons at their house, stealing glances over Bridgerton antics , because El immerses herself in chaos but she and Colin watch it from above. His smile, his smile, his smile…
Hers.
It was hard not to imagine all of it lost that year. Hard not to wonder whether they would ever find that again, those ways they were the same, those ways they agreed.
Those moments where it breaks the other way, or the days where there's nothing to break at all. The trust sitting steady in her chest, not rising to the surface and asking him a question…
His, too.
She could see his waning.
Every time they fought, a small part of the mutuality, the assurance in his eyes falling forward. He was asking her, too.
She supposes in hindsight she's grateful she was so undaunted by the risk. So fucking willing to push shit in his face in lieu of asking. So, so willing (despite the part of her screaming to shut up) to go on some weird rant about Peter…
She can't even remember what she said about him. Nothing that of note, but that was sort of the thing about him. The thing she was fighting.
There was nothing to fight about him. And maybe it makes her broken, but she was really fucking hating that.
So, when Colin started winding tighter – jaw twitching, eyes rolling, breaths breaking… she didn't stop. She ignored him, just kept going…
For so many reasons.
One, the blaze spreading in her chest at his reaction felt so, so good. It'd been too long, because he'd been avoiding her and Peter was decidedly not causing that.
Two, (she’s horrible), but he looked so fucking hot like that. And that was always easier, wasn't it? Easier to let that be true than to ignore it. The only time they don't ignore it…
Three… she wanted to fight. Weak, maybe… but she couldn't stave it off. She wanted him to cut her off. She wanted him to fucking say it. Anything, really. Didn't even have to be the real thing bothering him. Wasn't common that they fought about that anyway.
Once she ran out about stuff about Peter she kept going about the rest of her life, because honestly? They hadn't talked in months. The more she spoke the more she realized how much he didn't know. It wasn't anything crazy – just work shit, landlord shit, random Eloise shit from when she moved out. (He did not come, by the way, the day El moved.)
And then she started getting mad about that, because she realized he had absolutely no reason. She thought maybe that would do it.
She talked, and she talked, and she talked until–
“Penelope, oh my God.”
“Your turn,” she smiled.
“I don't want a turn.”
“We haven't talked in months.”
“That's not even true,” he laughed a bit hysterically.
“I don't want to sit in a silent fucking car for another hour. Just say it. You've been mad at me all day.”
“I haven't…” he shook his head. “The day derailed, Penelope. I haven't… I’m hungover, exhausted… I'm just trying to get there. I don't want to fight with you.”
“That's new.”
And a lie.
He shook his head. “I don't have the energy to fight with you.”
So… did want.
Her best bet was to just ask directly. No chance he'd bring it up on his own. And he might not answer, but at least it'd be out there; he'd have to look it in the eye.
“I'm sure none of this… none of it… has anything to do with the fact that your mother is getting remarried.”
“You know, I'm not exactly thrilled–” he snapped, his knuckles turning white on the wheel. He shook his head, took in a breath through his nose. “I don't want… He's great. He's fantastic. He's everything I'd want for her if it couldn't be… and I don't want to be feeling like this. I don't want to want something that's fucking impossible.”
“I know.”
“But it's fucking weird. It's really, really fucking weird? And all I can feel is this fucking chasm in my chest, and I keep trying to fill it with whatever… he’s great, he's perfect, he's… But it doesn't work. Because he's not him.”
“No.”
“He should be here.”
“Yes.”
“She shouldn't ever have to wear white again.”
She didn't know what to say to that. Just kept thinking about the rest of them two weeks prior…
And she knew she didn't have an answer for him, a solution. But she spoke anyway.
“I think–”
“Pen,” he warned.
“Can I just–”
“Can you let it go?”
“Can you let me finish? You don't know what I'm going to say.”
He scoffed, “Yes, I do. I do. I know you. ‘ That's all normal, Colin. It'll pass, always does.’”
Fuck.
“I swear to God, I know exactly what you're going to say. All the fucking time. At least some notion of it, especially if you're fucking some loser–”
“Jesus, Colin.”
“Sorry,” he shrugged. “But it's all the fucking same, isn't it? Every time – he sucks, you're pissed, now I'm pissed because–”
“Because I told you about my life?”
“Because you suck at choosing, Penelope! So, forgive me if when I know the next words out of your mouth…” he trailed off, taking the next turn. “I just don't really see why I should listen to you when you don't follow any of your own advice.”
“What?”
“Try it. What would you say if Eloise had this problem?”
“What problem?”
“Boring boyfriend.”
“He's not–”
“Boring. Even your complaints about him are boring. Boring doesn't pass. And he's clearly not fucking you–”
“Fuck off.”
“Penelope,” he said, all mocking and horrible, glancing at her for a second. Woven with about ten pounds of: who do you think you’re kidding?
She wasn't even sure. Wasn't sure why she thought she had any chance convincing him otherwise. Wasn't sure why they were even talking about him. About that. It wasn't like they had never talked about their sex lives, so it wasn't... Colin fucking started it, anyway, told her once about some girl, nearly killed her. But that was back then. Back when things like that made her cry instead of furious. Back when there was hope. Way before the clashing turned into fighting.
And on fighting… suddenly she wasn't even sure why.
Took her a second to get her bearings. An excruciating second (more like ten) where he probably started basking in his win. Didn't usually take her that long. But after a breath she had it all again.
Because his mother was getting married, and they both had horrible hangovers, and the car was too hot, and the fucking balloons would not stop squeaking.
“What, are you jealous or something?”
Too close.
But then…
“Maybe a little,” he laughed. “If for nothing else than the fact that I know you.”
She scoffed. “Not in that.”
Colin raised an eyebrow. “No?”
She ignored that.
“I was going to say you should talk to your siblings,” she huffed.
“Right,” he laughed. “Even more nonsense. Like you talk to yours.”
She rolled her eyes. “That's nice. You're so nice, you know that? You imagine talking to Pip or Prudence.”
“Penelope, we don't fucking talk about him.”
“Why not?”
Colin shrugged.
It was silent for a long time after that. He turned the music back up.
“You're not even mad at me,” she whispered.
He turned the music down again. “Yeah, I am.”
“Not for talking about him.”
“And where is he?”
“Where is she?”
“Scotland.”
She snapped her head. “What?”
“Took a job,” he said.
“When?”
“Couple weeks ago. You know she didn't even tell me she applied? We've been dating for a year; she didn't even ask me. Just expected that I'd follow her. But she didn't… this is home. And even if I leave, I mean… I don't expect to settle anywhere else. So why bother? She won't want to come back.”
“Did you break up?”
“No, I just… I needed a second.”
“So you're going to, then.”
“Are you?”
“Why the fuck do you care?”
The tires screeched as he pulled over into the grass, pulling the break. Her heart pounded hard in her chest. Higher, throat. Higher, ears.
He leaned back in his seat, chin high, closed his eyes, shook his head.
“Pull your seat back.”
“What?”
“Penelope,” he seethed. And then he was reaching down below her, between her legs, grabbing the lever and wrenching it, sending her flying back.
“What the fuck are you–”
“Kiss me,” he said.
Which wouldn't register. Wouldn't even land. It just floated between them, hitting her somewhere in the heart and flying right back towards him.
But then he was kissing her.
She pushed him back immediately, hand to his chest, hard... because what? What was he...
"Colin..."
But his eyes were safe, honest, softest they had been all day. All his careful hanging by a thread, his mouth hanging open, taking in this gorgeous shaken breath – half-scared, half-righteous – and he was just so beautiful like that.
Unbelievable.
Heartbreaking.
So before she could even think about it the hand on his chest was gathering his shirt and pulling him down again.
The sound he made when they collided was pathetic, so much, too much – felt where she shouldn't. His hand was still around the lever to pull her seat, arm between her fucking legs – which she only realized as it began moving, shifting away, grabbing the side of her face and pulling her closer.
And then there wasn't anything else – just his lips that were softer than they should be and his grip … harsher than it should be. Falling backward, into it, kissing him back like it was easy, like her heart didn't weigh so much, like what they were doing didn't weigh so fucking much...
One of her hands landed on his arm, nails digging into his flesh, almost grasping for proof that he was real, that he'd really, truly do this to her now. But then he hissed, smiled...
"Thought so," he said.
And she didn't know what that meant until his grip on her face slid down and around her neck, found the back of her hair, and yanked hard.
Her moan surprised her.
But it didn't surprise him.
"Yeah," he laughed, kissing her tilted chin.
He moved fast, hand trailing down her neck again as he adjusted his position, climbing over the console and into the footwell. Her head dug into the headrest where he left her, breaths heaving into his, into his hand… because she knew, eyes closed, she knew…
His grip curved around her throat, thumb right against her pulse point. She drilled heartbeats against his palm, tried for a breath… blocked…
When she opened her eyes, his were completely blown, having changed when she wasn't looking, flitting between her parted lips, his own hand, her eyes…
“You've thought about this,” he whispered, closing in tighter.
“I…” she rasped, no breath for it.
He shook his head. “A few more seconds. Faster,” he said, as if he were speaking to her heart and not her.
She thinks what did it is that her heart obeyed him, like she had no choice. Immediate, rapid, rising to meet with him – infuriating her. Because suddenly her hand was moving from his arm to his hair, gripping the top of it and wrenching him back.
His hand dropped immediately, and she took in the breath needed to gain her vision back and watch him light at the pain in his scalp. His laugh was shocking, tsked, delighted and mean. “Perfect, fuck,” he said, smiling, the end of it winced as she gripped harder. “I thought–”
“What does this mean?” she asked sternly.
Colin swallowed, his eyes flashing something she couldn't understand at the time. “I don't know,” he said, fighting for breaths. “Does it feel good?”
“Yes,” came out so fast.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Colin tilted his head, pulling on her hold on his hair, eyes heavy and falling over her form, at least five ideas crossing by in his mind. She watched them, she knew…
A beat, and then they were colliding again, Colin reaching to the side of the seat to pull the back flat. He felt too trained, too sure, which just kept making her madder. The dance of his nose around hers, the way his tongue swam forward and licked a line across her bottom lip, the way he smiled when she pulled him down. He knew what to do, and she couldn't decide if he just knew in general or if he knew her. His hand landed harsh on her thigh, and her legs spread too easily… all of it, too easy to make sense. His hands felt too good to remember to fight, one on her forehead smoothing her hair back, anchoring her to the seat, one trailing down her thigh to her hip. All she could really manage was a grip on his face, rough stubble scratching against her palms, painful and perfect.
She couldn't gather a breath that he wouldn't kiss away, didn't have enough leverage encased by him like that, every rise of his lungs knocking hers back, every drag of his hand down her leg lighting fire that shouldn't be there…
He spread her legs further, let out a laugh that parted their kiss, bit her fucking jaw…
“Not so much to say now,” he mocked her.
One thing, in all of this, she'd hate it later, too… her hands are too small. Very clearly too small as one moved to close around his neck and could only hold the front of his throat, too small as he bit back a laugh, closed his own hand over hers, showed her to add pressure to compensate.
All of her, too fucking small to win that way.
“Can't breathe,” she gritted. “You want me to talk? I'm sure you're hoping I'll beg.”
They locked eyes as he dropped his hand back to her thigh. She saw him try for a breath, impassable, blood rushing and failing to find his brain.
Saw him like it…
Saw him somehow speak through it… “No… Don't have to, I know…” She let go, brows furrowed as she opened her mouth to say… she doesn't even know. Because then he was tracing everything, his eyes following everywhere she moved – her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth.
He laughed, low and too bright. “Please, you think I don't see you staring at my hands? My arms? My…” He shook his head, dropped low into her ear. “What I can't make out, Penelope… is how you haven't caught me. You haven't, have you? Haven't noticed that I can't breathe, that I can't think … So pretty when you're mad at me.” He pulled back again, trailed a hand along her cheek, neck, further… “Did you know you go red? Don't want you red, though. No… well, not only…”
“Colin–”
“It’s so easy, too. Why is that?”
“Because you're fucking impossible.”
“Open your legs.”
She hadn't even noticed they'd been closing, thighs rubbing together, begging…
She didn't think about it as her knees widened for him, wished she could. Wished she could convince herself to stop him because this was insane. Insane. But she asked... she asked and his only fucking question was does it feel good? which wouldn't stop repeating in her head, because yes, God, it did – so what the fuck did anything else matter?
Everything felt good. His palm as it cascaded over her thigh, roaming up but not towards. His hips between hers, his chest, warm and hard and heavy. His lips against her jaw, her ear, following his own hand's journey across her cheeks and mouth, landing hard on her chin.
His words, his questions, "What do you want?"
She huffed, "You do want me to beg."
"No," he growled. But then his fingers were in her mouth, pulling down her bottom lip and he was rising high, finding her eyes. His tone rose stern, harsh... "Listen to me. If I want you to beg then I'll fucking tell you. What do you want?"
Her breaths were horrible, heaving, falling on his fingers. He was only half-there, half listening, mostly watching his pointer as it dragged along her salivating tongue.
"So fucking annoying, honestly. Gorgeous, Pen."
When she answered, closing her mouth around him, he moaned, nodded, and unclasped her seatbelt, which went flying.
He had her strapped down? She hadn't noticed.
But then she could move. She could move and it all moved with her. He did, he moved with her, as her newly free hips found his in a roll, her hands on his arms scratching, pulling lines inward, as all of it…
Moved.
Something happened to him then, his voice turning to silk, soft and covering her; she could feel him everywhere... "You're going to let me make you feel good," he whispered, an order, hand trailing down her neck to her chest. "And you're going to be mad at me the entire time.”
That, everywhere.
“But somewhere, Pen…”
She knew what he meant.
She wants to say that the rest of it felt more like a dream than real life. She wants it to be true that this started because it always existed somewhere else, that she becomes someone else who wants this. She wants to say that it started on a different plane, that she always kept the plane of reality and the plane of this separate.
But that first time... everything was painfully clear. Shining and illuminating and burning and so fucking obvious. Like the afternoon sun ricocheting off the window and back inside. The whole of their lives stretching and bending and breaking right in front of her.
It was so fucking clear.
Clear in the scrape of his stubble against her cheek, clear in his hands rough and pressing too hard. Proven in imperfection as his hands missed the lift of her shirt a few times. Clear, clear, clear, her hands in his hair as he found her tit and his face fell hard into the other, groaning into the fabric.
Clear because when she looked down at him, he looked up. And as she studied him – looking for something, anything that would make it less clear…
She couldn't.
He was Colin.
He was not someone else. She knew that exact look in his eye. She had seen it a thousand times before, just that angry, just that there with her, the exact moment that it breaks. He was not putting anything on; he was not feigning or faking or holding anything back. And neither was she, which she knew because his eyes were breaking, breaking like the breaths hurrying towards him. Everything, everything that she understood ripping from the seams and hurtling, light-speed, towards him...
Which hurt enough, but then he caught it.
All of it.
Caught it smiling, knowing and judging her for it but staying right there with her.
And there was something in her that wanted to like that, that wanted to feel it, that wanted that to be what helped her forgive him – but it wasn't. It made her furious, because they throw shots that sometimes hit and sometimes fail, but they do not catch. They use each other for this. They fight and they fight and hope it'll fix it but it never does. They never fucking fix it.
But he was fixing it.
One hand fumbling with the button of her jeans, one finding her nipple through her bra and pinching hard, shaking his head as she hissed.
“So fucking good.”
He was fixing it, he was going to reach inside of her and fucking fixing it.
Taking his sweet fucking time because he's Colin, though, because he needs a destination but truly likes the journey. Colin Bridgerton, with walnut waves sticking to his forehead and the back of his neck, dark blue eyes made darker by her, completely blissed out as he watched his work – cheeks hot and burning and only getting worse.
But that was it, wasn't it? He liked it, he liked being mad at her, liked her mad at him, liked doing something about it. She already knew that, already knew that – and yet it felt so, so new. She caught sight of his back through the side mirror, stretching his shirt taut and perfect, mean . Threw her head back when that was too much, his hands too much, everywhere, pulling out from under her shirt and grabbing her chin again, the other skating underneath her underwear, too soft.
She couldn't understand how he knew everything, soft there, hard, there, harder – and she did too. Couldn't understand how they could spend a lifetime honing their skills, sharpening their tongues into weapons, trying to hit each other until they felt something, maybe felt better – never working, only to turn around and know so instinctively what felt good for the other in this. She knew what words would whip at him; he knew which would cut, scrape, linger. She knew which bit like ice and which burned.
But they knew this too. They fucking knew this too and it made so much sense she wanted to cry.
Wanted to smear those tears all over his cheeks.
Wanted to fuck her tears into his mouth.
(She would, one day.)
"Fuck."
"This almost happened once," he said, his palm playing in her curls. "I don't think you knew."
"I knew," she gasped.
Colin's grip on her chin went harsher, nails biting into her jaw. The other dipped further into her underwear, hovering over her clit. "You..."
“Couldn't quite…” she huffed, chin higher, fighting the arching of her back, “tell if you wanted to fuck me or kill me. Clear now.”
“Clear now,” he repeated, finally touching her.
“Jesus, fuck…”
He didn't waste any time then, and she was too close anyway, he knew that, vibrating out of her fucking skin. Every time the thrumming threatened to win he pulled her back.
She couldn't stop it, didn't want to – need and need and need again. Need she recognized, need to have him, win him, win against him all tangling and wrapping around her. Falling out of her, she knew he was going to find her impossibly wet for him, it was bad enough every time they fought.
Colin adjusted his hand just so, eyes on her but blurring, plunging one finger into her and keeping his thumb light. Circles, circles, circling her and them and all of it.
"Penelope," he said, sounding strangled. "Fucking knew it.” And then he was angling, hardening, shoulders strengthening with focus as he drilled in deeper. "Knew he wasn't fucking you. Giving up again, always giving up, letting good be good enough."
"Fuck you," she whined, almost thrashing, but his hand on her chin kept her steady.
"Yeah."
"Colin–"
"Impatient," he growled. "So fucking determined and yet so aimless in that. Forcing me to watch you need and surrender. Years of it. But you don't want that–”
"Fuck."
"You never give in to me. To anything. Why do you give in to them?"
"Shut up–”
"Don't do it to me. Don't let it go…" He hissed as her nails dragged through his scalp, smile spreading. "You're so fucking beautiful like this," he laughed, overwrought, under-thought. "Makes you mad, doesn't it? Makes you so fucking mad that if you showed them this they'd think less of you."
"Colin, pl–”
She only just caught herself.
He caught her faster, hand to her throat, fucking into her harder.
"No. Makes you mad that I don't."
"You're fucking crazy."
"Absolutely insane, Penelope. Because I think about this. About you. Think about holding you over my cock, not letting you down. Think about my hands gripping under your thighs and leaving bruises, arms burning, legs shaking, holding you there for hours until we're both crying. I'm fucking crazy. Exactly. But you're crazy too because you're..."
"Coming," she cried.
"Yeah."
—
It was quiet, after.
Not quite quiet enough.
Just his impossible breaths falling forward with his shoulders, her own falling backwards. His forehead rested on her chest, the balloons behind them silent as he let out the last of the shock. She swore she felt him kiss her, over her shirt, so light she couldn't be sure enough.
He pulled her seat up, climbed back over the console, landed in his with a grunt.
Buttoning her jeans again was nearly impossible, her hands trembling too much for precision. It kept popping back as she tried to pull it, and eventually she just gave up, closed her eyes again.
But then he was leaning over, handling it for her.
“Colin…”
“Not…” he sighed, shaking his head. She saw his jaw twitch as he righted her – not the angry pulse, the worried one. “We will talk, I promise. Just not now.”
“Okay.”
He looked back at her as he leaned back in his seat again. Her breaths were still coming in strangely – also less angry, more worried. “You're okay, though?”
“Yeah,” she said, though it didn't come out quite right. “Yeah.” The second was better.
He nodded, started the car, and she pulled her seat forward again. So forward that her knees were nearly touching the dash, but moving it again meant another sound and she couldn't really bear that.
There was no music for the rest of the drive.
Just the squeaking of the balloons and the wind from the windows after Colin rolled them down. Her hair kept sticking to her lips, but managing that annoyance was honestly a welcome distraction.
It was only when he laughed… that perfect, too-giggly for his age laugh that she felt it.
What it had done, really.
Taking the tension and replacing it with something else, something with more truth in it, something almost scarier.
But that was better. Weirdly better. Weirdly comforting.
She couldn't help but laugh, too.
Orange sun, golden-green fields, tree-lined roads, and his laugh.
Hers.
—
It was not easy to fall out of love with Colin. Not as easy as it was to fall in love with him, which really only took five seconds. Five seconds to fall, five years of it easy, five years of it hard.
Not quite five to fall out.
She used to think about the falling… how quick it really was, how perhaps it should've felt like more distance, no to yes having made some sort of journey. Falling really wasn't right. Tripping over a live wire and finding out it was always there seemed more like it. Getting electrocuted as she landed face first in the dirt, the pace of her heart completely reorganized, remetronomed.
Francesca sometimes rearranges pieces to be quicker or slower depending on how she says they should be felt.
Seems it was like that with him, like the world knew that to sustain what she'd have to sustain she'd need an entirely new heartbeat. Something slower, something more patient.
As they neared the property, just before the road goes so tight you can't turn around, Colin pulled over again. She knew, but then he didn't say anything. Just leant his forehead against the wheel for a minute. Just…
Nothing.
And so she just sat there, heart somehow slowed, not racing. Thud, thud, thudding, like his pulsing knuckles against the wheel, or her heartbeat against his hand; she had thought…
That had worked, hadn't it?
“Colin–”
“I don't like the words,” he mumbled.
“What words?”
“I'm trying to find another way to say it.”
“Say what?”
“Penelope,” he groaned loudly. But then he took a breath, so slow , and he turned his head, temple against the wheel. “Please don't tell anyone.”
He knew she was mad; she could see it in the soft way it came out, how quickly he closed his eyes afterwards, the way his brows furrowed as she took her next breath.
She knew she shouldn't be. Because he didn't want to say it. He didn't want to ask it of her.
(And she tries , she tries so hard not to be mad at him for that stuff. The things he can't want.)
So she just looked away, and she let her nod leave her as stiffly as she felt it, and he put the car in drive again.
He was a different person when they walked in. That person that she can never quite decide whether sets her aflame or puts her out. Faked and wrong and not at all him or the moment, matching what they want, or…. what he thinks they want, immediately regaling their day (leaving out the end of the drive), giving his family big hugs and acting as if he wasn't miserable and hungover and…
Acting as if she wasn't there.
Acting as if the year was back, their horrible year, their avoidance.
So…
She suffered through dinner. Stayed mostly quiet. Somehow skirted Eloise and her stares and her questions. Had a very long conversation with one of Marcus’s children, or maybe one of their spouses, she barely registered any of it.
Went to bed early.
But hardly slept.
Because some part of her thought he'd come and find her like he did when they were young. When he'd ask if she was sleeping and she'd lie and he'd crawl into her bed with his laptop and show her some scene from a movie he thought she'd like or ask her to come for a walk with him or say he just wanted to say goodnight.
She expected at least that.
A text. Something.
Some sort of stupid you awake? that treaded that awful line of u up? text and took her breath away.
Yeah.
You awake? Followed by her zzz and his just wanted to say goodnight.
She'd heart it, they'd leave it there.
Before it was fighting.
Before it was fucking.
Before it was all so, so fucked up.
Before it was better.
So… no sleep. Because the house was weirdly alive. Because the also nervous Bridgertons kept getting up to piss and pace and talk to each other and whatever…
Because every open door and creak of the floorboards and crack of the ancient walls was enough to start her stubborn heart again that refused to lull. Because she was promised a talk, and told not to tell anyone.
Because she was mad.
Because she wouldn't have.
Because… really?
Who would she have told? Eloise? Fuck’s sake. And then? The night before their mother’s wedding?
Oh, by the way, your brother fingerbanged me in the passenger seat of his car with his hand around my throat while the afternoon light poured in the dash and painted us golden and I'm…
I'm…
I'm sorry, maybe?
Freaking the fuck out?
He said he thinks about it. About me.
He said he wanted to hold her over his–
And so the morning was bad, obviously. Because she finally drifted off around four, but forgot to turn off her alarm that went off at six. And she knew. She knew the moment her eyes opened that she was incomprehensibly fucked, because she had dreamt about him, one of those screaming dreams where she says everything she always tries not to say but it comes out even worse than whatever feelings she actually knows exist, except that time–
He kissed her.
And then she didn't even want to go back to sleep, worried about more dreams.
She thought she'd at least have the morning. Be able to find some coffee and sit on the back patio as the sun rose, hype herself up, convince herself that everything would be fine between the fog creeping out of the woods and the bugs slowing their nightly buzz.
That's all she fucking needed. Twenty minutes.
But she was attending a wedding that day and she needed a shower. And then that took forever because she needed to shave her legs and wash her hair and do the whole fucking thing hardly alive. So by the time she made it downstairs everyone was up, in the kitchen, already frantic in that all too specific wedding way.
It’s always moments like that – so Bridgerton and aching and bright – that remind her what an addendum she is to all of it. El and Fran huddled around the espresso machine, trying to get it to work while Daphne reads from her (concerningly thick and detailed) wedding binder and Hyacinth rolls curlers into her hair. Kate and Anthony drinking successful coffees at the kitchen table with dark undereyes while Benedict very clearly talks at them. Gregory fussing with his tie already despite still being in his tank and pajamas. What, possibly, could she add to any of that? All of their chaos, all of their rounding out…
She never quite knows what to do.
She knows how to be Eloise’s friend. She even, sometimes, knows how to be Colin’s. She knows how to talk to Fran and how to assuage Hyacinth’s… Hyacinth. But beyond those one-on-ones, she doesn't…
She doesn't know how to be a Bridgerton. How to enter into that chaos and make it more, as they all do.
And yet they want her there. They always want her there. She's invited to the announcement dinners and the private birthday parties and the Christmases and the elaborate holidays. And that feels good, of course it does, it always has. It wasn't as if she thought herself completely unworthy of it, but almost always confused.
There was something about it that morning, maybe due to the lack of sleep, the layer of sweat even the shower couldn't completely rid her of, the slight blur to her vision, the shake in her breath…
(Maybe because Colin had just…)
It just seemed so fragile.
Like any move of hers might destroy her accidental place in it all. She was actually, properly frozen in place.
But she wanted coffee. Wanted coffee bad. Wanted to drink a coffee outside and take a breath and stop thinking about him. So, she moved for the espresso machine, planning her perfectly quipped plea for the first cup.
One step was all it would've taken, clear the doorway, clear the fear.
But then he walked in.
Just past her.
Sliding, shifting sideways to clear the opening.
Close enough for his chest to brush against her shoulder. Close enough for it to be on purpose, close enough for it to mean something.
And then she was mad.
Because of course she was.
Because she felt that everywhere, electrocuted and knocked face down into the dirt again, choked by a mouthful of questions.
He thought about her. Asked her to kiss him and thought about her. Knew things she'd never said, knew where to touch and what to say and–
How often?
How long?
But he didn't turn around. Didn't smile, didn't act like it had happened, didn't act like it didn't. Neutral, nothing, like the blue t-shirt too stretched against his back or the morning sun not quite warm enough to be gold.
Like it was easy.
And she just couldn't…
“Pen!” Eloise called out, waving her over.
She couldn't be there. Couldn't make it real life. Couldn't make it all fit. Couldn't say anything, too full of the questions, too sore from the fall.
So she left. Turned around and headed the other way. She'd go without coffee. She'd walk the grounds, maybe. Find her breath again. Fall asleep against a tree trunk and miss the wedding entirely. That sounded nice, actually. Falling asleep to whatever instrumental version of a Coldplay song would play for her walk down the aisle.
Yeah… that.
Sweet sleep against an Ash tree.
Maybe it'd light on fire, too. Maybe she wouldn't notice.
Maybe she'd go out in flames like she should.
She heard all the commotion slow, heard Daphne and Benedict stop rambling and start whispering instead. Breaths left taken, held, frozen… cups set down. Heard the “Fuck,” groaned from him. “Penelope?”
Heard his footsteps following hers.
“Pen.”
Heard her own fucking heartbeat in her ears.
Felt him getting closer.
“Penelope, Jesus, come here,” he hissed, closing his hand around her wrist and nearly pulling her arm out of her socket as they rerouted. He swung her into the study, shut the door behind him.
And then silence.
So much fucking silence.
Books as sound deadening. She supposed that was fitting, actually.
His hands landed on his hips, chasing breaths from chasing her as he stated, “You didn't sleep.”
She laughed. “You did?”
“I mean… fitfully, but yeah.”
She shrugged. “Congrats.”
It came out so flat it almost shocked her.
“Pen–”
“No, it's fine,” she interrupted. “I'm fine.”
“You seem it.”
She smiled, sweet and punishing. “So do you.”
Colin huffed out a laugh. “It's my mum’s wedding day, Penelope. Don't tell anyone also meant don't make a scene.”
“It's not about that, idiot. I wouldn't tell anyone, anyway.”
“What, then?”
“You promised we'd talk.”
Her phone started buzzing in her pocket.
“And we will,” he said, leaning against the door. He crossed his arms. Penelope reached into her pocket for her phone.
Peter.
Penelope shook her head, clicked the button to send him to voicemail, shoved it back in her pocket.
“Just go back to bed,” he sighed. “I'll cover for you.”
Her phone buzzed again.
She threw her head back. “I don't want…”
And again.
She couldn't think.
“What do you want?”
“Fuck,” she whined, grabbing her phone again.
morning pt. 2
you good?
Penelope grimaced, fingers hovering over the keyboard, trying to respond.
Colin laughed, head thrown back and evil. “Not that.”
“What?”
“Not him.”
“Shut up,” she hissed, typing hi over and over again.
Sent that, felt her heart drop, followed quickly with: I'm okay!!! just busy with the wedding, immediately regretting the third exclamation point.
Need coffee, she added.
Colin pushed up off the door, tone suddenly urgent and searing. “Penelope.”
“What?” she snapped, flitting her eyes up.
“What did he say?”
She shook her head, looked back down, watched the ellipses float across the screen as Peter typed back.
“Pen–”
“Holy shit, Colin, I didn't actually want to talk to you.”
Half-true.
She could have wanted to.
He steeled back, breath knocked. But then he recovered, cracking his knuckles with his thumb, jaw set, shoulders square as he asked again. “What did he say?”
She ignored him, rolled her eyes. Watched Peter’s text come through.
Ok. Love u
Fuck’s sake.
Penelope pocketed her phone, shrugged. “You want an easy win; I'm not giving it to you.”
“Easy,” he repeated.
“Right? I know you. You want to feel less guilty.”
“You think I feel guilty.”
“You don't?”
"You don't,” he said.
That sent her backwards. Inside out. As if she wasn't already. As if she didn't already know that he could see everything. But then it was obvious, the weighty ache falling down her chest wasn't guilt. It wasn't guilt. She didn't feel guilty at all actually, he was right.
Not towards Peter.
Not towards him.
Herself, maybe.
Not even, though.
She felt shaky, and sick, but that was the lack of sleep. And she was fuming, obviously; the sides of her vision were tunneling towards him, but that wasn't the first time. Wasn't even fucking close.
Five years.
“You don't want to talk to me,” he said.
Why was he smiling?
“No.”
“And you don't want to sleep.”
“No.”
“You want me to take you to your room?”
“Jesus, Colin.”
He smiled, clicked his tongue. “Closer.”
“Actually, you know what? I've changed my mind. I’d like to go back to pretending it didn't happen.”
“Hm.”
“ Hm?” she echoed, desperate.
Hands back on his waist, shrugging again, he took a step toward. “Just interesting.”
“You said you wanted to get through this day.”
And another.
“Yeah, no, realizing that’s futile.”
Still fucking smiling.
“I kinda like it when you lie to me,” he added. “Sort of thrilling, given I know the truth.”
“You're flirting with me,” she realized suddenly.
He tilted his head, as if that was only partially true. As if she could only ever be partially right. “You're mad at me,” he said, like that explained it. “Still.”
“Not still. Newly.”
“So it did work.”
She used to pinch herself. Used to literally pinch herself when he'd get this close. When she was 17, at its maybe-worst, (he was 21, had just started traveling, kept returning all golden, fresh-eyed, and overconfident like he knew everything), she'd feel the burn spread hot across her chest and through her limbs every time he'd finally talk to her. The missing masked the clashing back then, at least for a while, made the glass of all that they were too reflective for her to point at. It blinded her. All the fucking time.
The fucking burn, God, his half-flirting, his whispers, his…
Her reactions were so strong despite her attempts at quelling, too much feeling for her body, so much that it'd push against her eyes and up her throat and render her ridiculous.
She was always so sure that she was dreaming. Had to be. Feelings like that only don't listen to you when you're asleep. But, no.
In real life she thinks of herself as so much more capable, strong-willed and strong-minded; she can make a feeling go away. She can crush things, crush people; she knows she has the power if she chooses to wield it.
Except with him.
She's weak, with him.
Anyone else and she might've actually said what was bothering her. But what else does she have to cling to? Her rightness faced against his is all she can really fight for.
And reality, maybe.
Don't do it to me. Don't let it go.
She resisted the urge to pinch her wrist.
“What do you want?” He asked it the same way he'd asked it the day before, pouring out of his mouth like liquid, like a dare. “Oh, you've got it. Tell me.”
“Coffee,” she smiled sweetly.
“Liar,” he gasped, feigning offense. But then he smiled, less evil, finally relaxing, finally letting her go as he dropped his arms from his hips and stepped away. “But I'll get you coffee.”
And she doesn't know what happened.
Why her body moved before she told it to.
How there was no thought along with it.
No plan.
Just the thinning tunnel.
Maybe she fell through it.
But then he was turning around, and she was grabbing his arm, before she even took a breath he was kissing her. Hands quick to her face, “Yeah,” spoken against her lips, like he knew it was coming even though there was no fucking way. And he was smiling, even then, her kisses landing against his teeth before he focused, directed her backwards. “Back, back,” down and further and falling, kissing her the entire way, until she hit the desk. Until she was on the desk.
His hands were on her thighs, thumbs digging into the flesh just below the hem of her shorts, fingers dipping underneath.
“Twenty minutes,” she said just as he moved to her jaw.
Open mouthed kisses then; bites when her hands moved to his hair. “What?”
“You have to… ah–” She yanked him back, fought for a couple breaths to get the rest out. “You have to help meet the caterers in twenty minutes.”
“Harder,” he smirked.
She tightened the grip in his hair, and his thumbs dug harder into her thighs. They both hissed, something sort of gorgeous in the mixing.
“Why do you like that?”
But then his hand was in her hair, base of her neck, pulling back. “Why do you?”
She let go. He didn't.
“Is the door locked?” she asked, chin tipped.
“I don't care,” he answered. ( Sort of answered. Was that an answer?)
“I think this constitutes a scene.”
“Guess you'll have to be quiet, then. Though, I know…” he whispered, letting go a bit, letting the burn throb before he grabbed a handful again, smoothing against the bruises he'd left on her thigh. “Tall order.”
“Eloise will come look for me. Surprised she hasn't alre–”
But then he was growling, picking her up by the back of her thighs, wrapping her legs around his waist. Five steps to the door, his nails digging into her skin, her eyes wide and his head shaking. He slammed her against it, held her pinned with his hips, hit the lock.
“Happy?”
His thrust forced the “Colin,” out of her. Because she felt it, felt it, felt him.
“Are you scared of me?” he asked, lips headed towards her ear.
“No.”
“Good.”
He kissed well. Well. Of course, God, she supposed she wasn't surprised she hadn't fully processed that in the car; as she fell back across the wire – too much. Too much then, too. It was infuriating – how easily he knew what to do, how to speed it up and slow it down, how to make a kiss a kiss, how to make it something else, say something else, where to grab and how hard, where to push and when to push harder.
How to make the whimpers crawl up her throat. How to make her lose focus, forget to kiss back. Tunneling towards him, just him, just him.
But then he moved towards her neck, open-mouthed and soft and biting where she gasped.
She wanted to feel good. Tried to stop the parts of her screaming it was wrong to. She wanted to just let it feel good. Grabbed into his shirt, pulled him closer, wanted it all to go away. And maybe she should have expected it to be something that petty that sent her over the edge, replacing her annoyance with something even more pathetic – but when she pulled him on his shirt she got a whiff and he just smelled so good she wanted to die.
Wanted to kill him.
Wanted so much to not be true.
Wanted him to be less good at it all, because of course he was, that made sense for him. Wanted that not to make sense for him.
Wanted him to be less smooth, less strong, not know what to do. Not know how to pace it, when to grip her calf and pull it down from around his waist, step back and let her slide down the door.
She wanted to not know what was happening. She wanted to not be so in tune with him, she wanted them to clash there too, she wanted–
He was back on her in a second, her back slamming against the door too loud, her gasp even louder. She wanted to be able to control herself, she wanted the tunnel to widen, she wanted…
She wanted it not to work.
But it did.
His lips on her neck, her collarbone, hands on her tits, it did.
“I'm clean,” he said.
“You're–”
“Tested a couple weeks ago,” he mumbled. “Pretty sure she's cheating on me.”
She pushed him back by his chest. “Is that why–”
“No,” he said quickly, eyes wide. “No.” Softer.
Too soft.
Colin knew. He took a few terrified breaths, but she just pulled him down to kiss him again. Couldn't deal with the look in his eye, couldn't let the honesty rain quite yet, didn't think she'd be able to breathe through that downpour.
Did she always have room for all of this? Because her body was acting like space was no problem, like she hadn't just spent years trying to disentangle herself from all of it. She was at fucking capacity. Holding it, him, that way, so desperately not hers, slipping through her hands all the time... she’d had all she could take. Because it was bad enough when he floated in and out because he didn't know. It was bad enough when he would leave and come back and act like she hadn't just managed to sew down some of the loose threads he pulled on last time. It was bad enough when they were children, when he tugged and took and turned around because he was young and he couldn't see it. But then something changed, didn't it? He noticed. She knew he noticed. Knew he felt something, knew he knew because the tugging was so much more careful after he felt the weight of her need in his hands – not quite selfless enough to stop, not quite selfish enough either...
He came in softly. Quietly. Didn't ask so much of her, didn't act so much like it all meant nothing – just another smile to feel, just another laugh to bottle. Just another fight to win. Just another thing to know.
It was when it turned easy that she hit her limit, filled to the brim with poorly tied down butterflies, looking at her supposedly deft hands and mind and wondering how the fuck she couldn't master it. How she couldn't make it stop.
And why did she want...
She couldn't even ask herself that. Couldn't even pretend not to know. Didn't matter that he had become someone who hid behind sprays of expensive cologne and newly-tanned skin from the coasts of Italy or Thailand or wherever the fuck else he decided he'd found the meaning of life. Didn't matter that she had to watch him pretend to not be anything, need anything, want anything truthful. Adventurous to avoid, refined to veil, straight-shouldered for supposed balance, as if his tightrope wasn't paper thin.
This person she had to start knowing, had to start going to dinners with and talk to – he wasn't...
He wasn't him.
But he wasn't gone all the time. His jokes weren't lies and his smiles were never, ever...
He never could fake the smile.
Never could replicate the crinkle around his eyes, the color when the moment lights just right, when the embers spread to fire and his joy shocks him, when she–
He never truly mastered it. Could anyone?
Wouldn't have mattered, anyway.
Because she was still walking around with a heart-rate completely rearranged for him. Completely and concerningly willing to do that, to bear it, to shoulder the weight of fifteen years of maybes and shredded threads and–
So she knows why she gets angry. When it's random; when it's not him being all that he is (stubborn, impatient, rash and evasive and...) it's her – terrified of her own readiness, at all times (tank full, bags packed, already in drive) to drop everything. Not when he simply looks her way (she quelled that). And not when he smiles, or laughs, or offers her a good day or week or month or year.
When he finally earns being the one who repaced her heart.
Or unearns it.
But he won't do either. Won't commit to either. Won't be wicked enough for her to despise or sweet enough for her to adore and yet–
And yet.
And fucking yet, right?
And yet she still trusts him.
Because he's honest even when he's not. Because he can't actually be the person he wants to. Shouldn't be.
The fights are more honest. More honest with herself, so mad at him that he can't see it, what he is and how much she'd let him be.
So yeah, no – she still had room. Always did. The room was always there. (Paced for him, built for him, at least halfway.)
Room for that part, the broken part, the honest part, the shattered star in the corner of the dashboard in the otherwise perfect car.
Too much room, too much need, too much actual, true desperation, cool skin warming too fast; painful, too necessary to part from the cause.
Would that hurt worse?
She needed to touch him. Needed to kiss him back like he was kissing her, needed to–
She always knew his height would be a problem. Used to think about it, actually, used to stare at that vein on the side of his neck and wonder how the fuck she'd ever reach it, how she'd ever…
Turns out she just straight up can't, can't get what she wants, can't reach him, ever…
He laughed, knew what to do then, too… take over the kiss, bite down on her lip, her jaw, her chest. Her breaths were heaving as he kneeled, gnawing all the way down, through her clothes, on her thigh; he dipped his fingers in her waistband, looked up.
“Colin,” she whispered, hand through his hair.
Too soft.
“Just me.”
Too soft.
“Please, I…”
“It's fine, Pen. Both, right?”
Both.
She nodded. He pulled her shorts down. Kissed her the entire way, following his knuckles as he went over her thighs, her knees. Felt it in the softness, the slowness despite the time, what it was for again. He was reminding her. Proving it to her, it's true, it's in this, I wasn't lying…
She wasn't fucking stupid, she never was. She knew the way she felt wasn't normal. She knew it meant something, stamped or not, it is never like that, like this; she knew. She knew the way they fought wasn't normal. She knew the way he looked at her wasn't normal. She knew the way he touched her was never, never normal. (The way he touched her, he touched her.) There was love in it. Want in it. She was never sure whether he was aware of it, but it was there, in its way, at capacity maybe…
Maybe that's…
Maybe that was why.
Despite the fact that they'd never said it.
Despite the fact that it never meant what it should, they both knew it was true.
I hate you.
I love you.
Both.
Neither quite enough of either.
This was for that, to fix it, to make it true the way they hadn't let it be, to make it make sense.
So the anger wouldn't win. So it wouldn't stay. So it had a way out. So they didn't drop it, let it shatter, let it cut, let it break them.
As if she didn't already know, the second her head fell back against the door, his hand was on her chin, pulling her gaze towards him again.
Look at how I'm kissing you. Look at it.
A bite, feel it.
Don't do it to me. Don't let it go.
At capacity, she was sure.
Sure that nothing would ever feel like that, that a tap to her leg alerting her to step out of her shorts would never, ever feel that way again.
Need rising up and out of her construction, angry fire through walls, searching for anything to hold to, make it bigger, better, more alive. She wondered if that’s what the grip was about, her nails digging hard into his arm as he stood and kissed her again, scratching all the way across his chest, futilely through his shirt, wanting to rip it to shreds.
Was sure that's what the breaths were for, gasped and frantic, air to fire, trying to stoke, desperate not to choke it.
She found the button to his jeans; he wasn't even wearing a belt; did all his pants fit perfectly?
Was he just this way?
Was he just…
“Pen.”
She couldn't… his skin, she realized. She was touching his skin. Touching that stupid patch of hair that does her in every time his shirt rides up.
He was warm.
Firm, firmer…
Couldn't move her shaking hands, couldn't…
He pulled her away with a laugh, handled it himself.
“Shouldn't… against the door.”
She barely heard him, watching as he pushed the button of his jeans open.
“No.”
“Loud,” he said, pulling himself out of his briefs.
“Yeah,” she sighed.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
She knew, already. Those fucking sweatpants he always wears after pool days in the summer, sunburnt, skin taut and dry. The time he got half-hard watching a film with her and didn't even notice because he was so lost in it. The bellbottoms he wore to her mother’s ‘70s-themed 50th, only able to make them fit by going commando, whatever – she fucking knew.
But seeing it.
Seeing it.
Seeing his fist pump over it, seeing it red and hard and wanting her? Angry for her? Leaking and pointing right fucking at her?
And she was supposed to be angry? Supposed to be mad somehow. Colin Bridgerton has a big dick, of course he has, what the fuck else would be true?
That wasn't anything to be angry about.
That wasn't the world being cruel.
That was the world being right, actually.
Maybe both.
“Come here,” he said, too quiet, grabbing her hand. “Does it feel good?”
“Does it–” she scoffed. “Yes.”
“Then I'm not worried about it. Come here,” he gritted, picking her up. They both gasped as they touched, her warmth sliding against his, fucking sliding, it was– “Fuck you, honestly,” he laughed, laughed – not quite mocking her, not quite happy. “They'd make it you, wouldn't they?” But before she could even hear that he was kissing her again, reaching under to line them up.
She beat him to it, shifted her hips.
“God,” they both let out, whined and aligned and horrible.
And then it was eye contact. Excruciating, perfect eye contact, her hands in his hair, his gripping impossibly hard underneath her thighs as he let her down, lifted her back up again. (He wanted to leave bruises , hadn't he said that?) And so slow. Too slow to make sense, too slow to allow her any thoughts – every drive in shutting the last one down. And maybe that was the point, or maybe rabid fucking like she was picturing wasn't really the moment, maybe that wasn't right. Maybe he knew that. Maybe he knew the flame needed slowness to catch fire, maybe he couldn't breathe, maybe he didn't have enough to make it wild, maybe he…
Maybe he just needed her.
Maybe she just needed him, too.
He walked her to the bookshelves somehow; she didn't notice until the binds started digging into her back, until his pace changed, not quite faster, not quite fast enough.
“Earn it,” he said. “Tell me.”
“No chance,” she gritted, just barely, some ancient book hitting her scalp as she tipped her chin, scraping just where she'd want his hand to.
“I've got fifteen minutes, angel, don't fuck with me.”
Angel.
He pulled back, shifting his hips and the angle, almost killed her, muttered something that sounded like off. She was gasping as her shirt was lifted over her head, because she could feel him like that, still and all of him…
All of him.
Could feel it getting worse, whatever worse is when worse is better.
He noticed too, went deeper as he took his own shirt off, let out a huff of a laugh that was only meant to mock her, (why did she like that?) take another piece, know something more.
Like where she likes–
“Fuck, Colin.”
Where she likes his hands, and his mouth, just there, harder, and God, his focus – as if he tunneled towards every single movement and learned everything about it, even through her attempts to mask it all.
But that was always the problem.
They only have one mask. One.
And they fucking share it.
Couldn't share it anymore – was that it? – can’t share it with his cock so slow like that, every inch a mile. Force it, show me, tell me.
There was so much information in it all, though none of it felt quite new enough to be something to note. It was all of course, all so fucking obvious and clear – he would like control but not all of it, and he would want it to hurt just enough. He’d want to lose his breath, and he'd want to leave her marked by it, and he'd want, desperately, to know just how bad it all is all the time.
Because they didn't really talk about it, did they? Just pieces, always. He was just impulsive enough that she never wanted to refine the details; caviling enough that she didn't want to give him anything to sink his teeth into. Peter is boring – he doesn't also need to know that it scares her that she doesn't like that, that she can't trust it, won't trust it, won't let her heart slow enough to love it. That she can only manage slow with him, when she gets eyes on the clock and realizes just how long it's been. Syncing to seconds again. Patience, lenience, assiduity.
And she was sure… God, (his mouth drenching the lace of her bra, a smiled bite against her nipple, she was so sure) that he had his reasons to be worried too. Because she is… difficult, isn't she? She surely had enough to say. If he wanted a list she could write it – here are all the things you're doing wrong. Colin Bridgerton and his Choices™ – A Man Who Doesn't Know Himself At All. She had it ready all the time.
As much as she tried, there was something almost exhaustingly possessive about the way they spun around each other, something indulgent in the way they fought – I know you better than that, hide and seek, no, fucking try it, try to hide somewhere, I'll find you.
And she knew that's what the pace was about, why they both wanted it to hurt just enough – See? Knew it. It was how he was determined to go slow enough to break her, it was why he wanted to break her – I’ll find you.
Keep hiding from me. Why are you hiding from me?
His kisses trailed up, if they were kisses, teeth scraping against her skin, drawing red all the way up her chest to her neck, only soothing the lines when she hissed.
But then his hand was on her throat, not hard like the day before, not testing, just holding, showing—
He fucking slammed into her.
“What did you say?”
She couldn't– “What the fuck are you–”
“He said morning, and you said…”
She shook her head, felt her heartbeat trying to meet his hand. “I didn't–”
He laughed, kissed her, landed his forehead against hers. “Nothing. You said nothing. Left your poor boyfriend on read for a whole day for–”
Her phone started buzzing on the floor across the room.
A wicked, horrible, perfect smile spread his face. “He's calling.”
And then he picked up pace. Then.
Of course it was then.
“You don't–”
“It's him. You know it's him. Because he would, right now. He would.”
He was right. She wanted to die and he was right.
Peter would call just as you stub your toe, or break a glass, or press play on a film.
Just as you start to fall asleep.
Just as you start to feel good.
He had, actually, called three separate times she was on the brink of an orgasm–
(Four, now, she supposed.)
It was the only unboring thing about him.
He would call just as Colin Bridgerton began leaking inside of her – how the fuck could she feel that?
“I should answer,” he laughed. But then, sweeter, false, dripping… “No, I should, Penelope, he should have to–”
She doesn't know why it was…
Why it was that.
But then her hand was around his throat, hard like he taught her.
"Why do you like the trees?" she asked, pushing harder.
"Fuck, I... what?"
She hummed, distracted for a moment as she watched and felt him swallow, his Adam's apple fighting against her hand. “Gorgeous,” she said, flitting her gaze to study how that changed his eyes, midnight breaking, lighter; her hand, too. She turned her voice to honey, she could do it too, didn't he know that? "The trees on the way, Colin."
"I..." he tried, slowing his pace. She felt it too, a completely transparent gush around him. "I, Jesus–"
"Or we don't have to talk,” she offered, removing her hand.
"No, I... no..." he stammered, something causing the corner of his mouth to turn up. He took a breath, refocused, kept his pace steady. "They... fuck, you're gonna kill me – There's only one way. Once you take that last turn it's… the road is so narrow that you can't really turn around without going further and... it's–"
Colin paused, fell forward, forehead to her shoulder.
"They're Ash trees. And I don't– Pen, God – I don't know how much I believe in all of it but they…”
He trailed off as they both took a breath, hers forced by him, deeper, deeper, how the fuck was he managing–
“You're unbelievable,” he fumed, reaching to grab her chin and tip her head back. Scalp to the books, digging.
"They..." she prompted, breathed, throat strained.
"They, we , British – you're such an asshole," he laughed, giggled, maniacal, so so so good. "They used to think Ash trees healed. Protected. My dad would tell this story, he used to – a Bridgerton man chose this land, chose the Ash, chose the road and way. He wanted to feel better, he wanted–”
"Wanted to force it."
"Wanted to force himself; wanted to force all of us. Hundreds of years later. And they're beautiful, and no one thinks about it. No one gives a fuck about the trees, but I heard him. It's a passthrough. A journey. And once you choose it you can't turn around without – oh my god, can't turn around without knowing why you are, it's–”
This, she wanted to say.
No, yeah, it was this…
Because she was close, and he was too, and it had never happened like that before, but all it really took after that was–
One, and two, and three…
“Penelope, come on, please…”
Forced out of her.
Forced out of her, the breath, the cry he stifled with his hand, the too much that so obviously fit once she let it go.
The truth of him, and of them, the crack finally pointed at.
“Perfect, Pen, fuck.”
Splitting in half, separating the two; I hate you, I love you, both, please let me…
Hiding, sought, and found.
—
They just stayed like that for a while, panting and pinned and cleared. The truth almost suspended – time stopped and slowed.
Until he pressed a kiss to her shoulder before he pulled out.
That's when she learned where it ends.
As she dropped to the floor, feet planted, grounded in reality again.
They got dressed in silence, Colin slower than her, still catching his breath. He kept pausing – holding his shirt in his hands, shaking his head and smiling to himself. Dimpled, hard won.
He was beautiful, really.
And maybe the light was just too clear in there suddenly, thick velvet curtains pushed by the open window, the sheer linen behind breezing aureate light. He kept turning, and it kept hitting him, little woven patterns of faded gold against his skin, painting him too bright.
It's just… it'd been a while since she allowed herself to really look.
“Do you need…” he asked once his shirt was on. “I can get the morning after pill.”
She laughed for some reason, which was stupid. That was nice. He was being nice.
More Colin, actually.
And she hated herself, but that was sort of terrifying despite how many years she'd wished for it.
Maybe it was just that she hoped it'd stay.
That he'd stay.
“No. IUD.”
He nodded, one hand in his pocket, one smoothing his hair back as he reached down for her phone.
And then he walked over. Handed it to her.
His breaths were strange, righted once they slowed.
Simple.
“It was because I didn't come find you last night, right?” he asked softly.
She let out a breath, the answer.
He looked away as he pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes, shook his head. “But you didn't come find me, either.”
“But I never–”
“No,” he said, eyebrows rising, maybe surprised she'd say it. “No, you never did.”
“Colin–”
“We will talk,” he pointed, voice louder then, as if the next part was safer for someone to hear. Walking backwards, making perfect eye contact, not at all avoiding, “I promised, I meant it– I just need to–”
“Get through this day.”
“Easier, now,” he smiled.
She turned her phone over just as the door shut.
The call was Peter.
—
She's not actually sure she heard a fucking word of the ceremony. Like the officiant had hit the mute button, all she registered was the wind in the trees and her slowed heart.
Colin didn't speak to her for the rest of the day – though, to be fair, she really didn't see him again until he walked down the aisle as a bridesmaid.
She got stuck on that for a while during the vows. Trying not smile for the wrong reasons, trying to stop it.
After Colin left the room she waited… she tried to wait. Made it about 45 seconds before she followed. He was halfway up the stairs, and she was headed towards the kitchen, at which time Violet came in from outside and exclaimed fondly, and loudly towards her children: “My bridesmaids!”
And she heard his laugh as it rounded the corner. Knew it too well, knew the way his head fell back before he fell forward – could hear it even as all the rest of the laughs and groans in the kitchen drowned him out.
It was that, all day – his laugh. His smile.
Hers.
That was part of the problem. She knows she would have lost it either way, lost her mind, lost her… lost her heart, at least her understanding of it, or feeling of ownership over it.
It felt wildly pointed out to her again as the rest of the day moved with ease, her heart sitting still and slow despite what had just happened, despite the evidence falling out of her for hours, despite the fucking bruises on her legs.
It worked.
And that was what was wrong.
If she didn't feel so good afterwards, if she hadn’t been pulled aside by Daphne and thanked for fixing him, Benedict later saying something about resuscitating him…
Maybe if she felt guilty. Maybe if she felt anything other than…
Maybe if all the pieces didn't fit – walking around as some sort of fucked amalgamation of hate and love and love and love and love and …
Maybe then slow and right and easy wouldn't have bothered her.
It was terrifying her, how close the slowness felt to when she was a girl. After the fall, still on the ground, rearranged but calm because he'd earned it; his hand extended, offering to pick her up while having no idea the current was still flowing through her…
She felt horribly reset.
Horribly sent back.
Restarted.
And she wasn't…
She wasn't getting mad again, it was just…
Forcing his breath back in his lungs with her hand and making him show her who he was when he earned it, when he was recognizable. It was the fact that when the fire started, when his eyes burst into blue flame, furious and alive, it was the most honest she'd ever seen him. It was the way it broke, sweetness and desperation right behind all of it, his anger (hers) actually not a mask but an offering, a fucking passthrough…
It was how obvious it had become that the clashing was always begging, the fighting always a question, and that sex could also be shaped that way, one giant question mark – trailing up and down the curve of the line again and again and again until you see enough truth that you can draw the dot. The end. Full stop. Asked, answered, over.
But was that it?
Could it be?
Right, yeah, so…
No vows. No instrumental cover of a Coldplay song or any understanding of why the guests were laughing or awwing when they were.
Just…
Just Colin, really. Holding a lilac bouquet, nose in the blooms, watching his mum get married.
—
She found him a few hours after the sun set, three glasses of champagne dragging in her chest. Seemed to have weighed down everything floating around.
The air had gone all cool, light and perfect, goosebumps prickling along her arms when the breeze hit just right.
Felt good.
Somewhere between glass two and three she had decided it all actually did make sense. Though there wasn't, in the end, much to debate there – it actually wasn't if it did but why it did…
There was never an if.
She couldn't explain now where the whys went after that night, not quite gone but drunk enough to connect and accept thoughts she'd never accept now. It set somewhere deep in the exhaustion, shakiness made steady by liquid unfettering.
The goal wasn't to find him, though.
She wasn't actually ready to talk, not quite sure what would come out once the second flute was replaced by the third. There was also the fact that Peter had called three times, one coming through just as she turned her phone back on after the ceremony, the other two back-to-back while she danced with Eloise and later with some 30-something Anderson man who had brave hands and an impossible smile.
Maybe that was what made it all better, or better-than-better, because better was the problem.
She did, actually, feel something exciting when the gorgeous Anderson whoever grabbed her hip and pulled her closer on the dance floor, something bubbly like the champagne, something human and not at all ruined. Because she had worried, for a moment, that she would never feel anything again after feeling everything all at once with him.
Maybe that's why she felt courageous enough to speak, to stay – knowing she wasn't destroyed in the bettering, as she had begun calling it that night in her head.
She decided to walk some it off once the dances went slow. Eloise had fallen asleep at one of the tables, and she had finally managed to speak to each of the Bridgertons, get those post-ceremony conversations over with. There was no one left to find her.
He was pretty far into the gardens near the trees, three turns, all right, the shrubs tall enough to block him. He was smoking a cigarette, staring at his phone, face illuminated by the screen for just a moment before he pocketed it.
She moved backwards as stealthily as she could in heels and intoxicated, hid around the corner. She felt the truth screaming at her, what hiding meant, she never really had to hide before. Luckily the champagne muzzled those thoughts before they echoed too much. She looked at her own phone, the texts from Peter that had followed the calls.
Volunteering at the dog adoption fair next weekend!! and a link to the organization.
An excerpt from his latest poem, written that night, which was – she had to admit – not at all boring. That is why she had originally liked Peter, actually. His writing was fantastic. Fascinating, considering he famously otherwise said nothing of note, ever.
Pub night, he had added, attaching a picture of his fucking Coors Light.
Something started buzzing – Colin’s phone, she realized when he picked it up.
He was trying to be quiet, but she was too close.
“Yes,” he laughed. “I'm serious. I know that. Right, but did you actually think–”
He sighed, hit his cigarette.
“I'm not– My life is here. Doesn't matter. No. No. Doesn't matter.”
Silence.
“Yeah, fine.”
Silence.
“I said that's fine. Call me again tomorrow, whatever, it won't have changed.”
She turned the corner just as it ended.
He looked up.
“You broke up with her.”
He wrinkled his nose, took another hit.
“Trying to, yeah,” he offered, turning around. And then, much more quietly: “And you're going to, too.”
“Sorry?”
He laughed. “How drunk are you?”
“Enough.”
“Got it.”
“You?”
“Sober,” he said flatly, hitting his cigarette again.
He took a step forward.
“Hold on, just– Go back.”
He chuckled, nodded, arms up in surrender, undid his step.
She crossed her arms, set her fingers against her wrist, felt that nagging urge to pinch herself again.
Because she could feel it – the mouthful of dirt, too honest and earthy and real – how close to the ground she still was. What she was realizing, actually – was how often she pinched herself just as she fell again.
That it was not quite the feeling of dreaming that she was fighting. It was reality. Sharp and bright and awake reality, needing a breath as she choked on the truth of it all.
Because he's Colin, a bit absurd until he's not, until he's saying something so profound and wildly sincere that you feel it batter at whatever understanding or comforting truth you had been clinging to since the last time.
Colin thinks. Colin thinks hard, more than he shares, and she thinks she always had some sort of understanding of that, what was being offered between the lines.
What she was being trusted with when it was more.
What he was giving to her, and what she was giving back.
“You're telling me to break up with him.”
His shrug was infuriating.
“Telling,” she repeated, eyes wide.
He rolled his. “You were going to, anyway.”
She didn't have anything for that. Anything.
His smile was what really did her in, just slight enough to be hiding it from her. He shrugged again, hit his cig.
“Fuck you,” fell out of her, more disbelief than anything.
He nodded.
“No, honestly, fuck you,” she said again, sharper, needing to taste it.
He just kept hitting his cigarette. Slowly, unconcerned, like she couldn't hit him if his lungs were full of it.
Her lungs were full of it.
Bursting out of her.
Smoke and ash and his Ash trees. That moment bracketed by the last one.
She had to be missing something.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
"You," he said slowly. So slow, like it fell from him. He shook his head, looked down. “I think you're what's wrong with me.”
She took a step back. Gave up, pinched herself.
Real.
He hit his cigarette again. It crackled in the silence.
Silence.
Too much of it.
“Colin.”
Too soft.
But then it came out again, even softer despite its fight.
Honest.
Colin.
On his last hit he looked her straight in the eye. The entire inhale, an inch made a mile, eyes dark and narrowed.
Everything dark, everything narrowed.
The Ash trees blew behind him as a huge gust came through. And just as it stilled…
“We're gonna do this for a while,” he let out with the smoke.
He didn't hesitate, didn't waver. But there was a moment, something she saw in the breath that followed the exhale.
He straightened, looked at her.
Nodded to himself.
Slow, slow, slow…
Her heart, his breath, the moment.
He dropped his cigarette. Killed it with his heel. She heard the fucking blades crush.
He didn't wait for her, didn't need anything more.
He was sure.
That's how a while becomes five years.
His smile as he walked away.
Hers.