know. ‘I think I saw you when I dropped Ethan off one morning.’
‘That’s right.’ Penny did her best not to blush, because it had been the morning she had actually realised just how gorgeous Ethan was.
Yes, it was awkward because Penny just said as she always did, as little as possible about herself. If she’d only open up, Ethan thought when he returned, then Kate would tell her all about the hell she had gone through to get her three, but instead they talked about work and weather and things that didn’t matter, till Kate had to go. ‘I’ll catch up with you soon, Ethan.’ She gave her brother a friendly kiss on the cheek. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Penny.’
‘And you.’
‘She seems nice,’ Penny said.
‘She is,’ Ethan said, but if she’d just spoken properly to her, then Penny would know that Kate didn’t just seem nice, she actually was.
Penny, Penny, Ethan sighed in his head. What to do?
‘Shall we go to the movies?’
‘The movies?’ Penny frowned. ‘I haven’t been to the movies since …’ She thought for a moment. ‘I can’t remember when.’
At her insistence, Penny bought the tickets and he went and got the popcorn and drinks and things, but as she walked over she saw him talking to a woman and a young boy and stopped walking.
The woman was being polite, but her face was a frozen mask. The young boy beside her was smiling up at Ethan and she just knew then that it was Justin. He looked like Ethan.
She was shaking a bit inside, her mind racing. She’d got it wrong with his sister; she couldn’t keep jumping to the conclusion that every woman he spoke to he’d slept with. Penny made a great deal about putting the tickets into her purse, pretending to jump in surprise as Ethan came over.
‘Okay?’ Penny checked.
‘Sure.’
She could tell he wasn’t.
Still, the movie was a good one and it was so nice to sit in the darkness—so nice not to have to think. They sat at the back in a practically empty cinema and ate popcorn and just checked out of the world for a little while, which for Penny was bliss. It was nice too for Ethan to not go over and over the terse conversation with Gina. To just accept that Gina didn’t want her ex-husband’s cousin involved in her son’s life.
He turned in the darkness to Penny about the same time she turned to him. There was the rustle of popcorn falling to the floor as they acted more like teenagers than a responsible couple in their thirties. After the movie Ethan wished he had brought the car as they walked quickly along the beach, almost running, not just to be together but away from problems each needed to face.
It felt so good to fall through the door, to lift her arms as he slid her out of her top, to undo the zipper of her shorts, as she did the same to him.
‘Why did we leave it so long?’ He was kissing her, not thinking of anything else but her mouth and her body and all the times they had missed, and how much better the boat would have been if he’d had Penny there with him.
‘You know why.’
Ethan’s head was in two places as he remembered what had kept them apart, but that problem had gone now and he just wasn’t thinking, or rather he was thinking out loud, but before he had time to stop himself suddenly the words were out.
‘Maybe it’s for the best.’
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