Page 23 of Loved

"James, pull over."

Nope.I continued to drive down the street and stopped at the stop sign before turning onto Smith Lane.

"James!"

I turned the corner and pulled to a stop at the bottom of her street. "Penny, you'll be lucky if your parents don't already know. It'll be better if they hear it from you. You said you'd call them..."

"And I will call them. I can't do this in person."

"You can."

"James, I can't." She dropped her head back on the headrest in total despair.

She was being adorable. This wasn’t going to be so bad. I tried to hide my smile. "We need to do this. Today."

She didn’t respond.

"You don't have to do it alone. I'm going to be with you. I'll even do most of the talking if you want."

"I feel like that'll make it worse. I need some air." She opened up the car door and stepped out into the sunshine.

I knew Penny didn’t like to run. But I was a little worried she was getting ready to sprint away from me. I climbed out of the car and walked over to her. She wasn’t fleeing, so that was good. I knew she just needed a moment. I leaned against the car and stared at the manicured lawn in front of us.

Penny sighed and leaned against the car too. "Who uses a dare to make their girlfriend disclose their illicit affair to her parents? You're super lame. How about you dare me to give you head at that diner I told you about a minute ago? Or maybe we can join the mile high club on an airplane?"

I pressed my lips together. Did she honestly think I wasn’t already part of that club? She knew my issues. But her offer was certainly tempting. Wasn’t it kind of a mile high club member’s duty to initiate new members? I tried to shake away the thought. This was important. I wantedher parents to like me. And I’d already made a pretty bad first impression.

"Please don't tell me that you're already part of the mile high club."

"Stop trying to change the subject." I put my arm around her shoulders. "I'm not going to force you to tell them. If you really don't want to, that's your decision. It would make me feel a lot better about everything though."

"Unless my dad punches you in the face."

I laughed and looked down at her. But she looked dead serious. I frowned. "Wait, do you seriously think that's going to happen?" Her dad was not a big man. I was almost a foot taller than him. But he wasn’t super thin or anything. He might have a secret mean right hook or something.

"I have no idea. I usually don't upset my parents. Disappointing them isn't exactly something I do all the time. I'm a little out of my element. And I've never even brought a boy home."

"Luckily I have tons of practice with disappointing parents. I'm not even sure if my parents love me."

Penny winced. "That can't possibly be true."

"I don't think it's far from the truth." I looked down at her. "I'd really prefer if your parents didn't hate me. That's probably asking too much given the situation. The sooner we tell them, the sooner they might be willing to forgive me though."

"They won't even be home for several hours," I said.

"Okay. How about you give me a tour of your hometown? Unlike you, I've really never been here before." I smiled at her. "And if you still don't feel like telling them in person by the time they're supposed to come home from work, we'll leave. They won't even know we were here."

"Oh, Penny! Is that you?" someone said.

We both turned around. An older woman with a huge smile was walking over to us.

"Hi, Mrs. Bennett,” Penny said with zero thrill in her voice.

Mrs. Bennett gave Penny a hug and then looked over at me. "And you must be the new boyfriend I've heard so much about?"

Maybe we were too late. Whoever Mrs. Bennett was already knew about me from the papers. Or…maybe Penny’s parents had told her about me? After we met at the hospital? She wasn’t staring at me with disdain or anything. I cleared my throat. "Hi, I'm James." I put my hand out for her to shake.

She took my hand and didn’t let go. "Pulling Penny away from her classes, are you? Her parents won't be pleased to hear about that. But your secret is safe with me." She finally let go of my hand.

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