Page 39 of Loved

“Honestly that might have been equally as terrible as the conversation I just had with Penny’s parents.”

There was an awkward pause. “So you told her parents?”

“Mhm.”

“And how did that go?”

“Bad. Really fucking bad.” Now that I was outside by myself, I felt worse about snapping. The outcome had been…decent. But getting there had been pretty messy. And I was still pissed about all that shit Penny’s dad had said about me.

I was more concerned about what they were saying about me right now behind my back though. They were obviously talking about me in there. Or else they wouldn’t have asked me to leave…

“Was it the age thing or the professor thing that really ticked them off?”

“Both,” I said with a sigh. “And the fact that I just got divorced.”

“Why the hell did you even talk about that?”

I groaned. “I don’t know. It just slipped out. It was probably good it did though. I’m sure they’ll read the articlein the Delaware Post after this, and it’s better that they heard it from me.”

“True.” There was some noise on the other end. “Ellen says you should have told her you were visiting Penny’s parents and she would have sent you some brownies or something.”

“Yeah, that probably would have been a good gesture. But it was a spur of the moment trip.”

Ian relayed the information to Ellen.

“Does Ellen want to talk to me?”

“No, she’s cleaning. Ow!” Ian said.

Ellen must have hit him.

I laughed.

And then I must have made some kind of strange noise when Penny’s cat ran over to me, because Ian said: “You okay, man?”

“Yeah. Penny has this cat.”That looks exactly like her. “It just surprised me is all.” I petted the top of Teddy’s head.

He meowed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around an animal before,” Ian said.

“I really don’t like pets.”

“What if Penny wants to bring him home with you?”

“No.”

Ian laughed. “Really? You’d just tell her no?”

I stared at Teddy. He rubbed against my leg. Maybe he wasn’tthatbad. “I’d probably say yes, but I really hate the idea of this furball being in my apartment.”

Ian laughed again. “Fair.”

“Can you buy me a T.V.?”

“That was a weird segue,” Ian said.

I shook my head. “Yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking about the fact that Penny likes to watch T.V. And maybe ifI buy her a nice one she’ll be entertained and not want to take this creature home with us.” Besides, classes were going to be hard the next few days. She needed an escape. And as much as I wished I could have sex with her for hours every night…my dick wouldn’t be able to handle that. This was how she liked to relax.

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