Page 76 of Loved

She let her hand run down between the zipper of my hoodie. I’d been in too much of a hurry to grab a shirt earlier and I loved the way her fingers felt pressed against my skin.

I smiled. "Try to remember to call me James in front of my brother, please." Because Rob would definitely give me hell. I lightly slapped Penny’s ass.

"I'll see what I can do. I'm so excited to meet him. Give me a second though, I'm sure I look like a hot mess."

"Just hot."

She laughed and walked over to the mirror on the wall. She wiped away the smudge marks from her mascara and added some more makeup that she definitely didn’t need.

She turned back to me. "I'm kind of nervous."

Nervous around Rob? Definitely not necessary."You don't have anything to be nervous about. He's going to love you." I wrapped my arms back around her. I wanted to be excited for this moment. This was the first time Penny was meeting anyone from my family. But I couldn’t erase the image of Professor McCarty’s hand on Penny’s ass from my head. I knew she didn’t want me to do anything. But…I’d never promised I wouldn’t. Someone needed to teach that old prick a lesson.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine."

"James."

"I don't know what you want me to tell you. Of course I'm upset. I'm pissed. I won't feel better until I've punched him in the face."

"Please, please don't do that."

"Penny, he touched you."

"Can we please just focus on your brother visiting? Just forget about it for now. I don't want to think about it anymore. Let's just have a fun weekend."

"I'll try." It would be a fun weekend. Especially after I beat the shit out of a certain handsy professor.

Chapter 21

Friday

"What's Rob like?" Penny asked as I led her out of her dorm room.

What was the best way to describe my brother? "He's...fun."

"You mean like funny?"

"No, I wouldn't say funny.” He’d been hilarious when we were kids. But after I’d married Isabella his jokes had become more annoying than funny. “He likes to have a good time. I invited him to stay with me when I didn't have you.” And because he had nowhere else to go. “He's good at distracting me." I stared down at her as we walked outside. I didn’t like talking about the time we weren’t together. Going on a break with her had been a terrible mistake.

Penny laughed, but there was something else in her eyes. She looked…sad. She was probably remembering our time apart too. She hadn’t fared much better than me.

She cleared her throat. "Is he like you at all?"

"Like me? He looks a little like me, I guess."

"Yeah, I've seen his picture. I mean, is he like you personality wise?"

Huh.That was a good question. I opened up the car door for her.

She climbed in and I walked over to the driver’s side.

Was Rob like me? Even a little? Rob was fun and carefree and always smiling. He traveled all the time. He hadn’t accomplished much of anything since graduating college. “No,” I said as I climbed into the car and buckled myseatbelt. "He's not really like me at all. He's kind of the opposite of me." But I guess I did smile more now. Because of her.

"What do you mean?"

"He's not independent."

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