Page 122 of The Nanny and the Nerd
Your heart is my heart.
His words comforted and tortured her.
Of course, she understood the magnitude of losing the AI-77 beta files. It was a crushing development. But she hadn’t seen Rowen once since she and Phoebe arrived back in Denver. Under the guise of needing to work twenty-four seven, he stayed at his loft in the Gale Gaming building while she and Phoebe resumed life in the Crystal Hills house.
But she knew, deep down, there was more going on with Rowen than simply a work crisis.
He hadn’t given her the whole story—that she’d bet her beloved copy of Delores Lambert DuBois’s short stories. There was more going on under the surface with that man that went well beyond the release of AI-77. His words had stung—she wouldn’t deny it. And he had been cruel. But his words had hurt him just as much. He’d tried to hide behind his muted mask, but he couldn’t hide from her.
Not completely.
She’d seen the heartbreak in his eyes, observed the muscles in his throat constrict as he swallowed back his feelings.
He wanted her to hate him the same way he hated himself.
He wanted her to blame him the same way he blamed himself.
What broke her heart was that after everything they’d been through, he still thought he was alone in this world, still believed that nobody could truly love the scared boy who lived inside him.
On a scale of one to ten, with one being okay, brush it off, girl, and ten being completely and wholeheartedly destroyed beyond recognition, she was a solid eleven. And while she’d cried herself to sleep every night this week, that was her only time to let down her guard.
She couldn’t fall apart.
Unlike Rowen, she couldn’t switch to robot mode and turn it all off. And she didn’t have the luxury of being whisked away to wallow in work. No, she had to put on a brave face the second after the speedboat carrying Jerome and Rowen left the yacht. Standing alone on the deck, she’d watched the boat cut through the darkened waters as the anguished, complicated man she loved disappeared into the night. But that wasn’t the hardest part. No, that came next.
Where’s Uncle Row, Penny? I have a cookie for him!
She could still picture Phoebe’s crestfallen expression when she’d told her that her uncle had to leave to deal with a work emergency. Exhausted from the emotional evening, the child had fallen asleep in her arms without touching the plate of cookies. And that’s where they’d stayed. She’d held Phoebe in her arms because if she’d let go, she would have fallen apart.
Harper dunked her tea bag into her mug with a dogged ferocity. “All right, ladies! As soon as Charlotte gets here, we’re going to kick some nerd ass! And we’re not stopping until the ass has been well and properly kicked,” she announced, then checked her watch and cringed. “Tiny caveat! I’ve got ninety minutes until I’m due at the Boyd’s place to teach their pyro-kid Porter how to play Chop Sticks. So, we’ll kick as much ass as we can in ninety minutes or less.”
Penny grinned at her friend. This was Harper’s magic. Her humor. Her spirit.
“Rewind, there, ass-kicker,” Libby interjected, raising an eyebrow. “What’s a pyro-kid?”
Harper waved her off. “He’s a kid who’s big into firefighters and pulling the fire alarm to get the shiny red truck to show up. But forget about my pint-sized pyro piano player! We need to know why you’re using that thing again,” Harper finished, pointing to the flip phone on the table.
Penny sighed and stared into her mug. There was so much more to tell them. But she didn’t know where to start. And this place wasn’t helping. She’d asked the girls to meet up for coffee at the shop across from the Crystal Cricket, which might have been a terrible choice of location. If she peered past Libby’s shoulder, she could see the table where she and Madelyn had sat when the woman offered her the nanny gig.
That day seemed like it happened a lifetime ago.
“It’s been a hectic week, you guys,” she said, setting Harper off again.
“Seriously, Penn! Why the hell did you wait this long to tell us? Last we heard from you, you’re like, bon voyage, bitches! I’m off to the Caribbean! Then a week later, you text us from the flip phone number.”
Penny stared at her phone. Once, she’d wrapped her very identity in shirking modern tech, but now that phone no longer felt like her. Still, it was what she had. “It didn’t feel right keeping Rowen’s phone and the laptop and the rest of the devices. I’m no longer working on AI-77, so I dropped everything off at the Gale Gaming office.”
“Did you see Rowen?” Libby asked gently.
Penny shook her head. “I set the stuff on the first-floor receptionist’s desk with a sticky note on it, so they’d know it was from me. I can’t lie. It was rough walking in. I loved working there. I loved the people and the challenge of dissecting and recreating the game’s story. Who knew I could write a gaming narrative?” she mused, growing teary. “And the universe threw me a bone. No one was on the first floor when I got there. I breezed in and out like a ghost.”
“Oh, Penn,” Libby sighed while Harper emitted a low growl.
H was back to abusing her tea bag with another round of rage dunking. “I hope you didn’t return his credit card because you’re due some retail revenge therapy. And I could use some new boots and a purse and some pretty panties. We could make it a group thing. Mind you, your bank account may be booming, Penn Fenn, but your besties are still basically broke off their asses.”
Penny didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. When H got going, there wasn’t much stopping her. Still, her friend was right about one thing. She had waited too long to tell them. But she’d needed the time to wrap her head around what had happened. She had to try to piece together how one of the most wonderful days of her life had dissolved into one of the worst.
“Harper, H, sweetie!” Libby pleaded, rubbing the woman’s shoulder. “Take a breath. Inhale a little namaste. Let’s let Penny process.”
