A long time passes before she touches me—one hand on my shoulder— but then it’s both hands on my shoulders, then both hands on my neck, both hands in my hair, both hands on my ears. I laugh, I can’t help it.
“Don’t laugh at me,” she whispers.
I lick her mouth while it’s open—and groan. She tastes so sweet.
Penelope has her hands on my shoulders again. She climbs into my lap and brackets my hips with her knees. She smooths down her skirt. And then she puts both arms around my neck.
I lean back against the couch and hold her waist.
I don’t know how much longer this can go on.
I hope she doesn’t regret it.
I’m glad she can’t make me forget it.
PENELOPE
Nicks and Slick, I’ve been wrong about everything.
Wrong about love.
Wrong about kissing, for certain.
Wrong about Shepard—I was frightfully wrong about Shepard. And I’m so glad. What else could I have been wrong about? I hope he shows me. I want him to show me.
I’ve been sitting in his lap for what feels like hours. We’re still kissing, and it’s still so soft. And he’s still smiling. I’m not sure he’s stopped smiling.
I’m smiling, too. Shepard looks different without his glasses—even more open, even more vulnerable. His eyes are smaller, his face has more space. I kiss the spot between his eyebrows, and he laughs.
My glasses are gone, too—Shepard took them off and set them somewhere. He tracks his thumbs along my eyebrows, down, over my cheekbones, and his smile fades. “Penelope … I need to ask you something.”
I sit back a little on his thighs. “Okay.”
He brings his hands to my waist, like he’s holding me steady. “Are you going to regret this?”
“How would I know that now?” I ask.
Shepard bites his lip. His bottom lip is even pinker than before. “I guess that’s fair.”
“Are you?”
“No,” he says.
“Well, you don’t know that either…”
He sits up a little. “No, I do. Without a doubt. I am never going to regret kissing you. I’m never going to regret a moment we’ve spent together, even though I regret the mistakes I’ve made…”
“Oh,” I say.
He pushes my hair out of my face. It falls back immediately. My ponytail must be nearly dead. “I need to tell you something,” he says, “just in case this is … happening.”
“What do you mean? Obviously it’s happening.”
He clears his throat. I reach down my T-shirt and find my gem, so I can summon him a glass of water. He just looks at the water for a second, then drinks half of it, and hands it back to me. I finish it, then disappear the glass.
“A place for everything, and everything in its place!”
Shepard clears his throat again. “I need to tell you something, a few somethings. Because now is the time to tell you. Before we get serious. But it’s going to make it seem like I think we’re more serious than we are. I just don’t want to miss my window for being honest with you.”
“Shepard, you’re making me nervous.”
He groans. “I’m sorry. Don’t be nervous.”
My hands were on his shoulders. I drop them into my lap.
“Don’t pull away,” he says.
“Just tell me, Shepard! Are you engaged to more than one demon?”
“No! But … you know I’ve been in a lot of unusual magickal situations…”
“Right.”
“And you know about my thirdborn…”
“I know that a giant you call a friend is going to eat your thirdborn.”
He closes one eye and bites his bottom lip. “I may also have promised someone my firstborn.”
“Shepard, your firstborn…”
He squeezes my waist. “It’s all right, I told you—I’m not having kids.”
“Who gets your firstborn?”
“An imp. Or three.”
“Aren’t imps the same as demons?”
“Never say that to an imp.”
“How did this even happen?”
“We were playing impdice. I thought they were joking about the wager.”
“We are going to kill these imps.”
“Penelope…” He bites his lip again. “There’s more.”
“More? Your secondborn?”
“No, I’ve got dibs on that one…” He’s grimacing. “But I did lose my last name.”