Penny’s alarm shocked her awake. She lay in bed all snug and warm for a few minutes, then got up and went through her routine of opening the curtains in all the rooms to get the fresh feel of warm sunshine on her face. When she pulled back the living room curtains, her gaze flicked to movement down in the parking lot. She squinted as she focused her blurry eyes. Was that Vince walking to the parking ramp? That dog!
She fumed as she wondered who he’d ended up spending the night with. Elsa’s face immediately came to mind. That freaking tramp. Penny was going to claw the hell out of her at the next full moon.
She shook she was so mad as she got ready for work. She thought of all the creative ways she was going to tell Vince where he could shove it. When she finally couldn’t take it anymore, she texted him.
‘Hey.’
It took him a few minutes to reply. ‘Good morning.’ The smiley face he sent with it only ticked her off even more. The stupid, two timing loser.
She texted back, ‘Want company for lunch?’ No time like the present to give him a piece of her mind, but it had to be face to face. She didn’t go for all that passive aggressive crap that some girls did.
He immediately replied, ‘Sure.’
After finding out what time his break was, she hurried off to her own job at the NFWA office. She had to run all over town some days anyway, she was sure she could get Ronnie to let her take a long lunch break today. Now she just needed to think of the most rotten, gross thing she could to bring Vince for lunch…
**
She was furious by the time she got to Peach’s Books. There was no way she was going to let Vince walk all over her by ditching her for Elsa, only to act like nothing happened. What a jerk.
She found him inside the busy store helping a customer. When he finally noticed her, the smile in his eyes pissed her off even more. He guided his customer to a stack of books, then made a beeline for her.
“Hey beautiful. Let’s get out of here, quick.” He tried to put his arm around her shoulder, but she shrugged out of it as they walked out.
That stupid, sexy smile faded as he held the door open for her. “You ok?”
“Yeah. I parked over here. Food’s in the car.”
She spared a glance into his eyes, and he looked like he knew something was wrong, but he was quiet as he followed her.
She didn’t like his worried expression as she unlocked the doors and settled in behind the wheel. It was hard to even look his way as he slid in the passenger seat and closed his door.
“What’s wrong?”
She handed him his bag of food rather than answer him.
He gave her a look, yawned, and opened the Styrofoam container in his lap. The smell of warm garlic quickly filled the car.
He sniffed the noodles and took a cautious bite.
She sarcastically said, “Something wrong with the food?”
He chewed and swallowed it down without a single grimace. Great. He actually liked it. “No. My stomach’s just a little touchy today.”
It was then that she noticed his lightly trembling hands. She noticed it last night, too. When the show was just about over. She thought he was just really excited, and maybe a little nervous.
“Does that happen a lot?”
The sudden intensity of his mood as he faced her was unnerving. “Does what happen a lot?”
“Getting a touchy stomach.”
His tension quickly eased as he stabbed his fork into the noodles again. What was going on?
“Yeah, sometimes. Doesn’t help that I didn’t get enough sleep last night.” He quickly added, “Not because of you. I had fun hanging out with you.”
Fun. Yeah, that’s what every one of her guy pals always told her right before they gave her the let’s just be friends speech. She was the fun girl, not the serious, settle down with type of girl. Maybe Elsa was.
Before she could give him a piece of her mind, he said, “I was going to go home last night, but I called my mom before I left. She and Ed were hanging out and she sounded so happy. I didn’t want to interrupt her night, so I asked Zach if he could put me up somewhere instead. I slept on Ed’s couch. Or tried to. I think I got a few hours sleep at least.”
Her stomach dropped. Not only had he not cheated on her, he’d stayed in Brookhaven because he wanted his mom to have fun. Penny was such a bitch…
“Here. Have my lunch. It’s probably better than those noodles.”
He frowned in confusion. “What? The noodles are fine. I’m not a picky eater. Keep your lunch.”
Oh God, she felt terrible. “What’s your favorite food? I’ll bring it to you next time.”
He smirked. “Fish.”
“Fish?”
“Yeah. I haven’t tried a lot of different kinds, but so far I love them all.”
She curled her lip. “Ew. Do you know how polluted the ocean is, not to mention that fish are over-farmed, and don’t get me started on the nuclear reactor spill in Japan that’s still spewing radioactive water into the ocean. And factory farmed fish end up swimming around in their own feces all day. Gross.”
The look on his face said he wasn’t sure if she was screwing with him or not. “Telling me that is gross. I don’t talk about everything cows and pigs and chickens do all day even though you got a burger.”
“I got an organically raised, free range beef.”
His curious smirk turned into an all out frown. “Wow.” He looked flatly at her with his tired eyes, then went back to eating.
“What?”
He shook his head and kept shoving noodles into his stupid, sexy face.
She snapped, “You can’t just say wow and then not follow that up with anything. That’s pigheaded.”
He scoffed, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and finally looked at her. “Are all the shifters that grew up in Brookhaven snobby about what they eat?”
“I’m not snobby for paying attention to what goes in my mouth.”
He scoffed. “Must be nice to be able to pick and choose, and even turn down food if it’s not good enough for your delicate senses. For the rest of us, we eat what we can afford to buy, or get from the food bank, hopefully scraping together at least one meal a day from it. Even to get that we have to work two jobs to afford it, so excuse me if I don’t have a lot of time to spend worrying about how my food’s raised. I’m more concerned with things like paying rent and not starving.”
Vince threw his food back in the plastic bag it came in and opened his door, anger seeping from him stronger than she’d felt from anyone in a long time. He pulled his wallet out and threw five dollars at her. “Thanks for lunch. I’ve got to get back to work.”
He slammed the door and she stared after him in shock as he stomped away, her eyes eventually trailing to a spot of spilled food he left behind on the seat.
**
Vince took the noodles back inside and finished eating them in the little breakroom in back. He probably shouldn’t have gone off on Penny like that, but he wasn’t always nice when he was tired, besides being totally sick of being broke and on the edge of destitute.
He hadn’t pegged Penny for being a spoiled brat, either, but how could she not be with everyone in Anthony’s family being treated like effin’ princes and princesses? She may be funny and sexy, but he had enough issues in life. He didn’t want to put up with a prima donna on top of that.
Meeting people in Brookhaven felt like both a blessing and a curse. It was such a different world from what he was used to, but he wasn’t sure he liked all of it. And since he was jaguar it seemed like he was bottom of the food chain as far as supers went, or at least in the shifter world. Though he wondered where the foxes fit in. Whatever. There was obviously some stuff going on with the wolves in the family, and maybe the vampires, too. After all, why would one of them turn his mom away? What was that all about?
An image of his too skinny mom coming home from her second job and going straight to bed, again only having one meal that day, stuck in his head while he finished eating. She tried so hard in life, and never complained about any of it. She deserved the kind of easy life people in Anthony’s family had. She probably deserved it more than any of the shifters there.
He pulled his phone out and stared at it. He didn’t especially want to move into the family apartments because he imagined he’d never have any privacy if he did, but life might be a lot easier if he gave in. At least for a while. Maybe long enough for the doctor or Zach to fix him, and then he could get out and live on his own. By then he’d know how safe it was for his mom, too.
He texted her before he changed his mind. ‘Let’s talk about moving to Brookhaven.’ He didn’t want her to work so hard anymore. This was finally her chance to catch a break in life, and now that they had it, he wanted her to enjoy whatever Anthony’s family was willing to offer… even if Vince wasn’t sure he belonged there with her. It hurt to think that maybe she was better off on her own now, but she’d already made a lifetime of sacrifices. It was her turn to relax for once.
She didn’t take long to reply. ‘Ok. I love you honey.’
‘I love you too, mom.’
**
Penny decided to burn off some steam by going to a Krav Maga class at the gym after work. When the end of the world came, she wasn’t going to be anyone’s bitch. So there. She took out her frustrations on the wolves in class since there were never any other animals there, and thankfully they didn’t beat her up too bad. They better not since she was the one who always bent over backwards to help them with their technical questions for how to connect security cameras, computers, generators, and other equipment that would be really helpful if, and when, the apocalypse came. That or a general electrical grid shut down due to any number of worldwide catastrophes.
But she still felt bad after working up a sweat, and went home to eat a pint of ice cream. Damn Vince. Why did he have to be such a good guy? Really, how could she have known he and his mom were so poor? Is that her fault?
She grumbled as she cranked up some Dead Kennedys and painted her toenails wine red to match the streaks in her hair. As they were drying, she turned off the music and found the latest episode of The Walking Dead, trying her hardest not to think about why she always had such a hard time being nice to the guys she dated.