Want more Fisher Amelie? Here’s the first two chapters of her recently released novel, Penny in London…

Denial

[ dih-nahy-uh l ]

noun

1. An assertion that something said, believed, alleged, etc., is false.

 Penelope Beckett is in denial. No, not the river in Africa. 

Graham’s hand sat on my waist. His long, slender fingers wrapped around the bone of my hip. He tucked me into his side and I almost melted into him. I imagined myself a stick of malleable butter, vulnerable to warm fingers slipping over the surface of my skin. Wherever he pressed, I would fold readily, happily. Wherever he touched, I would mold myself, eager and pliable and at his command. 

“Who are we meeting up with?” I asked him, gazing up as we walked toward the Chelsea Potter, a pub around the corner from our shared London flat. 

“Just a few of the lads,” he offered. 

I sighed. “So Oliver will be there then,” I said. 

He pulled me into his arms and laughed. “Yes, love, Oliver’ll be there.” He let go of me. “What exactly do you hate about him so much then?”

“I don’t hate him. Not at all, actually. I’m just not a fan, Graham. He’s a womanizer,” I argued for the millionth time since I’d met Oliver Finn. 

Graham laughed, wrapped his arm around me again, and kissed my temple. “The women never seem to mind,” he jabbed with his posh London accent.

“Graham,” I protested, pulling away from him. He wouldn’t have it, though, and pulled me back into his embrace. “There’s something about him I don’t trust,” I explained. 

“He’s a nice enough bloke. Let him be, Penelope.”

“He’s charming, yes, but there’s something there he’s not letting us in on, and it’s damaged. Nobody’s that reckless without a reason.”

“Why do Americans always break down a person?” he teased. “Not everyone has a secret past. Not everyone is that complicated.”

“I know that. I’m just saying Oliver seems to be covering up something he doesn’t want anyone to know about, and he does it by sleeping with every woman who will throw a look his way.”

Graham laughed. “Let it be, Penelope.”

I sighed and relented. “Fine, okay.”

We approached the pub’s green creaky door.

“Give us a kiss then, love.” He bent me back and kissed my lips then ushered me inside. 

He tucked a loose hair from my French twist behind my ear. I rolled my eyes at this tiresome habit. He liked me well kept, always put together, never a hair out of place. Graham let me go when he approached his friends and stuck his arms out at his sides. 

“Lock up your sisters, lads, I’m here!”

Whatever.

“Graham!” they all sang at once, slinking their chairs in closer to one another and pilfering a lonely chair at a nearby table for Graham.

“Sorry, Penny,” Oliver teased, “you’ll just have to settle in my lap. How’s that then?” he asked, sitting back, his arms extended. 

“Shut it, Oli,” I said, perching myself on Graham’s lap. 

Graham stood up quickly, almost pitching me onto the floor. If Oliver hadn’t caught my arm, I would have done just that. 

“Careful, mate,” Oli bit out at Graham, his brows furrowed. 

Graham looked down at me, had the decency to look sheepish, and grabbed me by the upper arm to help me up. “Sorry, love. Be right back,” he said, distracted. “Forgot a few of my work chums were coming ’round. I see a few of them now. Let me catch up.” He looked down at me. “You’ll be all right here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, taking his chair. 

Oli pushed my chair in for me while Graham sprinted for the door. 

“Easily distracted,” I explained to Oli, my cheeks a little pink with embarrassment. 

“Like my granny’s miniature poodle, that one,” he offered, making me laugh.

Oliver peered over at the bar. 

“Who’s on the docket tonight?” I asked him, perusing the girls myself, trying to decide which one he’d go for. I spotted a blonde with big boobs in the corner. “Let me guess,” I told him, gesturing toward my pick. “Her?”

He strained his neck trying to see who I’d chosen in the busy pub. 

“Who? Kate Moss wannabe?” he asked, laughing.

“Well, yeah,” I answered. “Most boys would think she’s kind of a catch.”

“Nah, not my type.”

“Oh, as if you have a type?” I scoffed.

“I’ve a type, Penny,” he stated with strength.

I swallowed at his tone. “I’ve never seen you discriminate, Oli.”

He smiled that charismatic, devilish smile that got him all the girls and the intensity between us dissipated. “I’m an equal opportunity lover,” he threw out like a baseball pitch. 

I readied my bat. “That you are. On a completely unrelated note, have you been tested?”

He pretended to be wounded by my jab. “Clean as a whistle.”

I shook my head at him. “You’re lucky then.”

“Okay, Mum.”

“Do I look like your mom?” I asked him, a hand at my chest.

He looked at my hair. “That hair is tidy, Penny. My granny still wears it that way. Classic.”

Feigning outrage, my hand went to my head. “Graham likes it this way.”

Oliver pretended to straighten a jacket on his shoulders and pushed up an imaginary tie. “I’m Graham,” he mocked. “Pleased to meet you, madam.” Oliver studied my face and gasped. “Is that liner on your eye! For shame!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I agree he is a bit fussy.”

“Only a bit?” he snipped. 

I smoothed my clothes as if Graham could be nearby, though he wasn’t, not that I could see anyway. “He is particular.”

“And you particularly dish yourself up like a little Graham doll.”

“What’s wrong with wanting to please my boyfriend?” I asked him.

“Nothing, if pleasing him doesn’t waste away at who you are,” he answered curtly. 

I felt my cheeks burn. His comment hit a little too close for comfort. “You think I’m betraying myself?” I asked in an unusual attempt at civility with Oliver. 

All the color drained from his face. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Penelope. That was out of line.”

I nodded, not wanting to talk about it anymore. Instead, I turned toward the bar. 

“That one,” I offered to him. 

A new girl. A little on the short side. Sh had brown hair, pretty teeth, and a sweet smile. 

“I’d try her on, yeah.”

“I knew you had a type,” I said, elbowing him.

“I said I’d try her on. I never said she was my type.”

Surprised, I asked, “What does your type look like, Oliver?”

He laughed, genuinely laughed. Like a gut laugh, and it shocked me a little. I’d never really seen Oliver do anything that didn’t show me how overly aware he was of himself. 

“You don’t want to know my type, Penny,” he told me. 

He stood up and headed toward the bar, but not before placing a hand on my head and ruining my twist. 

“Oliver Finn!” I yelled at him.

“You’ll get over it easily enough,” he said. 

I caught his arm and yanked him back toward me. I started to take all the bobby pins from my hair and gathered them into a pile on the table next to an old pint glass. “That was rude,” I told him. 

“Yeah? What’s it matter to me then? You’ll be gone in a few months’ time. Just like the rest.”

I flinched as if he’d hit me and let my hands fall to my lap. He stood stock-still, his face blank.

I leaned over the table toward Graham’s friend Alfie and told him, “Tell Graham I’ll meet him at home later, will ya?” 

“Sure, love,” he told me, engrossing himself in his previous conversation. 

I stood up, left my pins at the table, and made my way toward the door. I felt someone’s hands, Oliver’s, grapple at my clothing, but I ignored them. I was going home.