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Victor is just the first time.
It’s hilarious, her husband looking at that man–even if Schneider does walk in shirtless without knocking, even if he does that sort of thing a lot now–and thinking he’s her type.
After spending so many years with her, the fact that Victor can see them side by side and decide that they make sense…well, it’s just more proof that her marriage is a lost cause.
But the more it keeps happening, the less funny it is.
****
It’s the mom of Alex’s new teammate, who is behind them in the stands during the first home game and asks what Schneider does for a living while her own husband is getting snacks.
Penelope and Schneider’s corrections are so hasty they overlap into gibberish, impossible to understand, before she’s elbowing him and starting over with less panic.
It’s not like it doesn’t make sense, of course. It’s a simple mistake.
One that seems to occur every baseball season.
****
It’s the waiter at the restaurant they go to for her Mami’s birthday, when Schneider sweet talks Lydia into it in spite of Penelope’s insistence that they can just have the usual fun family party.
Really it’s no different from being at home. They’re still loud and happy, Elena and Alex sneaking glances at their phones even after she scolds them, and Lydia flirting until the chef sends dessert out on the house. Penelope can’t help basking in how warm and settled it all feels–this isn’t the future she saw herself having, but it’s a pretty good one and she’s happy in it.
Schneider goes to the bathroom and the waiter comes by to hand her the check, says he hopes the evening went well and that she and her husband will stop in on their next date night. He’s gone again before she can find the words to correct him, some way to make the truth clear without frantically overreacting and turning that into the issue instead.
Does it really matter, she wonders, when the kids and her Mami are sitting right there and don’t even notice the man’s mistake? They all know it’s not true. That’s what counts.
****
It’s at Elena’s high school graduation, because of course Schneider is there taking endless pictures and would've brought a professional film crew if she hadn’t threatened him with violence. Of course he cheers almost as loud as her Cuban family and cries the most and hands Elena a gift he wrapped himself.
Now it’s not one person, it’s most of the people, who weren't close with Elena and don’t know Victor is overseas and make the assumption that the man with the proud grin and matching glasses is the father of the girl Penelope is preparing to send into the adult world.
It’s reasonable, she thinks, and so she talks around the subject, she slides past the titles and assumptions and tries not to think too much about how it feels.
Because it makes her more melancholy than she wants to admit, the way the world expects them to be a couple, expects her to have someone at her side who loves her kids and supports her without question.
Schneider being so easily mistaken for that guy hurts. It reminds her of what she’s still trying to find.
****
It’s the way the kitchen light hits him early in the morning, catching hints of green and grey in his blue eyes when he takes off his glasses to rub at them. Waiting for his coffee and blinking, he notices her gaze.
Schneider asks if she’s okay, gratefully taking the mug after he puts his glasses back on.
As soon as he speaks it’s like a spell is broken and time moves normally again. Alex is complaining about his school clothes and Elena is arguing with her Abuelita about summer break and Schneider is the guy who hangs around too much.
But for a minute he wasn’t. For a minute he was somebody else.
Somebody she couldn’t stop looking at and wondering, what did other people keep finding there? What about the two of them seemed like such a good fit?
So without her ever really meaning to, one morning Schneider is a man Penelope sees differently.
And she likes what she sees, that’s the worst part of all.
She likes it a lot.
****
It’s the way he’s not pushy, he lets her come to him, but he’s also totally open. Inviting her in for a hug without needing to say it, always being a safe place for her to run to. His body language has its own gravitational pull.
Really, so does he.
But it’s also the way he always reaches out to her, and when Schneider does reach out, he doesn’t hesitate.
His hand is at the small of her back when they leave a room together, a friendly gesture he doesn’t even seem to notice. He grabs her shoulders to maneuver her into sitting, a move that never fails to work because it stuns her into complying.
She was in the Army, she knows fifty ways to leave him gasping for air, but Schneider will lead her around gently and firmly and wordlessly as though it doesn’t occur to him to be afraid of her reflexes.
He catches her when she trips walking past the couch, one hand at her side and the other gripping her hip until she steadies herself. The feel of it lingers longer than she wishes it would.
The next night, after a terrible first date, it’s that moment she finds herself thinking of: Schneider's fingertips digging casually into her skin. How warm his hands are, his broad palms.
Loneliness is a terrible reason to ruin a friendship, she tells herself firmly.
Even if now he insists on showing up in her dreams.
****
It happens on a stifling August day, when the kids have fled to a temperature-controlled movie theater with their allowance and she opts to do the same for free.
Pretty close, anyway, because if she’s hanging out with Schneider at his place and she hints, he’ll leave the AC on all day without complaint.
She’s there for the free cool-down and the company, and whatever plans he might have had, Schneider seems happy to see her.
He always seems happy to see her. These days, Penelope can’t tell if that’s because he’s just such a happy person or if it’s about her.
She hopes it’s her.
They put a movie on and he offers to fix lunch. For a minute she can’t breathe, she’s laughing so hard.
The man cooks such terrible food, it hadn't occurred to her to take his offer seriously--but she didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. Sometimes she forgets he has any that are easily bruised. Because the pained look on Schneider’s face is sincere, she hurries to apologize.
Shifting closer on the couch, Penelope hugs him and promises that if he makes her food, she’ll eat it. She presses her lips to both his cheeks in big, exaggerated kisses to get him to smile again.
When that works and there’s only an inch between them, Schneider beaming at her so sweetly that it makes Penelope ache, she realizes she can’t take it anymore.
She kisses him again, this time leaning in to brush his mouth with hers, as slowly and carefully as if he might break. His smile is gone.
Penelope can see questions in his eyes, but Schneider doesn’t ask them. He frames her face with his hands and kisses her back.
She has questions too, because giving in to temptation didn’t mean expecting him to respond. She’s had time to develop feelings, deny them, and finally choose to acknowledge the insanity of them and hope they would go away.
Not once in all that time did she stop and think maybe Schneider had feelings for her too.
She’s pretty sure she has confirmation now, though, with him sinking deeper into the kiss and his hands tracing up the curve of her neck. Penelope's been wearing her hair up off her shoulders to beat the heat all day, but he's freeing it to run his fingers through.
With his hands buried in her curls, Schneider tugs her closer. Before she gets the chance to tell him her hair was up for a reason, his tongue finds hers and she lets him swallow her protest.
He’s being careful--she can tell he’s holding back just like her, still trying to figure out what this is and how far they can push the line before they cross it and something really important gets damaged.
But they’re making out in his chilled apartment, the air between them getting hotter by the second, and he’s practically got her pressed back into the couch and damn it feels good. All her rational arguments can’t stand up to the feel of him, a solid and comfortable weight on top of her.
Schneider smells like a forest, but not in a gross way–like an actual forest, rich and earthy and male. She’s never going to be able to stand near him again without noticing that and remembering them here, Penelope realizes.
With his mouth moving to her neck, he asks permission before he slides one hand under her tank top, and she holds back an eyeroll. Only Schneider would still be checking in while she was straddling him and her teeth were grazing his ear.
Of course, that's what she likes about him. However much he's enjoying himself--and she's got a front row seat, he's enjoying himself a lot--he would never want anything to happen between them that she might regret later.
God, that would almost simplify things, being able to consider today some form of temporary insanity. As she tugs Schneider's t-shirt over his head, Penelope wishes she could say she was going to regret this.
But she doesn’t think she will.