Chapter Text
Colin couldn’t understand why Penelope’s message to him had been so apologetic.
Please, I’m so sorry, my mum isn’t answering and I don’t know anyone else with a car. I’m sorry but I’m literally on the train. Please can you pick me up at the station?
As if Anthony hadn’t flat out told him two years ago, “If you’re just going to fuck around, do your coursework online. That way you can at least make yourself useful and keep driving the girls around.”
That had been his older brother’s loving response to Colin returning from his first year of university and confessing that he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. At least he could drive the girls around. Despite not actually being his sister, Penelope had always counted as one of “the girls” when the Bridgertons referred to the gaggle of sisters that followed Colin. Sometimes Colin himself was even included in that group.
What are the girls watching for movie night? his mother would ask into the darkened media room. And Colin’s voice would come back from the couch, Pitch Perfect , with Penelope’s hand still lightly on his arm from the last time she had grabbed it in excitement; Daphne’s legs stretched across his lap; popcorn hitting his face from Eloise, loudly shushing him; and Francesca, silently kneeling on the carpet just below the screen, rapt.
So here he was, with his car, driving one of the girls around. Or at least, waiting to. And he was a little on edge from the desperation of her message. He had wondered a couple days ago, idly, why Penelope hadn’t come back with Eloise. But Eloise had muttered something about Penelope’s library job, and that had made sense enough. And Penelope had seemed normal enough in their texts. Scrolling up, the last one from her had just been a picture of her clean, empty room in student housing with the message, “This was a lot of work. Be proud of me.” He’d responded with an “I’m so proud of you” gif. Then the weird desperate text.
There she was, making her way down the concourse carrying a backpack and rolling two suitcases, chatting with another girl her age who was doing the same. She looked good; she did not look frantic or miserable, which was a relief. He thought she might be even wearing the same outfit he’d dropped her off in when he’d driven her and Eloise to school in September (driving the girls around, of course). He remembered because she’d been wearing his flannel shirt over her tank top and denim shorts, which had ironically made him feel a little warm. And he remembered because she had worn black tights under her shorts. And he had thought, that’s such a Penelope thing to do. His sisters only wore tights when their mother forced them for special occasions, but Penelope was creative.
But now, even though the tank and shorts were the same, she wasn’t wearing the tights. Or his flannel, he realized with a confusing little flash of disappointment. And her curly red hair was cascading down her shoulders and her cleavage, really emphasizing all of the parts of her that were now uncovered. His eyes dropped down to where he could now see her bare thighs moving as she walked toward him. Oh, shit . This was not confusion or disappointment he was feeling.
He hopped down from the railing he’d been leaning on and lightly jogged to meet her halfway. Moving was better than thinking. The girl she’d been talking to noticed first, eyeing him appreciatively. He’d gotten more of that than usual lately. Penelope followed her friend’s gaze and bounded toward him. “Colin, thank you so–”
He couldn’t stand to hear her thank him or apologize again, so he cut her off with a hug. Relieved when she squeezed back and shoved her face into his chest, he gripped her tighter. Then he realized he’d lifted her right off the ground. He set her back down gingerly. She giggled as they separated, and the anxiety that had been building in him since he’d received her message started to melt away.
“I need one of those,” Colin heard the other girl mutter while he grabbed Penelope’s bags.
“A friend?” Penelope asked distractedly while she silently fought with Colin over him carrying her backpack.
“Sure,” said the girl. “A friend.”
Penelope’s face went through a couple of expressions before settling on placid with a light blush. “Cressida, this is Colin. Colin, Cressida.” Both of their hands full of luggage, they nodded at each other. “Cressida goes to university with me I guess, but we haven’t really spoken until the train. Colin is Eloise’s brother – well, one of them.”
Cressida’s eyes scrutinized Colin’s face. “I can see it.” She adjusted her grip on her bags. “I have to meet my car. Good talking to you. Both.” She smiled at Penelope, then turned and winked at Colin as she walked away.
Colin furrowed his brow at Penelope, who shrugged. “I spent all year thinking she was a real bitch. And maybe she is, I don’t know. But she sat next to me on the train of her own volition. We mostly did crosswords. She knows a lot about old movies.”
“I’m glad you weren’t alone.” He gave her a little half grin that she returned, and they made their way out of the station and toward the car park. Colin kept getting waves of strange uncertainty that nearly robbed him of full control over his limbs, but he grounded himself with the weight of Penelope’s luggage and followed her out of the station. The rear view of Penelope was not helping.
It’s not like he’d never thought of Penelope like that before. She was a girl that he knew, who had all the parts that girls have, in abundance. Hell, when he was 16 he’d literally got a hard on putting sunscreen on her back in front of his entire family (luckily, he thought only Benedict might have noticed). But she’d always seemed young, the two years and change seeming like an eternity between them, and they were always grouped together with his sisters, and she trusted him so much and their friendship was so comfortable. It didn’t feel like the right thing to even start to think about, so other than a few strange blips that he had quickly course-corrected, she was just Pen to him.
But now, he reasoned, she was 19 and he was 21. They were both theoretically in university. He hadn’t seen her in person in nearly a year, and he could take in how different she was from the image of Penelope in his head. She seemed more grown up, more confident. Did that happen just since September?
Penelope watched him incredulously as he loaded her bags into the boot of his car. “Colin,” she paused, gears turning, “I took this seminar at school, and it was really good. It talked a lot about the damage we do by relating to ourselves and other people based on physical appearance. And it really changed a lot of things for me.”
Colin felt a little cold trickle run down the top of his spine. Had she noticed how he was looking at her? Was he about to get told off for lechery?
“So this isn’t something I’d normally ask, but you know we’re friends and that’s not based on how you look.” Penelope squared up to him to look directly in his eyes, and put a hand on his arm. “Colin, have you put on like thirty pounds of muscle since September? Because what the fuck?”
“I’ve been hitting the gym a bit.” He shut the boot, maybe a little too hard. “Okay, a lot. It’s bad?”
“No, it’s not bad. It’s just . . . different. I don’t think we’ve ever gone this long without seeing each other in person. It’s disconcerting to come back and you’re different.”
Fastening his seatbelt, Colin was both gratified that they’d been thinking along the same lines and upset to have somehow disappointed her. And maybe a little frustrated that she wasn’t appreciating all his hard work in the gym. “I’m not different, just my body.”
“Have you taken that seminar?” She raised an eyebrow, matching his jokey tone.
“No, but I have four sisters and a mother. And you.” He looked over and nudged the side of her thigh with the heel of his hand. It was a mistake; feeling the give of her made him want to open his hand to grab her soft upper thigh and squeeze just to feel what it was like.
“I guess sometimes you said you were at the gym. I just didn’t realize you were at the gym .”
Colin laughed and put both hands safely on the wheel. “Yeah. I go for a couple hours most days.”
“Well I was going to ask if I could take you out to lunch, to thank you for picking me up. But are you like, on a special diet or something?”
“Not really. As long as I get my protein I’m okay.” This was a little bit of a lie. He had been trying to log his macros and was theoretically about to start a cut for August holidays. But a “welcome home” meal with Penelope was worth a little break from his program.
“Thank God,” Penelope sighed. “That would be a lot to get used to.” She wasn’t wrong. Eating together–too much, too late, too crazy– had definitely been a part of their relationship, and one he didn’t look forward to losing.
Colin changed the subject. “I’m taking you to your mum’s house?”
Penelope hesitated. He glanced over, and she was nervously pulling the hem of her tank away from her belly and down over the waistband of her shorts.
“Or I could take you to ours first. You can catch up with El.”
“No.” she answered quickly. “I think – I don’t want to go home yet? Do you have time to go do that lunch?”
“I’m meeting some guys at the gym soon, but we’ll be done by two if you want to catch a late lunch. There’s some little shops and stuff on the street and it’s by the park if you want to hang out until I’m done.”
“That actually sounds great. I’m not ready to talk to my mother just yet.”
“Understood.” He reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. There was now a constant stream of urges from his hind brain to touch her and forgive him, he took a flimsy opportunity. “And Pen?”
“Mmm?”
“I want to be honest with you. It was only 20 pounds of muscle.”
Penelope swatted his hand of faux concern away and busied herself with a crossword on her phone, reading clues aloud to him. Colin was less than helpful trying to visualize the puzzle and interpret the clues and drive in London traffic all at once.
After they parked outside the gym (or as close as he could get, considering), they stood on the pavement and Colin rattled off all the places nearby Penelope might be interested in.
“Colin,” she interrupted, “I have lived in Mayfair for ten years. I’ll manage.”
“All right. I just feel bad dumping you on the street to go lift heavy things with a bunch of dudes.”
“Far be it from me to stifle your passions. You had plans, and you already did me a huge favor.”
“Pen, it was a ten-minute drive.”
“Each way. And the point is, I’m fine. Do your thing.”
Colin felt the awkwardness creeping back into his limbs. How do they say goodbye? He had said goodbye to Penelope hundreds of times in the past decade. Why couldn’t he remember any of them? Do they hug? High five?
But this new, slightly different Penelope did something new and different. She turned away first, hitched the strap of her backpack higher on her shoulder, said, “See you later. Go get ‘em,” and smacked his arse as she walked past him and down the street.
She was thirty feet away before Colin processed what happened. Too far away for him to respond casually in any way. So he walked through the glass doors of Mondrich’s Fitness Club in a daze. Penelope Featherington, his childhood friend, smacked him on the ass in the middle of the road. And he’s pretty sure he liked it.
—
Penelope was buzzing with nervous energy. She smacked Colin’s arse. She smacked Colin’s arse. She smacked Colin’s arse. She smacked Colin’s arse .
This wasn’t getting her anywhere.
On the train coming into London, the trip had started slightly frantically when she’d realized that her messages to her mother the day before and in the morning before boarding the train had all been ignored. She was hurtling toward London with no one to meet her on the other end. She was exhausted and didn’t want to have to figure out public transport or walk for an hour with her luggage. She wanted someone to come pick her up at the train station and be happy to see her–someone with a car to come save her. And the only face that came to mind was Colin’s.
Colin, who had just had ten months to maybe grow apart from their friendship. In Autumn he had sent her some of his papers for his coursework to proofread and get her opinion, but no more had come after Christmas break. She wondered if he was bouncing his ideas off of someone else now. Sometimes his girlfriends were smart. He texted Penelope, sporadically, maybe a few times a week, short exchanges. Nothing like when she was home, and the group chat and all the backchannel one on one conversations were going constantly. Where she might get a text at midnight to sneak down to the garden and eat takeaway from some new place that Colin had found. Everyone was busy with school, and the people they actually saw in person every day. Penelope had been too–she and Eloise were on the same residence hall and spent a ton of time together that year, even though they had no classes or clubs or jobs together, they had managed to maintain their close friendship. Until she’d messed it all up.
Eloise had been home with Colin for two days already. Had Eloise told Colin what Penelope did? Did he hate her now too? She opened up her texts with Colin and saw the last one, just yesterday, the “I’m proud of you” GIF. Was it fun and casual to send just the gif? Or was it dismissive and placating, just waiting until she was home to end their friendship over what she’d done to his sister?
The only person she could think of in London with a car who she actually even a little bit wanted to pick her up was still Colin. She sent him a text, a very, very polite text, trying to express that it wasn’t an expectation, just a request (albeit a desperate one): Please, I’m so sorry, my mum isn’t answering and I don’t know anyone else with a car. I’m sorry but I’m literally on the train. Please can you pick me up at the station?
And he’d responded immediately. Sure. Send me your arrival details. See you soon. x
Penelope felt like the little klaxon that had been blaring in her brain had finally been silenced. She had a ride and Colin probably didn’t hate her yet.
“Is that like a kink or something?” A blonde girl Penelope recognized from uni–Cressida something–sat down next to her.
“What?” Penelope looked around, as if a pair of fuzzy handcuffs or a blindfold might be found strewn about her seat.
Cressida gestured toward her phone. “The begging and apologizing.”
Penelope snorted. “No, it’s just–me, I guess? My ride fell through and now I’m pleading for someone to come get me on no notice.”
“Someone who sends you back a little kiss?”
“He’s my friend. That’s just Colin. He’s . . . like that.” Penelope smiled wistfully at her phone.
“All right.” Cressida put her handbag at her feet and settled in. “Show us then.”
“What?”
“Pictures. I’m bored. I want to see this boy who makes you beg and smile at your phone. Oh, darling, why is he saved in your phone as ‘Boo’ with a little ghost?”
“He did it.” Penelope felt she had to defend herself that she was not giving him delusional pet names. “Because he says I always jump at my phone notifications, so this way he comes up as ‘boo’ and it makes sense that it scares me. It made more sense when this originally happened.”
“I bet. Photos, Penelope. I need to see his face. Preferably also his body.”
Penelope searched up his name in her photos and showed Cressida, who continued her skepticism over their relationship. “He’s touching you a lot.”
“I told you, that’s just Colin. He’s touchy.”
“He’s not touching these other girls nearly as much.”
“They’re his sisters.”
“Do you like him?”
“Sure, he’s great.”
“Penelope. Do you want to have sex with this man?” Cressida was possibly louder than she absolutely needed to be, on the train, with other people around. The image she’d paused on was from this summer: Colin, effortlessly handsome and shirtless in sunglasses, and herself, looking about ten years old with a giant t-shirt down to her mid-thigh protecting her body from the sun. They were “clinking” their 99 Flakes together outside the ice cream stand at the beach.
Penelope felt herself turning red. “Well–”
“Have you?”
“No! He’s older, he’s my friend’s brother. Well, he’s my friend too. I’ve known him for ten years. It’s complicated.”
“He wants to.”
“What? You’ve seen a handful of photos of him where sometimes he has his arm around me.”
“Okay. Don’t take my advice then. Keep begging and smiling at your phone and being celibate. It’s your life.” Cressida primly reached for her bag to take her own phone out. Penelope teethed at the inside of her lip.
She had grown up a bit in her first sojourn away from home. There had been the seminar she’d attended in her third week about disassociating value from physical appearance. That was phenomenal. She had learned how much lighter she felt without her mother’s voice in her ear daily, reminding her that she was not good enough. She stopped planning all of her outfits around covering up as much as possible. She started taking the time to make her curly hair the way she wanted, loose and big and powerful. A few boys had noticed her. She’d been on dates. She’d made out at parties. She’d made friends that weren’t Bridgertons. Penelope was starting to like herself. And starting to believe that other people could genuinely like her, too. Maybe, maybe even Colin, if he didn’t hate her already.
“What would I do?”
“Hmm?” Cressida didn’t look up from her phone. She was making Penelope work for it.
“If I wanted to– well, if I wanted to get together with him?”
“That’s easy. Touch him back.”
“Touch him back? I’ve touched him.”
“I mean, touch him in ways that aren’t ambiguous.” Cressida rolled her eyes at Penelope’s lost expression. “Places you’d only touch him if you were ‘together,’ as you put it. The back of his neck. Around his ribs. His cheek. Men are so simple, Penelope, you would not believe it. If you touch them like you’ve had sex with them, their little lizard brains will just reverse the association.”
“Really?” Penelope was incredulous.
“And this is foolproof for you. Because you’re friends. So if he gets jumpy about the touching, just say it was a mistake and you’ll go back to being friends. He likes you well enough; he’s not going to toss you out after ten years over a little touching.”
Penelope had to concede. She had a point. “This is beginning to sound predatory.”
Cressida shrugged. “What are we supposed to do, just wait around looking pretty until we get picked? I’d rather be predator than prey.”
“Now you sound like Eloise.” Penelope winced and hoped Cressida wouldn’t extend the subject of Eloise. Which, thankfully, she hadn’t.
Here on the sidewalk, two blocks away from the gym, Penelope stopped. She didn’t know where she was walking anyway, just that confidently walking away and not looking back had been a very important part of her big gesture. She needed to jump up and down, or scream. Or at least text someone about it. But everyone she knew was her family member, or his. And her friends from the library job or the newspaper office at school were not people she trusted with something this sensitive. But maybe . . .
I did it , she texted Cressida, wondering if she’d even respond.
What?
I smacked him on the ass when we said goodbye.
Fuck! Go Miss Celibate.
Is it going to be weird?
Yes. It’s part of the process. When do you see him again?
Two hours?
I am mildly interested. Keep me apprised.
Penelope blinked at the sky, wondering why and how she had allowed Queen Bitch Cressida to become her Cyrano for Colin. She felt slightly calmer. It had happened. There was no going back. She was now Penelope Featherington who had made out with two and a half guys and been on 11 dates. She could do this.