AN: Thank you, lovely peoples, for your reviews! Here we go with the next chapter...
Chapter 12
The speed in which he and Penelope had returned to their usual relationship amazed Derek. It started the very next day after the party. He'd come to get her to have pizza, and the Goth girl, Emily Prentiss, had answered the door. Although she looked kind of scary and tough, he liked Emily. He had the no-nonsense Em in a lot of his classes; she was going into law enforcement, too.
"Thank God," she said in a part sigh, part mutter of annoyance that just seemed to fit her. "It's about time you two saw reason."
"I—"
Prentiss didn't allow more comment than that. "Garcia!" she yelled up the stairs, walking away, and then his girl showed up, and his heart started to fly.
He couldn't believe how different he felt. It was like night and day, compared to that time apart, almost like spring had arrived after a dreadfully long Chicago winter. Being around Penelope was contagious joy. She was all effervescence and sunshine and happiness, and simply looking at her made him happy.
Penelope seemed just as elated as he was. Recently, when Mrs. Strauss had called her name when he'd called, Penelope had nearly knocked her down in her enthusiasm to get out the door. It was like the two of them had made a conscious effort to pretend the last week hadn't happened.
They were even more inseparable than before. Penelope came to watch him work out; he watched her do her artwork. They found compromises on everything, learned to like just about everything the other liked, and it was a truly beautiful friendship.
Nearly three weeks had passed, and they'd spent a great majority of their time with one another. Today, they were in the park at the campus, just an ordinary kind of day.
Penelope was drawing. Her tongue was out, and she was erasing a line that she'd made. She did that little thing with her tongue whenever she was concentrating.
Her tiny pink tongue...yet another thing that made her adorable.
She sighed and paused in her drawing.
"Can I see it?" he asked.
"When I'm done," she said and then continued drawing.
"I can wait."
She looked over the top of her glasses, her soft brown eyes glowing with a know-it-all satisfaction. "That's good, since you have no choice but to wait."
He grinned at her devilishly. "While I'm waiting...can I see the picture you drew of me?"
She ignored him, as usual, but he saw her blush. He bugged her often to see the naked picture, and she always told him no. She blushed every time he asked, so he figured it was simply too embarrassing for her to show how she'd drawn him in his full glory.
That breathy "Beautiful" she'd murmured really made him want to look, though...
Derek shrugged and went back to lying on the blanket. He could deal. He could deal with anything. Life was good. Things were back to normal, and the world was back on its axis.
He frowned just slightly. There was one thing from that time period that remained and bugged him. The morning after the party, a sheepish Mark Brown had approached Derek.
"Ah, Morgan? Can I...ah...ask you something?"
Derek perched on the armrest of their dilapidated couch. "Sure, Brown."
Brown winced and then asked sheepishly, "Did I make too much of an ass out of myself in front of Penelope?"
Derek thought seriously about that. That night, Mark had vomited on the couch, vomited again up the stairs, had peed in his pants, and had told more than one person on the team—including Carlson, who would never let that poor kid live it down—that he loved them. In short, he'd made a grade-A ass out of himself.
But he'd done none of that in front of Penelope. After he'd helped her with her shoes, Penelope had yawned, and he'd offered to walk her home instead. She'd gratefully accepted, with the provision that he tell Mark she'd left.
Mark wouldn't have noticed if the Pope had come and gone, he'd been so shitfaced.
"Nah, buddy," Derek said, giving him a smile. "I think you're safe."
Mark heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh, good! I wanted to ask her on another date and—"
"You what?" Derek interrupted. For some reason, he hadn't expected that.
"I w-want to see if she wants to go out," he stammered, his eyes like saucers as he looked at Derek warily. "That's not a problem, is it?"
Derek thought about the last week without her and knew his answer immediately.
"No. No, man. Go ahead and ask."
As he watched Penelope, sitting cross-legged and sketching the trees and two squirrels playing on the campus lawn, he thought about how much he regretted that decision. He should've told Brown to stay the fuck away from Penelope, but he didn't feel that he could. She'd chosen Mark Brown to go with that night. If she were interested in him, what right did he have to stand in the way of her happiness?
Problem was, every day he spent with her, she went further and further under his skin. He barely glanced at other girls anymore. They didn't matter, not like she did. He fell harder and harder for her, yet he was desperate to keep their friendship.
It was a double-edged sword: He couldn't live without her, but he couldn't have her, either.
The squirrels scampered away, and Penelope huffed, her full lips pursing. She had the most beautiful mouth. He wanted to kiss the little divot above her upper lip right where it bowed and the two dimples that appeared at the corners when she smiled.
"Have you kissed Brown?" he blurted, unable to take his attention away from her mouth.
Penelope looked over at him, a wry smile twisting those lips. She began to blush, just slightly. "Okaaaay," she drawled with a slight chuckle. "Why are you asking me that?"
"You've been going out, right?"
He didn't need to ask. He knew they'd gone on a few dates. Derek had hoped Penelope would send Mark away, but she hadn't.
A strand of hair fell over her cheek; she brought a little hand up to tuck the wayward lock behind her ear and left a smudge of charcoal on her cheek. Her fingers were always covered with gray and black when she was drawing. She used them to smudge the lead and make shadows so that the characters came alive.
He wanted to kiss that charcoal smudge.
"Yeah." She was sounding as uncomfortable as she looked. "But that's kinda personal there, Hot Stuff."
He rolled his eyes. "Please."
"I never ask you if you kiss your girlfriends."
He simply arched a brow at her, which spoke volumes.
"Okay, okay." She put her hands up and then turned her head to the side in a questioning gaze. "Why do you want to know?"
"I don't know," he said, drawing his eyes away from hers. He couldn't say why he was really asking, that he'd been focused on her lips and couldn't help but think of kissing. That would be foolish in the extreme. "I was just curious."
When he looked back, Penelope was staring at him. "Handsome, did Mark ask you to ask me that?"
Immediately, Derek frowned. "Why would you ask that?"
That blush was back, a flush of pink that covered her cheeks. "He's tried to kiss me, and I haven't been very receptive. I didn't want—"
Derek saw red. "I'm gonna kill him."
Penelope's eyes were so huge that you could see them outside the frames of her thick glasses. "No! No, don't do that!"
"Baby Girl, I don't give a damn about your wanting peace. No one is forcing themselves on you," he snarled, rising to a seated position. The agitation in him grew. He wanted to get up, walk into his frat house, and kick the living shit out of Mark Brown. "Dirty bastard, I—"
Penelope hurried to her knees and clamped a hand over his mouth. "Hush, Derek. It's not like that!"
Derek scowled, his brows snapping harshly together, but he didn't say a word. He couldn't. Her hand was still over his lips.
"Will you listen, please?" she asked timidly. "I'll take my hand away if you listen."
It was a silly request, really. He was ten times stronger than she was; he could've removed her hand in a heartbeat. Still, he let her have her way, and soon, she slowly removed her hand, like she'd said she would.
"We've been on four dates," Penelope said and then added quickly, "and Mark has been a gentleman and very nice."
"He'd better be," Derek grumbled.
"However, he has hinted he wanted a kiss." She looked away from Derek's eyes, that pretty blush coming back. This time, by the smile that graced her lips, he could tell it was a pleasurable blush. "I think I want it, too."
"That what's wrong?" he snapped, far more harshly than he'd intended.
Damn, he had it bad. He was jealous of a kiss that hadn't even happened yet! He never, ever, should've asked her that question. What was he? Some kind of stupid masochist?
"Ivenverkss," she mumbled, keeping her chin down. "That's why."
Derek quirked a grin. "What did you say?"
"That's why."
He chuckled slightly. "No, the first part."
She shot her glance back at his, and that blush began to grow. "Oh, that part."
As he watched her discomfiture, he reran the syllables she'd spoken in his head, slowing them down...slowly...slowly...
I've never...
"You've never kissed a man before?" he asked, somewhat in awe. He knew he'd hit pay dirt, too; that light pink turned a brilliant scarlet, and she looked down again at her dirty hands.
"No! I did a few times..." When he didn't say anything, she added, "High school guys."
"Baby..."
"I know they're not really men. I wasn't eighteen, either. And I just...I don't want to do it wrong," she finally said after a long moment of silence. "I—"
"You won't do it wrong," he said quickly, reassuring her and kicking himself at the same time. God, he didn't want to thrust her into Brown's arms, but he couldn't lie to her, either. He'd never lied to her. He'd omitted, he'd changed his wording, but he'd never lied to her, and he wasn't about to start now.
Slowly, she drew that luscious bottom lip between her teeth. "It's not just that. It's more than..."
Derek felt a string in his heart pull tight and a twitch of awareness, something that told him things were shifting and becoming different. "What?"
He knew he sounded breathy and eager, but he didn't care. Never in his life had he wanted to hear an answer as bad as he did right now. He felt like he'd been waiting his entire life to hear her answer.
She brought her gaze up to his and quickly looked down. "Never mind."
Derek reached over and cupped her chin in his hand so that she had to meet his eyes. "Tell me, sweetheart."
