Chapter Text
I would do whatever you wanted
We don't have to leave the apartment
Met you at the right time
This is what it feels like
Feels Like - Gracie Abrams
*
I.
Eloise has cross-country practice on Thursdays after school, so Penelope’s options are to sit on the stands in the hot sun (or rain, sometimes), waiting for her to finish, go to her own house (the worst option), or to wait at Bridgerton House without Eloise (ding, ding, ding). Penelope has been coming around for a couple months now, so she knows Violet doesn’t mind an extra body amidst the chaos. The first few times, Penelope sat quietly in Eloise’s room, reading her book or doing her homework so she wasn’t a bother, but Violet finally coaxed her out with snacks.
“Stay down here with us, dearest,” she said, handing Penelope a cup of tea and a plate of chocolate biscuits. And after that, she had. Sometimes it was a bunch of siblings. Often, she read to Hyacinth and Gregory, or sat with them as they watched cartoons. Sometimes it was Francesca on the piano, a lovely backdrop to Penelope doing her maths homework or writing an essay.
And sometimes, Colin was home.
He is a few years older and a few grades ahead, so she knows him but it’s not like they’re friends. He’s athletic and popular and she can see why. He’s tall and muscular and exceedingly handsome. All the Bridgertons are attractive but Colin stands out for some reason. Maybe because he’s so popular but still reserved and kind. Because he’s sweet to his younger siblings and he clearly idolizes his older brothers. Ben’s often off at band practice and Anthony is uni, though he still lives at home to help raise his siblings.
Penelope is fourteen the first time Colin speaks to her directly.
“You’re Eloise’s friend, yeah?” he says, plopping down on the sofa next to her. Greg and Hy are watching Wreck-It Ralph because it was Greg’s turn to choose, but it keeps both of their attention. It’s not Penelope’s responsibility to keep an eye on the littles, but she’s happy to help out, since she’s waiting around anyway and she likes when Violet calls her dearest, or darling, or sweetheart. She’s been hanging around for about six months, basking in the chaos of this happy family, though clinging to the walls. She considers herself an anthropologist, watching them but limiting her interactions. Her observations have led her to believe that families can be different. They can be better. She’s drawn a shorter straw with her own.
“Yeah,” she says, keeping her eyes on her notebook paper. She’s in year ten now and the workload has jumped noticeably. They’re reading Wuthering Heights right now, a chapter every night, and three short essay questions to answer for every chapter. Then she has fifteen maths equations to solve and a chapter of her history textbook to get through. She usually saves her English homework for last because it’s the easiest for her, but she finds she likes Wuthering Heights and actually wants to answer the questions.
But all thoughts go out of her head the moment a cute boy speaks to her.
“Penelope, yeah?”
She nods, eyes on her paper. “Yeah.”
“I’m Colin,” he says, sticking his hand out, as if to shake hers. Her eyes dart up and he’s looking right at her, a smile lifting up one corner of his mouth. “If I may formally introduce myself.”
He’s teasing her, she knows. (Easy to recognize something that happens a lot.) But it doesn’t feel malicious, actually. She looks at his hand and then sets her pencil down so she can grasp it. His skin is warm and dry and his hand is huge compared to hers, but she shakes it firmly, like her father taught her.
“I know who you are,” she says. “Number three.”
He laughs. “That’s right.”
“I’m a three, too.”
“Look at that,” he says. “We already have something in common.”
They don’t really talk much that day. But he does stay and watch the film with them. He might stay and watch to the end for all she knows, except that Eloise comes home sweaty and red faced from her running and Penelope is forced to gather her things and trail Eloise up the stairs, leaving Colin behind.
He’s around a lot more often after that day.
By fifteen, Penelope’s Eloise gap is always filled by Colin. They’re friends now. His words, not hers. She’d never be brave enough to claim him in that way, but he doesn’t seem to have the same reservations. They do homework together. He’s studying for A-Levels and while she finds him to be quite intelligent, he struggles with school work and has middling marks. It’s not that he can’t learn the information, it’s the structure of schooling he chafes against. He wants freedom, he wants to choose what he learns, not having dry subjects shoved down his throat.
“Well,” she reminds him as he bemoans studying not for the first time. “If you get through your A-Levels, you can go to uni and have a lot more say over what you study.”
He bites his lip. “I’m not even sure I want to go to uni.” She finds this shocking. She’d always assumed she’d go to uni and both of his older brothers had. Eloise is already talking about where she and Penelope should go (because obviously they’re going to pick the same school). But of course, uni is not only about getting an education but getting a job and the Bridgertons are so wealthy that any job is automatically going to be a hobby, not a necessity.
“Why are you studying for A-Levels if you don’t want to go to uni?” she says, finally, having processed his words.
He tosses his pen down. “That is a great question.” He looks at her. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“W-what?” she asks. They hang out for a solid two hours every Thursday and sometimes other days of the week if Penelope finds herself in the Bridgerton’s house, which often she does. But they’ve never left the house and certainly not alone. “Eloise will be home in an hour.”
“An hour is a long time,” he reasons. “Come on, we can go get some ice cream or something.”
“Ice cream?” she whispers. Her mother would pitch an absolute fit if she knew Penelope was being offered unsanctioned sweets. She gets one slice of cake on her own birthday, a wedge of pie at Christmas. Anything beyond that comes with her mother’s wary, long looks and a thinly veiled lecture about health and fitness that is really just body shaming. Her mother is obsessed with her own appearance. Her bathroom vanity is covered with bottles and lotions and creams and serums. She’s constantly going to and from workout classes. And Penelope does admit that her mother looks good, but at what cost?
“We’ll bring the kids,” Colin says. “G and H! Who wants a treat?”
And the little ones appeared, as if he’d whistled for puppies.
The Bridgerton siblings have two old cars that they share and though it doesn’t seem official, there’s a girls car and a boys car. Ben almost always has the boy’s car, his bass and amp in the boot as he goes to and from practice or gigs. So today, they pile into the girl’s car. Pen lets Gregory have the front seat because he’s already the same height as her, but his legs are way longer.
“Really?” he asks, excited.
“Yeah, she wants to sit with me,” Hyacinth says, holding her hand.
Penelope sits behind Colin who has to scoot the seat back to accommodate his height. Clearly Daphne was the last person to drive this car.
“You okay, Pen?” he asks. “Am I squishing you?”
“I’m fine,” she says softly. No one calls her Pen. Always Penelope. Her mother insists that it’s the name she chose and it’s disrespectful to her to shorten it, or alter it in any way. Prudence, not Pru. Phillipa, not Pip. Penelope, not Penny. She doesn’t tell Colin this. When will he ever be around her mother?
They get ice cream and then let the little ones run off the sugar high at the park across from the sweets shop.
“You’re pretty cool,” Colin says to her unprompted.
And because she is not cool, actually, she says, “Thank you.”
He just laughs.
***
She doesn’t ever see Colin in a bad mood so it’s strange when he comes home on a Friday night, slamming doors and snapping at his siblings. She’s spending the night with Eloise because she told her mother they have a big project to work on.
The project is Penelope’s effort to spend the least amount of time at home as possible. It’s not that she doesn’t love her mother, or even that she doubts her mother loves her, but things have been tense. Her mother and her papa have been fighting a lot, more than usual. She can hear it through the walls at night. And her sisters are always gone, off with friends. Prudence got a job working at a shop on the high street that sells club shoes, mostly. Garish high heels that would almost guarantee Penelope a broken ankle if she tried to walk over cobblestones even sober, let alone drunk. (She’s never been drunk, but she assumes.) But Prudence says it’s worth it for the discount.
Penelope, at fifteen, is too young for a job but too old to be coddled so the best she can do is take herself out of the equation of her home life as much as possible. So far, Eloise has not thought to question how often Penelope is available to hang out or why they never cross the square to spend time in Penelope’s bedroom (a genuinely horrifying thought), but seeing Colin come in through the front door in a huff only to slam the garden door on his way out, she says, “He’s been a real beast lately. If he comes back in, we should go upstairs.”
They end up going upstairs anyway. Penelope loves Eloise’s room, so it’s no hardship. There’s a queen-sized bed, big windows, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf stuffed full of books. She’s got a television and her own computer and her own bathroom. Well, sort of. It has two doors, one from Eloise’s room and one from Francesca’s, but there are two sinks and Eloise definitely has her own sink. It had been converted from a dressing room, a long time ago, Eloise explained once. Well before she was born. Before her dad was born, even.
From Eloise’s window, she can just make out Colin sitting on one of the rope swings. She waits until Francesca goes into the shared loo and then says, “I’m going to go use the toilet downstairs.”
Perhaps Colin will bite her head off too. If so, she’ll simply come back upstairs and pretend like she’s fine even though Colin has never yelled at her before and the thought of him doing so makes her vaguely nauseated. She pads quietly down the stairs and out the backdoor into the garden.
She can see him in the gentle light cast from the house and he tenses at the sound of her approach, twisting to snarl at her. But he doesn’t. His face softens.
“Oh, it’s you,” he says.
“I could see you from Eloise’s window,” she admits. “Are you okay?”
He studies her for a moment and then gestures to the swing next to him. She feels a surge of something, anticipation or relief at having passed the first test. No yelling, and he hasn’t sent her away. She hops up onto the swing and he laughs at the effort. Her feet dangle but his don’t, of course. He can push himself off the ground and get a good rhythm going whereas she would have to pump her legs but it’s moot, they don’t swing. They just sit and sway a little.
“I’m fine,” he says finally.
“Oh.” She doesn’t buy that, but the only person who ever confesses anything to her is Eloise and she usually just starts talking completely unprompted, so Penelope doesn’t really know how to pry information out of someone.
“It’s just that Ben and Anthony got in my head about something.”
He’s going to spill too, just like Eloise.
“What about?”
He winces. “I have this date with this really pretty girl.”
It makes something in her belly turn hard and sour. Colin is handsome and popular and she’s under no illusions that he’s interested in her, but she does think he’s cute and maybe she’s got a little crush after months and months of Thursdays. Maybe she does. Who cares?
But it hurts anyway.
“Sounds like a real tragedy.”
And he laughs! “No, you’re right.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, I haven’t had that many dates before and Ben thinks I’m gonna muck it up.”
“You? Haven’t had a lot of dates?” She frowns. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Really?” he asks. “Why?”
“Because you’re—” She stops herself just in time. Cute, funny, popular, sweet. Anything would be incriminating.
He arches an eyebrow. “Because I’m what, Pen?”
“A Bridgerton,” she offers. And doesn’t that mean the same thing? Aren’t they all beautiful and accomplished and sweet? They are to her.
But this answer makes him roll his eyes. “I’m not like them,” he grouses. “I don’t… I find it hard to date casually, that’s all.”
“But this girl is different?” She doesn’t want to hear about the girl, but talking to Colin at all is such a treat, especially alone. It’s worth pushing on the bruise for.
“Well, she’s beautiful. We have a lot of the same friends,” he says, twisting in his swing a little so the seat of his bumps lightly into hers. “I guess it kind of makes sense.”
“So you asked her out,” Penelope concludes.
“No,” he says. “She asked me.”
“Do you like her?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. I guess I could.”
“So what’s the problem?”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s embarrassing.”
Pen doesn’t push and Colin folds again easily.
“I’m just not that experienced and Ben said she’s not going to want to fool around with an amateur, that’s all.” And he is blushing, she can see it in the darkness.
“Can I ask a question?”
He nods.
“Why is that embarrassing, exactly?” And she means it, she really does, because she’s never kissed anyone and while she does long for those kinds of experiences, she also knows it’s better to wait for the right ones than to do it wrong a bunch. She thinks, anyway.
“Pen, I’m almost nineteen. It’s a little old.”
“Oh.” She thinks about that for a while. “Do you not like kissing?”
“I do!” he says, a little hotly.
“I’m just asking questions!”
“I don’t like… I don’t like when it’s impersonal, that’s all. Kissing strangers in clubs, or whatever.” He makes a face. “Ben loves that.”
“Who cares what Ben likes. You have to do what you like.” Pen nods, thinking that’s very sage advice indeed.
“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks, Pen. I probably just need to bite the bullet and get more practice and then I won’t feel weird about it.”
“You could practice with me.” She blurts it out without thought and then the words hang between them. His mouth falls open in surprise. God, the silence is excruciating.
“What?” he says, finally.
“I just… I mean… I’ve never kissed anyone before. Ever.” She let out a nervous giggle. “So I guess we could both use the practice.”
He stares at her.
“That was so stupid of me, god.” She hops off the swing, intent on fleeing back to the safety of Eloise’s bedroom. “Sorry.”
“No, wait,” he says. “It’s not stupid. Sorry, you just surprised me.” He runs his hand through his hair. “You would want to do that? With me?”
Is he joking? Is that a real question? “Uh, yeah. Sure.” She tries to play it cool. “I mean, I know you said you liked connection but, I mean, we’re friends, kind of. Sort of. Aren’t we?”
“We’re certainly not strangers,” he murmurs. “Yeah, we’re friends.”
“So…” She trails off because her coffer of bravery is now empty and she wasn’t lying when she said she has no experience. She doesn’t know where to go from here.
“So,” he echos. He tugs at her arm and pulls her closer, slotting her between his spread knees. He’s still on the swing, after all and her standing height works well with his sitting height, it turns out.
“Oh,” she whispers. “Now?”
“My date is tomorrow.”
Behind them, someone must turn off a light inside because the house grows dim and casts them in a deeper shadow.
“Eloise will wonder where I am.”
He studies her. “You can change your mind if you want. I won’t be mad.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to change my mind.”
“Good,” he says softly. “Can I touch your face?”
“Sure,” she says. And when he raises both hands to hold her cheeks, she thinks even if he didn’t kiss her, this might be enough to see her through. She doesn’t come from a touchy family. They’re not huggers. No one touches her. His hands are huge and not only do they cover her cheeks but his pinky fingers land on her neck and god, she could melt away from that alone. Her breath is catching because she’s nervous and excited but this doesn’t deter him. His gaze drops from her eyes to her mouth and then he leans in very slowly and brushes their lips together.
It’s too light. She wants more. But he’s just testing the waters, it turns out because after that first soft pass, he comes back in for another and it’s a real kiss, she reckons. His mouth is soft, hot, and she’d never really contemplated how someone might taste, but he does have a taste, and she’s hooked immediately.
He pulls back again and murmurs, “Kiss me back, Pen.”
This time, she leans into it, mimicking what he does. The gentle movements, the push and pull. They do it for what feels like ages before his hands slide from her cheeks into her hair and he tugs, tilting her head back a bit.
Then she feels it, his tongue pressing past the barrier of her lips. She opens her mouth and yeah, he tastes amazing. She couldn’t describe it if asked, because it’s not a flavor she’s ever encountered before, another person. He doesn’t taste like anything familiar, like if he’d been eating or drinking something just before this. But it’s definitely unique. She swipes her tongue against the ridges of his teeth and he makes a little noise, high pitched like a sigh or a whimper.
Does he like it too? They’re still kissing. She doesn’t know what inexperience would look like on him, but it all feels good to her. Her body certainly feels alive. Her breasts feel tight and achy and that ache extends down to between her legs, like when she touches herself at night.
Maybe she’ll stand here all night kissing Colin Bridgerton. Maybe until her lips go numb and her legs go too rubbery to hold her up anymore.
But because the universe is unfair and the kiss is essentially stolen from another, prettier girl who deserves it far more than she does, Colin pulls back. He’s breathing heavier, too.
And it’s just in time because the back door flings open and Eloise yells, “Hey!”
Pen flinches with guilt and steps back.
“What?” Colin calls.
“Have you seen Penelope?”
Colin looks at her, letting it be her choice, she supposes.
“I’ll be in in a minute,” she says, her voice steadier than it has any right to be.
“Oh,” Eloise says. “Yeah.”
“What did you think?” Colin asks, his hands out of Penelope’s hair and back on the ropes that hold the swing seat.
“I can’t see how she’d complain about that,” Penelope says. “I thought it was nice.”
“I thought it was nice too,” he says, laughing. “Thanks, Pen.”
“Um, yeah. You’re welcome. Bye, Colin.”
Her legs do feel a bit rubbery as she makes her way back toward the house. Eloise is loitering by the bottom of the stairs, obviously waiting for her. Penelope wonders if she looks any different, now that she’s been kissed. But Eloise just frowns at her.
“What were you doing out there?”
“Dunno, nothing. Just talking,” she replies.
“About what?”
“He has a date tomorrow,” Penelope says, because that’s the truth. “I think he’s nervous about it.”
“Colin talks to you about his dates?” Eloise asks. “Gross.”
“Yeah,” Penelope agrees. “So gross.”
***
She thinks Thursdays might be different after that but the next one isn’t really. Penelope helps Hyacinth with her spelling words for the week. Colin helps Greg with his maths. They’re not alone except for one time when the littles are eating their snack across the room.
“How was the date?” Penelope asks, her tone light like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“Good,” he says.
She’s gutted.
“But I think maybe I just like her as a friend,” Colin says. “Not much of a spark.”
Ungutted, actually. She’s fine! She’s never been more alive.
“Bummer,” she says.
He shrugs. “Not really.”
For a moment, he holds her gaze and when those romance books her sister hides her under bed talk about a smoldering gaze, she thinks this must be what they mean. But then Hyacinth knocks half a glass of milk over and he jumps up to clean it up and before long, Eloise comes home from practice.
Life carries on.