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weepingfromacedartree · 7 months

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Ten Milestones: Meeting Each Other's Friends

Chapter 3 is now live!

Warning: angst.

His grin falters. Slightly.

“What does it say?”

Penelope’s question comes out a little sadder than she had expected it to. While she may have argued that this whole idea is flawed from the start, a part of her is disappointed that it could be over so soon. If nothing else, arguing with Colin is usually her favourite part of these silly little games.

“Something we never managed to cover in our twenty years of friendship?”

“Nope,” he says, eyes still locked on the screen before him. “It’s something we’ve done many times before. With varying degrees of success.”

Intrigue getting the best of her…

“What does it say?”

He clears his throat before reading.

“Number Two: Meeting Each Other’s Friends. Friendships are an essential and impactful part of any person’s life. Meeting the people whom your significant other considers friends is valuable for many reasons. Not only is it a first step in merging your lives together, but it also teaches you things about your partner that you could not learn when alone together.

After the briefest moment of silence…

“Well, I believe you’ve met my friend Eloise. So —”

“I have met plenty of your friends, all of whom are very kind and lovely people. Just as one would expect from a kind and lovely person such as yourself. Clearly Eloise — and perhaps also myself — is an outlier.”

“Hey, that’s not —”

“I believe ‘meeting each other’s friends’ has only ever been an issue when my ‘friends’ were involved.”

Penelope bites her lip.

“It was really just that one time.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Twelve Years Earlier: August 27th, 2011

Relationship Status: Friends

꙳

“Remind me why we’re doing this again.”

“To act like irresponsible teenagers who love parties and socialising with their peers.”

“That doesn’t sound like us.”

“Exactly. That’s why I said ‘act like.’”

Penelope has always been a good bullshitter. Since she was a child, she’s had an innate talent of bending the truth on a dime. It comes naturally to her; bullshit falls from her lips before she even has a chance to think it through. She never does it for fun — that filter is just built inside of her. There are certain truths that she simply can never say aloud, so her mind grew adept at talking around them.

The truth: Colin had invited her to this party, and if there is one talent that Penelope does not possess, it is saying no to Colin Bridgerton.

Another talent Penelope does not possess is walking into any type of social event by herself. Even at family gatherings — Featherington or Bridgerton — Penelope always finds herself clinging on to someone else. Usually Eloise. Sometimes Colin. Occasionally Prudence or Philipa — if she’s really desperate.

Despite the fact that he invited her here, Penelope knows she won’t see much of Colin tonight. She knows this party will be filled with at least a hundred people he considers friends. She knows that she will not be able to cling onto him all night — and that she absolutely shouldn’t.

That’s how Eloise Bridgerton found herself being dragged towards her worst nightmare: a house party filled to the literal rooftop with loud, obnoxious teenagers.

“This isn’t Skins, Pen. This is gonna suck.”

“It’ll be fun.” Bullshit.

“So fun!” Eloise mocks. “Why not continue the fun tomorrow and go shopping with your mother. I heard Primark is having a sale on yellow dresses.”

When Penelope forces out a sarcastic laugh, Eloise pulls her in even closer.

“Seriously, Pen. You owe me for —”

“Let’s see how the other side lives for a little while. If it is truly tortuous, we can leave and go get chips. You know… how we usually spend our Saturday nights.”

The offer does not smooth over any of the sourness present on Eloise’s face.

“You say that like there is something wrong with chips. There is absolutely nothing wrong with chips. Chips have never belched in my face or spilled a pint down the front of my shirt.”

At this point, Penelope does not know whether to protest, laugh, or agree with her friend. Ultimately, she decides on the first option.

“What are you talking about? You’ve never even been to a party like this.”

Eloise gulps. Her eyes flash wide, like she’s just been caught in a lie.

“Well… no. But I’ve seen Skins and —”

“Oh, for god’s sake El.”

Penelope wiggles Eloise’s phone from between her fingers. After typing in the four-digit passcode, she clicks on the little clock icon.

10:09

“What are you —”

“I’m setting a timer for 20 minutes. If you’re not having fun when the alarm goes off, we’ll leave and get chips.”

“Fine,” Eloise grumbles, grabbing her phone back from Penelope. “You got yourself a deal, Featherington.”

At 10:10 PM, Eloise and Penelope step foot into their first house party.

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

Fife’s house smells like piss.

There’s a lot happening in the room Colin has found himself in. There’s a lot happening in this little corner he has found himself in, surrounded by a group of his “friends” from Eton. They’re talking about the girls they’re gonna fuck at uni in the fall, meanwhile Colin can think of nothing other than the rancid smell of this room. Parties packed with hundreds of people are never going to smell nice, but this is just ridiculous. He almost wonders if the Fifes recently got a puppy and are still potty training him, but he can’t imagine that could account for such a stench. It would take at least a hundred puppies to —

“Ready for the birds up at Cambridge, Bridgerton?” Fife asks, breaking Colin from his thoughts and back into this piss-scented reality.

“Hmm? Oh — yeah. Sure.”

“No longer interested in the ladies, Col?” his “friend” Edward chimes in.

“For all his money and looks, he never had much luck with them in the first place, did he?” taunts his “friend” Fred.

“Are you calling me pretty?” Colin shoots back, an insincere smile pulling at his lips. He’s been forcing it so much tonight that it’s starting to ache at the corners. “Flattered, truly.”

Thankfully, the conversation quickly redirects to one of Fife’s embellished stories — this one about a girl he picked up at a pub earlier in the week. The commentary around it is just as mind numbingly boring as Colin has come to expect over the years. It’s just mind numbing enough for him to mentally check out of it completely, his smile fading as he glances around the rest of the room.

It’s 10:11. The party just started, and yet the den is already packed with people. Most faces are recognizable to him, either from his time at Eton or his lifetime in Mayfair. No one in this room, though, does he have any particular interest in. His eyes scan the room thrice, searching for the one person he’s actually interested in seeing tonight. By the third attempt, he accepts defeat.

When he turns his attention back to the group around him, he finds that Fife has already moved onto another story. This one smells of potent bullshit. Something about spending 20 minutes in a broom closet with a literature TA at Eton.

Once again, Colin’s mind is adrift.

Fife’s father is a member of Parliament — why does his den smell of piss?

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

10:29

Somewhere in this massive estate, Eloise’s phone is blaring an alarm, asking her whether or not she is having fun. Penelope has no idea what the answer is, because within 20 minutes of stepping foot into this party, she managed to lose her best friend in the crowd. She also failed to find Colin during that time, but that matter is not as pressing at the moment.

She steps into the back garden, hoping her luck will turn around in the fresh air. After all, surely Eloise would rather be out here than in the crowded interior — which, frankly, smells like someone pissed on the walls before the party started.

Unfortunately, the garden isn’t any less cramped than the halls inside.

As she continues forward, Penelope pays special attention to where her feet land in the crowd; the last thing she wants to do is trip over a forgotten beer can or get elbowed by someone taking a shot of liquor. This sort of manoeuvring isn't anything new to Penelope. When you’re as short as she is, you need to learn how to get out of other people’s way. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is when you’re the one who ends up crushed.

After her second loop around the garden (and about a dozen texts to Eloise), Penelope feels a prickle of anxiety run up and down her spine. She’s about to turn on her heel and look inside again, but before she can, her feet make an unusual misstep.

She slams chest-first into someone’s backside. Someone tall.

“Oh, hello,” he snickers, turning around to look down at her. “That’s certainly one way to get a man’s attention.”

“Sorry, I —”

It’s Fife, she belatedly realises.

Penelope has never actually spoken to him before. She’s seen him from afar on a few occasions, but certainly never this close. Despite them being friends since primary school, Colin never brings Fife (or any of his other school friends) around his house on Grosvenor Street. Penelope always found this odd; she’s a friend of the Bridgertons and spends more time at their home than her own.

“I —” she starts again, but still cannot find the words to finish the sentence. She tries to conjure up something logical to say, but it’s difficult to focus on words when you’re hyper-focused on other matters. Particularly, her feet and how she can move them far away enough to get her breasts off of Fife’s abdomen. Unfortunately, the crowd behind her does not grant her the space to do so.

Thankfully, someone else speaks before she can stutter out another mindless syllable.

“Hey! Back off Fife.”

It’s Colin. He positions his body between her and Fife, creating space that wasn’t there just a second ago.

“Woah, mate! She bumped into —” Fife starts.

“It was my fau—” Penelope starts.

“Yeah, yeah. I think I’ve heard that one before. Never your fault, is it Fife?” Colin interrupts. His tone confuses Penelope. She can’t tell if he’s teasing Fife, or legitimately wants to punch him in the face.

“Colin. Really, it was my —” she starts again. This time, someone new cuts her off. Another guy, standing close behind Colin.

“Do you know this chick, Bridgerton? Or do you simply enjoy saving random girls from becoming Fife’s next vict—”

“This is Penelope. My friend,” Colin cuts in, that confusing tone not letting up. Before she knows it, his arm slings around her shoulder, fingers gripping lightly into the fabric of her shirt. “Pen, this is —” With his free hand, he starts pointing to each of the men now forming a circle around them. “Edward. Fife. Louis. Michael. Fred.”

In response to Colin’s curt introductions, each of the five men nod, smirk, and/or unblinkingly stare at Penelope’s chest. She feels a nervous blush creep up her cheeks as she says, “Lovely to me—”

“No need for flattery, Pen,” Colin cuts in again. “Even this lot is self-aware enough to know they’re all shit.”

Michael snorts. Penelope gasps. Fife starts making a joke. Colin’s hand moves from her shoulder to her elbow, pulling her away before Fife can reach the punchline.

Once they’re out of earshot from the group, Colin lets out an agonised groan and says, “Sorry about them. They’re —” He groans again, then drops his hand from her skin, just to run it briskly through his hair. “They’re fucking arseholes.”

“They weren’t that ba—”

“When did you get here by the way?” he interrupts, his usual light-hearted tone making a reappearance quickly. Almost alarmingly so. “I was looking for you.”

“You — you were?” The words slip out before she has the chance to stop them.

Logically, such a statement shouldn’t be so surprising. They’ve been friends forever. He literally invited her to this party. But still… A part of Penelope cannot help but be surprised that Colin Bridgerton would seek her out in such a crowded group of people.

“Of course,” he says nonchalantly. He raises his eyebrows, reminding her that he had asked a question.

“Oh! Uh —” She looks down at her phone.

10:43

Shit.

“About a half hour.” She lets out a quick, nervous laugh. “Have you seen El? I lost her rather quickly, it seems. And I kinda promised her that we would be gone by now if she wasn’t having any fun.”

Colin scowls, then lifts his gaze from Penelope’s eyes to scan around the back garden. After about 15 seconds, he announces that he’s spotted her (and Penelope wonders how nice it must be to have an extra foot of height at your disposal).

Scowl suddenly lifting…

“Well, I don’t think you need to leave quite yet.”

Following his gaze to a bench on the other side of the garden, Penelope finally spots her best friend. She looks absolutely giddy.

On the other side of the bench sits Theo, a boy Eloise met through an internship at Danbury’s publishing house last summer and has had a massive crush on ever since. They’re holding hands. They’re both laughing. They’re getting closer. Then, even closer. Then —

“Yeah, I don’t need to see that,” Colin grumbles from beside her. His hand wraps around her elbow once more.

“Let’s go.”

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

“Are you sure this is… safe?”

“Live a little, Featherington.”

After climbing through the window himself, Colin extends his hand for Penelope to take. Begrudgingly, she takes it.

They’re sitting on the north side of the roof, facing the street. Colin pulls out the beer bottles he had stashed under his arm on the way up here, then flicks the caps off using his car keys. He hands one to her; it tastes like liquified grass, but Penelope tries not to grimace when she takes her first sip. Thankfully, Colin is looking up at the stars, so he doesn’t see her nose crinkle as the beer slides down her throat.

“Beautiful night,” he muses, eyes turning back to her.

She looks up, towards the moon. It’s barely a sliver in the sky.

“Yeah. It really is.”

It’s quiet for a moment, save for all that irrelevant noise in the background.

Penelope likes the quiet. She always has. Her entire life it’s been there, taking on different shapes and useful qualities for whatever situation she finds herself in. A cover. A cushion. A comfort. With Colin, it’s a comfort. When she’s with him, she rarely feels the need to fill the quiet spaces of air between them.

Colin is typically more inclined to fill them.

“Sorry, again, about Fife. And the other dickheads.”

“Colin, I told you. It’s —”

“‘It’s fine. They’re not that bad,’” he dramatically mimics. “Yeah I know. But speaking from the perspective of someone who actually knows them, they are shit and should be regarded as such.”

Penelope could continue brushing all of that shit to the side, but she doesn’t. Even if bumping into Fife was her fault, she didn’t like the way he looked down at her in the moment after. She didn’t like how he didn’t step away until Colin forced him to — when he surely could have done so on his own. And she didn’t like the way all five of them looked at her when Colin introduced her — as though her tits were more interesting than anything he could have been saying.

Instead of brushing it off, she simply asks: “If they’re such shit, why are you friends with them?” Her own tone confuses her.

Through the corner of her eye, she watches as Colin’s lips start to drop into a grimace; he takes a swig of his beer before it can fully take shape.

“Good question.”

He goes quiet again. When Penelope presumes that he is finished answering her question, she opens her mouth again.

“I —”

“Maybe I’ve outgrown them.” Swig. “Or maybe it’s just that I’m shit too.”

Penelope laughs lightly, praying that tiny breath of air will help lighten Colin’s mood.

“The former, I think.”

“I think you give me too much credit.”

Penelope doesn’t know how to respond to that. Her entire life, Colin has only ever existed in her mind under a golden ray of light. He’s always been the one who makes her happy. The one who can draw a smile out of her, even on her darkest day. The one who is always there for her. The one she’s always wanted more of.

How could claiming he’s not shit be giving him too much credit?

Penelope doesn’t know how to respond to that. So instead, she asks, “Are they also attending Cambridge?”

“Not all of ‘em.” Swig. “Michael’s off to Edinburgh next week. Edward and Fred are both staying here for Imperial.” Swig. “Louis will be up at Cambridge with me, but he’s not so bad. When he’s away from Fife’s bad influence, at least.”

“And Fife?” she questions. “Where is he going?”

Colin groans. He looks like he’s about to raise the bottle to his lips again, but doesn’t.

“Fife was admitted to Cambridge, but deferring a year to ‘go find himself.’ Hopefully, he finds himself at King’s College when he’s finished.”

“What’s Fife’s real name, by the way?” Penelope asks, unsure of what else to say. “Why does everyone just call him by his surname?”

For the first time all night, Colin laughs.

“Oh — uh. Cornelius. Cornelius Fife.”

Despite herself, Penelope snorts.

“Oh god, that’s bad. Perhaps even worse than ‘Penelope Featherington.’”

“What’s wrong with ‘Penelope Featherington?’” Colin asks, his tone earnest.

“Um…” Pointing her eyes to the little sliver of moon above, Penelope silently prays that the sky is dark enough to hide the blush currently warming her cheeks.

“A bit of a mouthful I guess. At least ‘Corn-eel-ee-us-Fife,” she punctuates each beat with one of her fingers, “is only five syllables.”

“I don’t know. I happen to quite like ‘Penelope Featherington.’”

She doesn’t know how to respond to that, either.

She should be used to this by now — existing in such close proximity to charming Colin Bridgerton. She should know his flirtatious words are just that. Words. That just because they tug at her heart does not mean there was any intention on his end to do so. She should know by now that there is — that there never will be — any intention to do so.

She should be used to this by now, but she’s not. Even now, her cheeks burn red as he unknowingly fractures what little resolve she has left.

“You ready to leave London?” Colin asks, his voice breaking Penelope from her thoughts.

Next week, she and Eloise are set to leave for Cheltenham to begin their Sixth Forms. Literally, she isn’t ready (there are about a million things she needs to get done before she goes). But in her heart, she is ready. She’s been ready to leave home for the past two years — ever since Colin left for Eton.

“Oh — yeah.” She takes another sip of her beer. It still tastes like grass. “I think so.”

“It’s nice that you and El will have each other there.” He chuckles softly, turning the bottle over in his hands a few times. “With your good influence, maybe she’ll make it through an entire semester without being sent home.”

Penelope chuckles too, louder than Colin had a moment ago.

“Eloise will be fine, with or without me. She’s all talk.”

“Yeah. The ‘talk’ is exactly what I’m worried about. Also fist fighting, but at least she doesn’t have the balls to do that in the middle of class.” Swig. “Usually.”

As much as she wants to defend her best friend further, Penelope holds her tongue. He has a point. Last term, Eloise made a hobby out of backtalking their maths teacher.

“Really though,” he continues. “Leaving home is amazing, but it also kinda sucks. Having your best friend there… It’ll be good.”

“Why does it suck?” Penelope asks, little alarm bells ringing in the back of her mind. She and Colin rarely discuss Eton in detail, but the little he does say is typically positive.

He keeps quiet for a moment, seeming to search for the answer in the stars above them.

“It’s different for everyone. It might not suck for you at all. But for me…” Swig. “Maybe it’s just because I was so used to living with seven siblings and an overprotective mum. But going from that to Eton so suddenly…” Swig. “Felt a bit isolating at first.”

The alarm bells continue ringing. They’re a bit louder now.

“Colin, I —”

“It gets better, obviously. You adjust. It took me a while to be comfortable living without the people I lived with all my life, but eventually I did.” Swig. “Your friends really do help with that. Hopefully you can learn from me though, and cut them off when you realise they’re all bloody arseholes.”

She waits until she’s certain that he’s finished speaking before opening her mouth to speak again. But when she does, before she can even suck in a full breath of air, he keeps going.

“Sorry, by the way. I didn’t mean to scare you or anything. I just thought it would have been good if someone told me that before I left for Eton. Prepared me for it, at least.”

“You didn’t scare me,” she insists. “And I appreciate your candour. Truly.”

Colin opens his mouth again, looking as though he’s about to say something else. Penelope knows she should let him talk. That she should allow him to alter the course of the conversation, if that’s what he wants. But she also can’t ignore those goddamn alarm bells ringing in her ears.

“You know you can tell me anything, right? Even if — hypothetically — it could scare me. I just — I’m always here to listen. About anything.”

For the briefest moment, something new passes on Colin’s face. Even with what little light is left in the sky, Penelope can tell that she’s never seen it there before. She can’t quite put a name to it, but it almost looks… desperate. And then it’s just gone.

Turning his gaze away from her and towards the sky above, Colin shifts in his spot and — for the second time tonight — wraps his arm around Penelope’s shoulder. His fingers just barely graze the fabric of her shirt.

“Yeah, Pen. I know.”

She should be used to this by now. Colin is her friend. His touch is innocent, always. It doesn’t matter if her breath quickens when his body settles against hers. It doesn’t matter if her skin burns beneath his lightest touch. None of this matters to Colin — at least not in the way that it matters to her.

She lasts about 25 seconds before squirming out of his hold. She scoots back a few inches and turns so her entire front faces him. “What’s the distance between Cheltenham and Cambridge again?” she asks, as if the exact mileage has not been burned into her brain for months.

Colin scowls. “200 kilometres. Give or take.”

Penelope nods. Mayfair and Eton were only 35 kilometres apart. There were times over the last two years where it felt as though Eton may as well have been located on the moon.

“Chin up, Pen,” he says, his demeanour already lightening up. “It’s the twenty-first century. We can always Skype.”

“I know…” She raises her bottle, letting the glass rim rest against her lips. She can’t bring herself to take another sip, though. “Even then, I’ll still miss you.”

“Well, obviously,” he says through a smirk. Penelope scoffs, hiding her own smile behind her hand.

Charm and arrogance do tend to come hand and hand.

“That’s —”

“I’ll miss you, too. Obviously. But that’s no reason to stay home and prevent ourselves from reaching our full potentials. We owe it to the world, Pen. We can’t possibly be that selfish.”

In the time that it takes Penelope to think of a single sensical response to that, Colin goes to take another swig, comes up empty, then peers one eye into his bottle to confirm its lack.

“I sup—”

“To Cheltenham.” With that, he raises his bottle towards her.

Penelope smiles. Resisting the urge to remind him that toasting with an empty glass is bad luck, she clinks the butt of her bottle against his. Hers is still half-full.

“To Cambridge.”

The quiet returns. It sits between them for a while. Penelope likes it.

She likes it all.

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

After spending an hour on the roof and beneath the stars, Colin and Penelope return to the spot where their night had started. The back garden has become less crowded, but only slightly so. She still has to look where she steps as they weave between the other bodies in the crowd.

“Bloody hell,” Penelope curses, ducking to avoid the crushed beer can hurdling towards her head. Inadvertently, her movement causes the aluminium can to strike Colin’s shoulder instead. “Shit! Sor—”

“You okay?” he asks, pulling her into his side even closer than she already was. His hand hadn’t left hers since he helped her climb back inside through the window five minutes ago. (She spent those five minutes praying that Colin attributes her sweaty palms to nothing more than the August humidity.)

“Of course. Are you okay?”

Colin’s smile makes a reappearance as his hand gives Penelope’s a gentle squeeze.

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Suddenly fully cognizant of just how slimy her palm has gotten with her own sweat, Penelope pulls it out of Colin’s grasp. She raises all ten of her fingers to the sky and hopes her forced smile will distract from the pink of her cheeks.

“Fair point. Why wouldn’t you be having an amazing time at an amazing party like this?”

Colin laughs. He uses the hand that was holding hers just a second ago to run his fingers through his hair.

“You mean the one we were just hiding from for an —”

“Wait — Colin,” Penelope interrupts. On principle, she typically tries to avoid doing that, but alarm bells are ringing in her mind again. This time, for a different Bridgerton sibling.

“Have you seen Eloise anywhere? It’s been like two hours since I last talked to her. I hope she doesn’t —”

“Yeah,” Colin interrupts — a more common occurrence on his part. He rolls his eyes. “We passed her inside. She was in queue for the loo.”

“Oh,” she sighs, a bit confused by his sudden change in demeanour. “So she was by herself?”

Colin does not respond with words. First, his face contorts into an expression that falls somewhere between embarrassment and disgust. Then, he shakes his head.

“Oh.”

At least one of us is getting lucky tonight.

For a moment, the two of them stand side-by-side. Neither looks at the other. Neither knows what to do with their hands. They both listen — Penelope to the people, Colin to the music. They open their mouths at the same exact time.

“We should go ba—”

“Do you hear that?”

“Hmm?” Penelope mumbles, eyebrows shooting up. She has already forgotten what it was that she was about to say.

Colin smiles at her, just as he did a hundred different times in the past hour. It’s annoying how every single one of them has made her stomach flutter.

“It’s our song.”

Eyebrows shooting downwards in confusion, Penelope attempts to filter out the shrieks and gasps and fights and drama around them and just hear the song in question. Within seconds, she recognizes the familiar notes in the air.

“This is not ‘our song,’” she tells him, voice definitive.

“Sure it is.”

Before she can get another word in, his hand is in hers again. He’s pulling her towards the other side of the garden, where the music is louder and a small group of people sway to the beat.

“What are you doing?” She hates how shrill her voice sounds, but she doesn’t like the outcome he is pulling them towards, either.

Dragging her forward with a tightening grip, Colin spares a glance over his shoulder. “We’re dancing,” he says, as if the answer is obvious. Or at all sensical.

“No we’re not,” Penelope insists, but only with her voice. She makes no attempt at standing her literal ground against him, her footsteps trailing closely behind his. Their intended destination is less than five feet away now.

“Sure we are.”

That’s the end of it; as soon as the words leave his lips, they’re on the little patch of grass that will serve as their dance floor. Colin falls into position immediately, one hand grabbing hers, the other landing delicately on her waist. Penelope is slower, but ultimately compliant. Her right hand matches his grip while her left hooks onto his shoulder.

Their feet start moving beneath them and, at first, it’s not so bad. They’ve danced like this a few times before. (Three times, to be exact — at his cousin’s wedding, New Year’s Eve 2010, and that one time at Aubrey Hall.) With each instance, it becomes a little more natural — a little easier. A little.

Other than the places where their hands lie, their bodies remain separate by about a foot. But god — her skin is just so hot beneath his touch. The cloth between her waist and his palm feels like it’s about to go up in smoke.

Attempting to distract herself from his touch, Penelope tilts her chin up and asks the first question that pops into her mind.

“Do they teach you young men how to dance at Eton?”

“Why do you ask?” He looks down at her with a familiar smile gracing his lips. Then, he wiggles his eyebrows in that childish way that instantly takes her back to a time when his touch felt so innocent. “Have I improved since last summer?”

In truth, Penelope can’t quite remember what point she had been trying to make. Her brain is so hazy that it’s possible she never had one to begin with. Nevertheless, she continues forward, pushing words out of her mouth too fast for her mind to stop her.

“No… But there’s always Cambridge. Perhaps they can give you some useful pointers.”

Unphased by her teasing, Colin leans in a bit closer, a smirk on his lips.

“Don’t act like I’m not your favourite dance partner,” he tells her.

With that, it becomes painfully evident to Penelope that any attempt to neutralise this situation with words will ultimately fail her. Lips disappearing into her mouth, she smiles up at Colin and gives him the faintest nod of her head.

With her lips sealed tight, Penelope’s mind cannot help but linger on Colin’s hands — on the parts of her he holds so carefully. On her waist, separated by a fabric too thin to dampen the startling effect of his touch. On her right palm, pressed flat against his and growing damper with each passing second. On her left hand, suddenly drawn away from his shoulder so he can guide her away from him and twirl her back just as quickly. On her lower back, where his right hand settles far more firmly than it had on her waist.

Now, their bodies aren’t so disconnected.

Even though she can no longer use her voice to do so, Penelope feels an inherent need to protest this insane, silly, embarrassing situation. One Colin quite literally dragged her into.

Looking up, she attempts to protest with her eyes alone. In response, all she gets is that goddamn smile of his. It’s maddening. She tilts her head into his shoulder, just to give her eyes and heart a reprieve from its most detrimental effects.

They didn’t start dancing until nearly halfway through the song. It’s almost over now, which should make Penelope happy. She should be grateful for this fact. She should thank the universe for delaying their start, because at least that means the ending will come quicker. That she will spend less time doing something so embarrassing while surrounded by a group of her peers. That she will spend less time reminding herself that Colin is just her friend, while also being tucked into his chest and held tightly in his arms. But as the music picks up speed again, she isn’t happy or grateful.

She’s bitter.

She’s greedy.

Penelope Featherington may be a realist, but she’s equal parts a willing fool. She wishes this could continue on forever.

But she can’t wish for that, can she?

You’ve danced with him like this before. This is nothing new.

He’s your friend. He’s only ever treated you like a friend.

You had one beer. Your head should not be spinning this badly.

He’ll never —

“Pen?”

“Hmm?”

With her head still very much spinning, Penelope lifts her cheek off his chest and looks up. Thankfully, his smile has since dropped. His face is almost neutral now.

“Thanks for coming tonight.”

“Oh,” she whispers, mind barely beginning to clear. “You don’t have to thank m—”

“No, I do,” Colin insists. The faintest hint of a smile reappears on his lips. “For full transparency, it was for purely selfish reasons. I would have been miserable, had I been forced to endure Fife’s bollocks stories all night.”

Penelope laughs. It’s only half forced.

“Oh! Are you saying you like me more than Cornelius Fife? I’m honoured. Truly.”

Her tongue had been heavy with sarcasm, but for a moment, Penelope wonders if she should have laid it on even stronger. Colin is squinting at her like she just said something deeply offensive.

“I —”

Before she can finish that sentence, Penelope’s mouth is muffled by the cloth of Colin’s shirt. Once again, her face is positioned against his chest and out of his view. Unlike last time, the change in position had not been her decision.

His right arm is slung around her shoulders, pulling the two of them into a position not too different from a hug. But while Colin and Penelope have hugged plenty of times before, he has never held her quite like this. Like he’s scared she’ll slip away from him at any moment.

“I like you more than everyone,” he belatedly answers. There isn’t a single drop of sarcasm on his tongue.

For what little life is left of their dance, Penelope can’t summon the strength to lift her cheek from his chest. She can’t bring herself to say another word. She can’t even force herself to repeat the words in her head that have just barely allowed her to remain sane while in situations like this before. Instead, she listens intently to the music, hoping and praying that it will drown out everything else inside her.

Look how they shine for you

Look how they shine

“Pen!”

Before the song can reach its final note, it’s over.

She literally jumps out of Colin’s embrace, taking several steps away from him before her mind can even register what is happening. With wide, guilty eyes, Penelope turns towards the person who had just called out for her.

“El! It’s not —”

“Oh my god, Pen! I can’t believe I tried to weasel myself out of coming here. You will never believe what I was doing all night. Or who I was doing it wi—”

“Dear God, Eloise,” Colin grumbles rather loudly from out of view behind her.

In a flash, Eloise’s eyes go even wider than Penelope’s. Apparently, just now realising that her older brother stands before her.

“Colin?! When did you —”

Cutting off her own words with a huff, Eloise rolls her eyes, then turns them back to Penelope.

“Nevermind. Pen — let’s go get chips. I have so much to tell you about!”

With that, Eloise wraps her fingers around Penelope’s wrist. In the split second before she gets pulled away, she looks over to Colin again.

It takes everything in her to meet his eye. When she does, she can’t help but see longing staring back at her. She can’t help but wonder if her eyes are playing tricks on her — inventing a mirror where there isn’t one.

“Goodnight,” she barely manages to say. Using the hand not currently being strangled in Eloise’s death grip, she gives him the most pitiful wave that has ever been waved.

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

At 12:16 AM, Penelope and Eloise step out of their first house party. To Eloise, night had been a dream. To Penelope, a brief detour into purgatory.

As Eloise recounts her magical night with the boy she’s been obsessing over all year, Penelope tries to forget the one she shared with the boy she’s loved her entire life. She does her best to ignore the dread boiling in her stomach and simply be happy for her friend.

“I can’t believe I ever doubted you,” Eloise exclaims, laughter light on her lips. “Tonight was fun.”

“That’s great, El.” Penelope tries to match Eloise’s light tone, but her words practically pour from her lips and fall to the ground between them.

Eloise squeezes her hand, still locked in the death grip from several minutes ago. Penelope doesn’t have the heart to turn her head and look her best friend in the eye. At best, she’ll see nothing. At worst, pity.

“What did y—”

“How did you make things happen with Theo?” Penelope interrupts. On principle, she typically tries to avoid doing that. “Didn’t you say that you always chicken out when trying to push things forward with him?”

“Oh.” Eloise chuckles nervously. “I don’t know, honestly. I sort of just said ‘fuck it.’”

“‘Fuck it?’” Penelope repeats.

“Yeah. You’re right. I spent the entire past year pining after him like a pathetic little school girl, too scared to make anything happen. Tonight, I saw him across the garden and it just hit me. I’m leaving for Cheltenham, he’s staying in London. I might never get a chance with him again. Why not get out of my own head and just go for it?”

Eloise laughs again. This time, she sounds victorious.

“And it actually worked! Can you believe it?!”

It was a rhetorical question, but Penelope cannot help but whisper, “No.” Eloise doesn’t hear her say it, launching back into her retelling of the night.

Quickly, Penelope doesn’t hear Eloise either, very much stuck inside her own head.

Penelope has loved Colin her entire life. She has loved him since before she knew “love” was the right word for it — for this longing that has been erected inside her soul. She has loved him long enough to know that this love wasn’t built to fade, even if it is never returned. She has loved him madly enough to pick up tricks that make things bearable — that makes the inevitable heartbreak of love easier to live in.

Since the moment she realised it was love, she has repeated the same string of ten words back to herself whenever things get especially hard. Whenever she risks losing sight of her circumstances.

He’ll never love you the way you want him to.

Those ten words had saved their friendship. They made it possible for Penelope to exist in such close proximity to him as nothing more than a friend. They prevented her from wanting even more than she already did.

But god. What if she has been wrong this entire time? What if those words — repeated back to herself even more than usual tonight — were just that. Words.

What if she had spent so much time in her own head that she failed to see what was right in front of her? To pay attention to the words and actions that actually meant something.

The way his fingers gripped onto her shoulder when he introduced her to his friends.

Back off Fife.

That look in his eye when they sat on the roof together.

I happen to quite like ‘Penelope Featherington.’

How he pulled her into him when they danced together.

I like you more than —

“Pen!”

She stops dead in her tracks, only now realising that Eloise had stopped moments ago while her feet had kept walking.

“Oh! Sorry, I just…”

Eloise laughs, then strides four steps to bridge the gap between them.

“One too many drinks tonight, Featherington?”

“Something like that,” she mumbles. When Eloise interlocks their fingers and starts to guide them forward again, Penelope doesn’t move.

“Speaking of which — I just realised, I really need to use the loo. I’ll run back inside. Can you wait for me here?”

With a tiny scowl pulling at her lips, Eloise reminds her that they have toilets at the chip shop.

“I know, it’s just kind of an emergency and the shop is —”

“Yes, right — of course. You go, I’ll wait here.”

With that, she turns on her heel and retraces her steps to the party.

For the first time in her life, Penelope Featherington runs headfirst into a disastrous situation without a plan in sight.

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

The garden is slightly less packed than it had been when Eloise dragged her out of it. Which is to say, much more crowded than Penelope would like it to be.

She doesn’t spot him right away, but after agreeing on just how unbearable the stench inside was, Penelope can’t imagine he’s anywhere else at this party. She lifts herself onto the balls of her feet, but it gives her just as much advantage as one could expect from someone as short as her. (None.)

She continues forward, paying special attention to where her feet land in the crowd. She flicks her eyes up, looking for his outline against the rest. She keeps her eyes pointed outwards, searching for that familiar drawl. She does an entire loop around the garden and comes up empty. Just as she begins to rethink her strategy, she hears something familiar. Not Colin’s voice, but…

“Penelope Featherington?”

She jumps around at the sound of her own name. It had sounded far away, as if it had not been intended for her ears to take in.

It hadn’t been. No — it had been intended for Colin, she realises once her eyes finally spot him. He’s standing with those five dickheads he had introduced her to earlier in the night.

“The way you were dancing with her looked rather… interesting” Fife continues, practically shouting in Colin’s ears. They’re both turned away from her, a few metres off, but his words cut clear through the music and all other chaos. “Are you two —”

“No. No way, mate,” Colin interrupts. Of all the things he could do next…

He laughs.

“You sure you haven’t been keeping her from us this whole time?” His other friend cuts in — Louis, if she remembers correctly.

“Are you mad?” Colin interrupts again, another laugh ringing into the air. “I would never date Penelope. Not in a million years.”

Another one of his friends — the Scottish one — says something else. Another joke. Penelope doesn’t hear it, though. There isn’t anything else she needs to hear.

Those ten words repeat again and again and again in her mind.

I would never date Penelope. Not in a million years.

They ring in her ears as tears well in her eyes and drip down her cheeks. Those tears don’t stop, nearly blinding her as she carelessly pushes past all the people who stand between her and the exit.

I would never date Penelope. Not in a million years.

The way he said it — how his laugh rang out just before… Like it was a joke. Not that the words themselves contained the punchline — what he said was true.

No. She was the joke here.

I would never date Penelope. Not in a million years.

A fact. One she never wanted to hear, but will eventually grip onto for dear life.

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

“I would never date Penelope. Not in a million years.” Bullshit.

It will take Colin several years to finally understand and accept the true depth of his feelings for Penelope. But even in this moment — standing amongst five fellow dickheads in Fife’s back garden — he can recognize the taste of bullshit when it falls from his own lips.

As Fife challenges Michael to “another” pissing contest, Colin staggers off to the side of the group. He finds the nearest bottle of clear liquid and raises it to his lips; he grimaces, but only after realising that not even vodka can dispel that taste from his mouth. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single substance at this party Colin could ingest that would make what he just said taste like anything other than bullshit. Not after everything else he had done tonight.

Not after he lurched forward to place his body between her and Fife, after that bastard bumped into her. How he placed his arm around her and wanted Fife to get the message that she was not his to take.

Not after his eyes lingered on her chest every time she turned away from him while up on that rooftop. That he was ready to murder each one of his “friends” earlier in the night for doing the exact same thing. How his eyes had refused to comply with his brain, reminding him that Penelope is just his friend.

Not after he pulled her in close while they were dancing together. How he felt it necessary to shield her eyes from his own, fearing they would reveal how desperately he wanted her. How he wanted to hold her even closer and never let her go.

Then, she let go. And Colin went back to his “friends.”

There is nothing in this world that could convince Colin that what he said about Penelope wasn’t wrong. But there is no short supply of substances that can make him forget he said it in the first place.

The vodka tastes bitter; he shoots it back desperately.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Colin lets out a groan so loud that Penelope can practically feel it from where she sits on the other end of the rug.

“God, I was such a fucking dickhead.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

He scoffs. “I’m being hard on my younger self because he was a dickhead.”

“Maybe,” Penelope relents, knowing this conversation could play on loop forever if she doesn’t. “But hey — better he than you. We should be thankful that we both changed and grew out of our younger selves. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here playing your silly little game. ”

He scoffs, again. “‘My’ silly little game? You —”

“On the other hand,” Penelope interrupts. She typically tries to avoid doing that, but she does have good reason for it. She’s just had somewhat of a revelation. “Your words that night still ring true to this day.”

“I beg your pardon?” Colin asks, aghast.

“Why did you suggest we play this game again?”

“Because I love y—”

“Oh right — it was because you consider the idea of dating me ‘silly’ and ‘unnecessary.’”

Colin scoffs again, although Penelope suspects that this time he’s just trying to cover up a laugh.

“From a respected, ‘honourable’ journalist such as yourself, I would not expect to be misquoted in such bad faith.”

“Oh shush,” Penelope orders, biting back her own laugh. “What’s next?”

#yes this is late #yes I am sorry #fanfiction #bridgerton #polin #penelope x colin #ten milestones #weepingfromacedartree #ao3 #penelope featherington #colin bridgerton

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