#and he wakes up to find matthew has snuck in and is pretending to be a nurse

[broadstbroskis]

five times you shared a bed with your best friend plus one time you didn’t | matthew tkachuk

lol so @slimskjei-dy requested the prompt 16. We’ve been sharing a bed since we were little so why is this weird now? from a list i put out a couple days ago to write blurbs for and this spiraled out of control, so here’s nearly 4k.

one

The Tkachuk’s move into the house next door to your family the summer before you start preschool and at the ripe age of three, you are too young to have any idea what going with your mom to drop off “welcome to the neighborhood” brownies is going to mean for your future.

Really, it likely has more to do with the fact that “welcome to the neighborhood” brownies turned into a glass of “welcome to the neighborhood” wine between your mom and Chantal Tkachuk, which turned into a bottle of wine while you and Matthew played in the backyard with Brady’s chubby little baby legs trying his hardest to keep up. 

By the time Keith arrived home from a midday skate session, with your dad awkwardly following behind, babbling about how your mom had just planned on dropping something off quickly but was still missing, their friendship was basically cemented. Chantal and your mom did everything together. And your dads’ friendship didn’t take long to form after that. 

Which meant you and Matty were right there with them.

But neither of you cared. You’d settled quickly into a friendship, just like your parents had, where you’d play hockey with him and he’d begrudgingly play soccer with you, and you both pretended you had no idea what Brady was talking about when he ran to tattle that you were ganging up on him and not letting him play.

There’s countless pictures of the two of you growing up, getting into all kinds of trouble, but then also, of the quieter moments too. Sitting too close to the TV watching movies, eagerly waiting by the door for Keith to come home from a road trip with souvenirs, the naps curled up around each other in one of your beds. 

“The quietest twenty minutes of the day.” Keith continues to joke, anytime one of those pictures resurfaces.

two

You wince at the sound of glass crashing behind you and decide the best course of action is to keep moving forward with your mission to find Matthew. Whichever hockey bro of Matthew’s house this is can take care of that; it’s not your job.

Besides, the room is spinning from the cheap beer and booze you’d been drinking all night since the two of you arrived at this party, and you’re pretty sure it’s a bad idea to go near glass.

You find Matthew in the kitchen, with a few of his St. Louis hockey bros, a couple of them guys that you’re still friends with even after he’d left to go join the NTDP, as well as a few faces you don’t recognize. You slip up into their circle, sliding under Matty’s arm when it lifts to wrap around your shoulders, grateful for the solid body to lean against.

The room is really starting to spin.

“You okay?” He asks, ignoring whoever’s speaking.

“I don’t think I can go home tonight.” You admit.

He laughs. “Text your mom and tell her you’re staying with me. Big Walt and Chantal are at a tourney with Brady and Taryn; nobody’s home.”

“You don’t think she knows your parents aren’t home?” You scoff, but you’re already pulling out your phone and carefully drafting the text, making sure to avoid any spelling errors that might give your drunkenness away.

“Yeah, but she can’t prove what she hasn’t seen.” Matty winks at you and you roll your eyes.

“Is that what you told your mom after you left her a three minute voicemail at 3am last month?” You chirp at him, smiling at the instant laughter from the friends around you and accepting a fist bump from Luke Kunin.

That line of chirping continues for a few minutes, until Matty manages to turn it around on one of the boys, and then it dissolves into a free for all before they’re all just laughing at each other.

By the time the giggling ends, you’re about three seconds away from falling asleep on Matt’s shoulder, and it’s his nudge that wakes you. “You ready?” You nod, joining him in making goodbyes to your friends, and then following him out the door to begin the walk back toward your houses.

The fresh air does some good to sober you up and you feel marginally less dizzy by the time you and Matt make it to his room. He throws you a t-shirt to change into and you fall into bed after changing, waiting for him to join you, eyes shutting the second you feel the bed settle beside you.

three

The night before Matty’s due to leave for Buffalo for the draft, your phone buzzes with a text from him. You’re expecting more of the same that you’ve been exchanging all day with him-in various group chats with your friends, at a barbeque with both your families, when the two of you were chatting with Brady while you hid in the far corner with the beers you snuck while Taryn and your sister were off doing their thing.

It’s not. Let me in the text says, so you shove the blankets down and make your way downstairs to open the door for him.

“Shh.” You tell him. “They’re all asleep.”

“It’s 3am, of course they are!” He whispers back.

“Well so was I until you woke me up!” You start walking back toward your room, knowing he’ll follow.

Matthew doesn’t speak again until the two of you are in your room, the door is closed, and he’s lying on his side to face you in your bed. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“You can’t possibly be nervous.” You whisper back, knowing he’s talking about the draft. He shrugs and you reach your hand out to shove his shoulder down, allowing it to rest there. “Matty.” He blinks at you a few times as you think of what to say next. “You’re gonna go somewhere and you’re going to be great. One of these teams is going to love you enough to draft you and everyone after them is going to be mad they didn’t have the chance to and almost everyone before them is going to be mad they didn’t end up picking you and you’re going to go off to whatever city does and forget all about me back here.”

Matthew wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you closer to him so you move your hand from the top of his shoulder around to rub at the blade gently. “First of all, that’ll never happen. You’re stuck with me forever.”

You nod seriously. “Somebody’s got to put up with you.”

He pokes you in the side for that one and you have to bite your lip to keep in the squeal of laughter. “Second of all, almost? Almost everyone is going to me mad they didn’t pick me?”

“Leafs got first pick to get Auston! I just don’t think they’re going to regret that!” He pokes you again and you don’t manage to hide the squeal this time. “Matty! Everyone’s sleeping!”

“You should be nicer to me.” He tells you, once you settle down.

“I should be nicer to you? You wake me up at 3am to talk you off the ledge and I should be nicer to you?”

He nods, pulling you even closer to bury his face in your hair. “Always.”

You laugh, the sound muffled into his chest now. “Are we all good now?”

“Hmm?” He says, sounding sleepy already.

“Never mind.” You tell him, rubbing his back again. “Good night, Matty.”

“G’night.”

four

Calgary is a thousand times more incredible than you’d ever imagined. You’d been teasing Matty about being stuck in a frozen wasteland, sending him snaps from sunny gamedays at Mizzou and laughing anytime you get one in return with snow in the picture.

There’s snow on the ground when you arrive in December, fresh out of finals, and still feeling both the mental exhaustion from your exams and the hangover from a day of binge drinking with your friends immediately after they’d ended. You’ll never fly hungover again; the next time you do this, you’ll leave yourself a day of rest between exams and flying up to visit your best friend, since you know you won’t stop drinking earlier.

College is making you smarter already!

Matthew actually laughs when he meets you in the pick up lane, like puts his head on the steering wheel and has to hold off on driving. He gets honked at by the car behind him. “Your laugh is making my headache worse.” You whine.

“So I take it you don’t want the bottle of wine I bought for us to split tonight?”

You look over at him suspiciously. “What kind of wine?”

He laughs again, but softer this time. “Atta girl.”

It’s a red blend, a favorite of the two of you, but a much nicer one than you’ve ever bought before. You let out a low whistle as Matthew places the order for dinner. “Suddenly you’ve got some cash flow and Barefoot’s too good?”

“Hell yeah! Wait until you see what kind of vodka I got for us for Saturday.”

You perk up. “What’s on Saturday?”

“Party with the team before my parents come in.”

You laugh, accepting the glass of wine he pours for you. “You don’t think Big Walt would want to come to the party?”

Matty gives you a look. “I know that’s exactly what would happen and that’s why I told them to come Sunday.”

“Smart thinking.” You admit.

“See, who needs college?” He teases, which settles the two of you into your familiar teasing and banter while you wait for the food to arrive. 

It isn’t too long after dinner and Netflix that you and Matthew are heading to bed, pressing yourself as close as you can to suck up as much warmth that he’s radiating. “Fuck, your feet are cold.” Matty mutters as you giggle and press your toes into his calf.

“Haven’t you missed me?” You sling your leg over his for maximal toe digging, laughing when he jumps.

“I guess.” He says, but his tone says Absolutely.

five

“So what are your plans for after graduation?”Ashley, Sean Monahan’s girlfriend (and soon-to-be fiancee if Matty was to be believed) looks at you during a stoppage of play late in the third.

“God, don’t remind me.” You groan. You’d wrapped the fall semester of your senior year a couple days ago and then taken off to Calgary in what had become your annual post-finals trip. It’d be the last one you ever took, with your final semester of college looming over your head. 

Ashley grins. She’d become a close friend of yours over all your trips to visit Matthew, even flying down to St. Louis last season when the Flames were in town and spending a weekend with some of the other girls visiting you at school afterwards. “Just come hang out up here forever.”

You burst into laughter. “And live where?”

She gives you a look, like it’s the most obvious thing ever. “With Matt?”

“Oh my god, you’re serious.” It takes a full minute for you to recover. Play has resumed, there’s a minor scrum on the ice in front of the two of you but you barely even notice, too shocked by Ashley’s words.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because why would I ever?”

“Because you already do.” She says, with more patience than you’ve possessed in your entire life combined, and then laughs at the look on your face. “YN, what you two have is so special! To fall in love with your best friend at age three and still feel that way is amazing! If Sean and I can look at each the way you and Matt do after twenty years, we could only be so lucky.”

“We’re not in love.” You deny. “Matty and I-we’re just-we’re not.”

Ashley bites her lip, but doesn’t push it any further. “Alright.” She agrees, and thankfully, the game ends there, so you’re able to just gather your things with her and make your way down toward the family room to meet the boys.

But you can’t get her words out of your head as you and Matthew arrive back to his place and start getting ready to go to bed. You move around each other with a practiced ease, handing him the toothpaste before he even asks for it and accepting the oversized sweatshirt he passes to you, somehow knowing that you’re extra chilly tonight. 

Lying next to him in bed, the same way you have for nearly twenty years, suddenly feels suffocating. You roll onto your side, hoping for some room to breath, but now it just feels awkward; this isn’t how you sleep.

You sit up, ditching the sweatshirt. Maybe you’re just too warm. Lying back and pulling the covers back up does nothing to solve that problem, and actually, you’re shivering, so you sit back up and yank the sweatshirt back on.

“Could you settle down?” Matty mumbles, pulling you into his side the second that you’re flat again. His arm rests on your waist, thumb in the dip of your hip, a position it’s been in many times, but suddenly you think you’re having trouble breathing. You open your mouth to tell him this, but he presses a kiss to your temple and says, “Relax, just sleep.”

You don’t sleep a wink the entire night.

plus one

“What do you mean you’re not coming?” Dylan, a good friend of both yours and Matthew’s, is usually one of the most upbeat people you know, so the sound of disappointment coming throughout your phone actually makes you wince. “YN?”

“I just-” You hesitate. You’d have to leave right now in order to get to St. Louis in time to make the Skills Competitions, and even then you might be pushing it, and things were still weird for you with Matty, as evidenced by how things were between the two of you when he came home for his short Christmas break. And things were weird. Everyone noticed- your families, your friends, Matthew. The two of you had spoken only once since, in the group chat where Matthew had texted an invite to your group chat to come home for the weekend for the All Star Weekend and you’d noncommittally responded wow that’d be awesome. “I’m super busy.” You finish lamely.

Dylan sighs. “Look, YN, I don’t know what the fuck is going on between you and Matt and I don’t really care. It’s not my business. But I know he’d really want you there no matter what’s going on and I know you’ll regret not going if you don’t.”

You close your eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. He’s right. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Dyl.”

“Hell yeah,” Dylan cheers.

By the time you make it to St. Louis, you have to race to meet your friends in your seats and the cheer they send up is poorly timed, but it does make you smile. “Shitty seats.” You accept the bottle of Bud Light someone passes you.

Dylan laughs and points up to the giant platform next to you guys. “He’s going to be shooting from there in a while.”

“Alright.” You nod. “I guess this is acceptable then.”

It’s a good while before Matty and the rest of the guys participating in the Shooting Stars event start making their way up, but it’s nice to catch up with your other friends while you wait. If you got a big cheer when you rolled in, the one that goes up when Matthew walks by is deafening (and boostered by the friends of Brady’s that are sitting right behind you guys). The two of them look over at you guys, grinning already, and you see it in Matthew’s face when he spots you, the smirk softening a little and his eyes locking on you.

You’d read about moments where time stands still but it’d never actually happened to you until now. It’s like the crowd doesn’t exist around you, like you don’t actually need to breathe. The only thing that matters is the moment in time when your eyes meet Matty’s. 

And that moment’s broken by Brady shoving him forward. 

As you watch Matthew throughout the entirety of the last event, you know you’re screwed. You’ll get through this weekend, go back to school, and get over these thoughts by the time summer comes. Everything will be back to normal by the time you see Matty again.

In the meantime, you do your best to avoid him once the Skills Competition ends and you join everyone at the after party on the rooftop bar of the hotel. It’s easier than you think it would be to do. When Matty’s talking with some of your local friends, you find yourself catching up with both sets of your parents. When he starts making his way toward your parents, you excuse yourself to the bathroom. You see him make a beeline towards the bar, so you dart off in the opposite direction, where Brady is talking with a couple of his Atlantic Division teammates and push yourself in between the height of him and Auston Matthews, which seems like a safe spot to hide.

“YN!” Auston grins, throwing his hands up in the air, in a drunken greeting that you’d love to be more lowkey.

You reach up and grab them, yanking them down. “Listen, I know it’s been a while since we’ve last hung out and all, and I know from the way you talk and dress and everything about you that this is a hard thing for you to comprehend, but I’m really going to need some subtlety from you.” Next to him, Mitch and Freddie burst into laughter. “Down low, boo. Down low.”

Auston is laughing as well and you remember that while the times you’ve spent with him have been few and far between, unable to visit Matthew as frequently during his time with the NTDP as you have been in Calgary, they’ve certainly been memorable...so moments like this are unshocking to him, to say the least.

They don’t even faze Brady, who’d grown up with both you and Matthew, and is merely looking at you with an entirely too familiar smirk and a raised brow. “What’s the subtlety for, YN?”

“Fuck off, Brady.” You flip your middle finger up at him quickly but it’s just enough time for the entire group of hockey players around you to pounce. You really should have known better.

“I knew something was up!” Auston grins.

“Nothing’s up.” You deny, very poorly.

“Really?” Brady grins. “‘Cause Matt’s like right there.” He points. “On his way here. So I guess if nothing’s wrong, you can-” He starts immediately laughing when you shove your way out of them.

You think you manage to lose your best friend by pushing through a large group of players and family from the Metro and Central divisions and throwing yourself out the door to the outdoor patio, which is mostly empty, despite the unseasonably warm winter St. Louis has been experiencing. You can see Brady, Auston, and Quinn laughing together through the glass door, but Matty’s nowhere to be found, and you sit down on the closest bench, taking a minute to just breathe.

“You gotta tell me what I did.” The voice scares you, but it shouldn’t, because you really should have known better than to think that Matty wouldn’t be able to find you.

When you look over at Matty on the bench beside you, you can’t think of another time he’s looked this devastated. Maybe that semi-final loss in World Juniors? Maybe? It’s all over his face and you can’t just leave him like this any longer. “It’s not you.” You tell him, holding back tears. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it!” Matthew says, frustratedly.

“You can’t fix it!” You sniffle, trying to scoot away from him, to give yourself some distance, and feeling the tears start to fall when he closes that space again. “You can’t go back and stop Ashley from making me realize that I’m in love with you, okay? So you can’t fix this and I just-I need some time, Matty! Okay? I need some time!”

“Don’t be fucking stupid.” He breathes, like he’s only just recovered the ability to talk, which, he might have, and you tilt your head to meet his eyes, which puts you in a perfect position considering he’s already leaning toward you.

Matthew fumbles for a second, his hand reaching for your cheek and catching your ear instead with you turning, but he recovers quickly, stroking gently down the side of your face. You gasp, the kiss entirely unexpected, and Matty takes the opportunity to tug on your lip gently before pulling away and you let out a whimper at the loss of contact.

He smirks.

“Don’t be smug.” You shove at his shoulder.

“Don’t be stupid.” He repeats, pulling you closer. “How could you ever think I wouldn’t be in love with you?”

“I didn’t want to ruin us.” You tell him softly. “But I am willing to concede I was wrong.”

Matty grins. “Sure were. Can do this anytime I want now.” He kisses you again, leaving you just as breathless as before.

You suppose, at some point, that’ll start to wear off, but as the two of you trade lazy kisses on the rooftop, you can’t imagine that point ever coming. This is perfection, this is the piece of your relationship you didn’t even know was missing coming together, this is-

-Brady knocking on the window?

What?

You blink again, realizing where you’re at. Still on the rooftop bench, with your arm wrapped around Matty’s neck, your legs draped over his lap, and your face tucked into his shoulder. Matthew’s arms are wrapped around your waist, holding you close, and his head rests on top of yours. Somehow still asleep through all the banging Brady’s been doing. 

“Matty.” You poke him awake.

“What?” He groans, sitting up.

“Brady.” Matthew looks over at the window, where Brady is still gesturing that it’s time to leave, with a very smug grin on his face.  Matthew lifts one hand off your waist to flip his brother off, allowing you to climb off. 

“You couldn’t have answered any of the texts we sent you?” Brady asks, once you step inside, but he doesn’t sound annoyed at all, still looking between the two of you with the biggest grin on his face.

Matthew shrugs. “Must have fallen asleep.”

“Bullshit.”

“You just saw us!”

Brady rolls his eyes, knowingly. “Just kiss her already.”

Matty grins. “Gladly.” And then he’s pressing a heated kiss against your lips, looping his arm around your waist, and it’s all you can do to grip his arm with one hand to keep yourself standing and flip off the crowd around you with your other as whoever’s left at this after party burst into applause and wolf-whistles.

[cxndyhexrts]

Fake Arrangements~ Penry

The next day was supposed to be a calm day. He had sent multiple messages to Amanda not to bother him with anything, he told his parents that he wouldn’t be waking up for breakfast-both him and Nikki would be a sight, being hungover. He snuck in the kitchen to get a few bottles of water and something to eat to shake off whatever had happened the previous day, and in every way. For sure, he had brought a lot of projects with him to work on and he felt lucky that this was a legit excuse. Locking the door behind him, his next move was to turn his laptop on and place the tray he got on the side. The day passed pretty quickly and he seemed to be sobering up pretty soon: his walls were definitely up again, but something was bothering him. Penelope Matthews: he’d never thought that this girl would ever cause any problem in his life, but there she was. They had to talk before she arrived, because all this might turn extremely suspicious in no time. Suddenly, a Skype call notification popped up and he gasped with the coincidence of it all. Clicking on the green phone button, he smiled at his cousin: “Speak of the devil”, he smirked at her.

Penny’s jaw dropped with the way Henry greeted her. “Oh my God-is everything okay?”, she asked. He had never talked to her like that and it felt very weird. After a few seconds, she realized why he actually said that and nodded. “Ah...right...I see...yes”, she pouted, trying to be serious, a look that her students had recognised since they met her. She was never a person that got angry easily and when she had to discipline someone, it felt really hard for her. “I don’t think it will be hard, you know. We have been acting like a couple while we were in New York. A lot of people have mistaken us for one”, she widened her eyes. “Do you remember that time in Olive Garden? With our small breadsticks food fight? We were cute, they weren’t wrong”.

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

Henry let her realize what he meant and  tried not to roll his eyes-not that he wasn’t having fun with her or she was wrong, but he’d never expect Nikki would be in the picture or any picture for that matter. “First of all, just a warning, keep your voice down, as much as you can. Please”, he said, knowing that Penny might start squealing any time now, repeating the word “cute”. “Secondly, how are we even going to do this? What about my parents? How are we going to act around them? Should we kiss? I don’t want to kiss. And at the same time, I am caught in this plan and I want it to be believable. Why did you agree to this?”, he ranted, throwing all those questions at her. “I wish I knew it before...I wish you told me something before, so that we’d plan it better”, he made a pause just to catch his breath. “I hate this-what has Amanda told you?”, he finally asked and decided to let Penny talk.

Penny blinked fast, trying to assimilate and probably answer all the questions at once. Taking a deep breath, she lowered the tone of her voice to almost a whisper: “I know that yesterday you were going to play a game and everything will be revealed”, she shrugged. “So, I didn’t know earlier than you”, she furrowed her eyebrows. “Amanda has been telling me about her best friend since we met each other. Nikki is like a friend of mine, as well even if I’ve never met her-and now I do want to meet her even more”, she said excitedly, sitting up on her chair. “Your parents are on board-Amanda said that Aunt Lizzie is going to act like I’m your bride-to-be, probably throwing shade at you that you aren’t the one who’s getting married”, she giggled. “Also, I don’t think we should kiss-I mean..yuck”, she wrinkled her nose. “And we don’t have to prove to anyone that we are a couple-they have no right to tell us what to do and what not to do publicly. We do show each other affection, we don’t kiss in public, and they still consider us as a couple”, she smiled wider. “Ding-ding”, she said triumphantly. She was so eager to help out and honestly, she didn’t have anything to lose from all that. Besides, it was one of those rare times that she saw Henry being that flustered. “Tell me more about her, though. You’ve never talked about her to me-I thought she was only Amanda’s friend. And Amanda preferred to let you talk about it to me”, she rested her head on her hand, feeling way too excited to hear what Henry had to say.

----

“Oh my god, are you crazy?”, Henry exclaimed. “Do you know what she will think after you actually meet face to face? After what Amanda has told about you, she’d definitely hate you. Don’t expect her to be instantly friends with you”, he widened his eyes. “Of course”, rolling his eyes, Henry reached for his coffee mug and took a sip. “Mom is just playing around...I hope”, he pouted. Henry chuckled a little before making a buzzer sound. “Wrong-we have to prove that to Nikki, now. It’s our only goal....I guess”, he shrugged, trying to hold himself not to seem as freaked out as he thought he was. “But, yeah, it won’t mean anything if we don’t kiss”, he looked down. “We were great friends. Nikki, I and Amanda. Until...I went to college and...not many months later, I learned that Nikki’s boyfriend passed away”, he swallowed, still not looking at his laptop’s screen. “It’s truly sad and it hurts sometimes, I wasn’t really able to talk to her about it”, he frowned and found the strength to raise his head and look at Penny. “Anyway, the first summer back from college...something happened....a lot of things happened”, he felt his cheeks so hot. “And she left for college without saying anything. Amanda actually informed me she had left-I sent her multiple messages and then I gave up. If she didn’t want to continue this, I was...”, he sighed deeply, trying to keep his cool, “I wasn’t going to push it”, he looked down again. “You know the rest. I’ve told you about my previous relationships and how they went”, he sucked on his lower lip hard, so that he could find the strength and continue talking. “Until I learned from Amanda that Nikki has a boyfriend...I forgot to say that I never told anyone...that’s why I have never mentioned her to you. I was afraid that if I did, the flood of what...I am feeling will betray...all that”, he pouted. “ And that’s when I told Amanda. She hasn’t told her either. I don’t know when she will”, he rubbed his eyebrow with his finger, facing Penny again, that seemed like she was watching a chick flick, she didn’t want to be interrupted from. “Now that I saw her, it all came back-it’s crazy”, he chuckled nervously. “I don’t...want to cause any break up-it’s not me but still...I felt like nothing has changed from her side, as well”, he chuckled. “I even joked that she was the one pretending to be in a relationship instead of me”, he pressed his lips together, kind of relieved that he let that all out. “Needless to say that we fought...and I hated it...every bit of it. But...I am a little angrier about than I thought I would be...if I ever met her after that summer fling”.

Penny didn’t want to interrupt Henry-she always took advantage of people wanting to talk about something. It showed her what kind of people they were and Henry was very adorable and she’d never get enough. Once she was sure, he had finished narrating his story, she took a deep breath and smiled widely. “Oh my God-you are so cute”, she shouted intentionally. “I really really mean that”, she said excitedly and too into her role she was given. “ADORABLE”, she sang and made an impromptu dance to it. “Anyway”, she tried to act like she didn’t acted like that. “She does sound very confused, if you’d ask me. Maybe, if you give her time...although I don’t know if that would be cool with someone else in the picture. But, it would be super fun if it was revealed that her new boyfriend is a fake, as well. What.a.mess.indeed”, she sang the last sentence. Her expression changed to the pretentious serious one: “Also, I can’t believe you haven’t talked about me and let Amanda do all the talking”, she said and instantly giggle. She really couldn’t keep that cover. “Okay, I really need to go now and from what I can see”, she made a pause, just to squint her eyes to look at Henry’s background, “you are in your room. I know she could be listening to us right now-so...”, she said in a whisper and stood up, leaning closer to her laptop’s screen. “ Edible underwear, just like you like them”, she said rather loudly. “I need to show them to you in about one and a half week that I will be there. You’d looooove them”, she said and faked being unable to wink properly, hoping Henry would get their inside joke. “Henry Anderson....Good luck”, she sang and turned off the Skype call. What an adventure that will be...!!!

Henry’s face became even hotter with the way Penny reacted. He definitely said no shouting and that made his heart pound much faster. It took him a few minutes to realize what she was doing and chuckled nervously. “Right”, he nodded. When she said that she was leaving, he sat up quickly on his chair and tried to stop her from doing that, but her next sentences took him completely off guard. His jaw dropped too and stared at her for a long moment, until she turned off their chat. He started laughing with how the conversation went, and suddenly, it hit him how Penny and him had a random, completely non sexual conversation about edible underwear. He covered his face and felt slightly helpless for a second, but at the same time, Penny was Penny and he trusted  her that she’d follow Amanda’s mission. Also, he felt slightly lighter from opening up about that. He leaned back on his chair and let his head hung, trying to review what was going to happen. Hopefully, everything would turn out fine and a small part of him made him extra curious if Nikki might have heard anything Penny had said louder. He smirked at that and sat up again, trying to pull himself together-he had a lot of stuff to do and surprisingly, that was a nice distraction from it.