Big Dick Energy - Cindi Madsen Page 0,42

as nearly as funny as it had before. It’d been years since I’d felt so utterly helpless. “Okay,” I finally said. Then I cupped her cheek, a fissure forming in my heart as I peered into her big blue eyes. “But if he crosses the line, you can tell me. I’ll back you up, I swear.”

Tension slowly leaked out of her frame. Penelope curled her hand over the one I had on her cheek, lacing her fingers through mine.

Nope, using them to lower my arm to my side. She hung on for the briefest second, giving my hand a quick squeeze. Then she morphed into the uber professional women who gave kickass presentations. “I’ll contact the Serrano sisters and CC you on the emails so we can pick a time for the whiskey tasting that works for everyone.”

With that, she was off, speed walking again. I stood on the sidewalk, watching until she turned the corner. As I trudged in the opposite direction toward my car, I wondered if, accidental or not, I’d ever scared any woman the way that asshole had scared Penelope.

16

Penny

“How’s it going with your boy?” Catalina asked as she settled into a seat at our usual table at Paddy’s, her charcoal rimmed eyes on me.

I glanced over the salty rim of my third rather strong drink. Ellie and I had gotten started, ordering dinner, fries, and drinks since Cat had been running late for our Saturday night date. She and her legal team had been working non-stop on a sexual harassment case. Weekends didn’t mean much of anything when closing arguments would start on Monday.

I shoved my margarita aside for the basket of French Fries, the buzz working its way through me a sure sign I should add food. “My boy?” I asked with faux confusion, dipping my fries in the extra serving of ketchup I’d requested and savoring the spicy tingle on my lips.

“Don’t act dumb with me.” Cat stole a couple of fries from my basket. “You’re too smart to pull it off.”

“Aww, that was oddly nice. Much nicer than I was expecting.”

“Me too,” Ellie said, getting on the fry action. “She must have a stellar closing argument prepped. Otherwise, we’d have to soothe the dragon with a drink or two before we reached this level of niceness.”

Forget blowing smoke; Cat blasted it from her narrowed eyes. “Dragon?”

“Badass dragon.” I nudged my drink in her direction and signaled the bartender to see if we could get another before the evening rush. “Like Smaug from the hobbit.”

“I still don’t get the appeal of Benedict Cumbermelonpatch,” Ellie said, the diamond stud in her nose winking in the light. “Not only do I not find him attractive, when I was in, like, Kindergarten, I drank part of my older sister’s bottle of lotion with that same name. Green puke, all over the carpet. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it still smelled the same.”

“Ew,” I said with a laugh. If cucumber melon lotion smelled the same from the bottle or the contents of someone’s stomach, that was a hard pass for me. “You almost put me off my fries.”

I grabbed another handful, swiped the ends through the ketchup, and jammed them in my mouth, and my friends gaped at me as though I’d sprouted a unicorn horn.

“What?” The words came out muffled through crispy potato goodness. “I said almost. I also meant the dragon from the book, B-T-dubs. Not the CGI version.”

Cat tilted her head to one side, her mouth forming an unamused slant. “Really? That’s what you want to correct about this conversation?”

“We’re saying that you’re better than someone who slays dragons,” Ellie quickly covered. “You’re the dragon. Like when you took down that company who didn’t give mothers or fathers maternity and paternity leave.”

“I remember that one,” I said. “By the time the verdict was passed down, the guy was crying harder than the newborn baby he tried to fire the mom over having.”

Despite herself, she grinned, the last of the billowing smoke we’d incited fading.

Not only did our favorite bartender bring over a margarita for Cat, but she’d also brought Ellie and me round…whichever-we-were-on. She cleared away our empties before I could count, which was probably for the best.

I lifted my drink in the air. “To Catalina! Changing the world one lawsuit at a time.”

The three of us hefted our drinks and drank to her success.

“And to Penny and her giant dick,” Ellie added, all three of us giggling as we glugged down more