Chapter Text
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Penelope is the one to take him to the airport. Always.
It had become a ritual of sorts years before. Colin had been so excited for that very first trip, but also so insanely scared of the unknown, and she was the only one to see through the façade, to know that keeping a brave face for his mum and Anthony was becoming too much of a burden. So, Penelope offered to drive him to the airport, knowing that another goodbye with one of the others would likely be too painful, and while he initially hesitated, he eventually said yes.
That first initial goodbye was a bit awkward and drawn out, a clumsy hug and kiss to the cheek outside of Ticketing at Heathrow. They were friends, the way two people thrust together by mutual relationships and circumstances are destined to be, but not much more. Penelope had loved him then, quietly and confidently and without remorse, and was already learning how to exist under the burden of unrequited love. Colin had thrown a promise to write over his shoulder as he made his way towards security, and she had smiled and waved and did not believe he truly meant it.
But he did.
With time, and despite the physical distance that always lingered between them, friends became something more, something undefinable, something crucial to their very existence.
And now, here they are, a decade later, outside of Ticketing at Heathrow, facing yet another goodbye.
“I am going to miss you,” Colin whispers into her hair as he envelops her in a hug.
The warmth of him is familiar, comforting, and she holds him against her. Sighs a little when she moves to let go, but he pulls her into him once more.
When he does finally pull back, there is a moment where he still does not let go. His hands loosen but fall to her hips, holding her. She tilts her head back to look at him and watches as his gaze drops to her mouth. The energy shifts as tension builds, and she has spent a lifetime loving Colin Bridgerton, so she knows every single one of his secrets, every single one of his tells, and there is something different and dangerous in the way he looks at her then.
Her breath hitches, then releases.
Colin inhales her exhale, his gaze still on her mouth.
Penelope feels herself leaning forward, tilting her chin just a fraction of a centimetre. She has always been tethered to him in some inexplicable way, but throughout the years, she has become adept at teaching herself to ignore and forget, to never expect more, to stop wanting more.
Now, her fingers tangle in the fabric of his jacket, pulling him closer just as someone passes by and bumps into him slightly, pressing him fully into her. By his feet is his suitcase, a reminder of the fleeting nature of the moment, of his presence, of the mere idea of possibility.
“Penelope, I…” he trails off, gaze flicking from hers to her mouth and back again. He reaches for her, palm tender and warm against her cheek. “May I?”
“Yes.”
Her body is stretching forward, leaning into his on its own volition before the word has even left her mouth. It is a bad idea, with terrible timing, but it also feels inexplicably right. He has been home for a month this time, in between assignments, and every glance, every touch, every moment shared has felt like more. They have flirted with each other and with the line drawn between them for the entirety of his visit, for years really, and she is so very tired of wondering what he tastes like, what his mouth would feel like against hers.
So, Penelope kisses Colin, and Colin kisses her back—harder and deeper and more desperately than she could have ever conceived in even her wildest of fantasies. He tastes like coffee and mint, and something she can only assume is wholly him. The kiss is wonderful, and leaves her breathless, and she pulls away after a moment to simply breathe, but he chases her mouth for more, his hands tangling in her hair and digging in as their bodies mould and move together.
“Oi?! You two lovebirds are blocking the walkway. Move it along already.”
The voice breaks them apart immediately, but both are too preoccupied to feel a hint of shame. He presses a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth. Rests his forehead against hers. His palms are still cupping her face, the pads of his thumbs drawing the faint line of her cheekbones.
“I—”
“—Have to go. I know.”
There is a moment, both brief and torturous, when he searches her face intently. It is hard, always, to remain neutral under the intensity of his gaze, and she looks away first. Then, she starts to untangle herself from him. Again, his touch lingers, holding her to him. When he finally lets go, she feels the loss of him immediately.
“Text me when you land?” she asks.
He nods. Just once. His eyes flicker over her face, searching. He must not find what he is looking for because he simply presses his mouth into a thin line.
“Always.”
*
Panic kicks in the moment she is safe in the confines of her car.
Pulling out her phone, she types out a text. Deletes it. Re-types it. Deletes that too.
They had stood in those types of moments together before, that brief span of time that comes before every kiss, where time slows and tension rises, but the mind is still able to think clearly. They’ve stood on that precipice before, side by side, but Penelope’s brain had always spun this is a bad idea on a continuous reel, the words too loud to ignore.
It does the same now, albeit a bit too late.
Penelope drives back to her flat with the windows down and the volume on the aux turned up high, trying to drown out the mess inside her head.
When she knows his flight is in the air, she does what she does best and acts out of self-preservation.
Penelope to Colin Bridgerton
1 May 2025
[08:25]
Penelope: Poor timing, yeah?
Penelope: Just a kiss between friends who were caught up in the moment
Penelope: Let’s not make it weird
Colin’s response comes half a day later, in the middle of the night for her:
Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
2 May 2025
[03:45]
Colin Bridgerton: If that’s what you want
She doesn’t see it until the next morning. Colin has already sent several subsequent memes and texts about his itinerary and photos of the view from his hotel room.
Penelope takes it as a cue to forget, to keep moving forward.
One of those things is far easier than the other.
*
Things continue on as she supposes they were always meant to: Colin leaves, and Penelope stays.
It is a cycle they started years before, during that very first trip abroad. At times, their physical distance felt insurmountable but was eased with texts and phone calls, then FaceTimes when those became a thing. There were emails when stories were particularly too long-winded to be contained to a minimum amount of characters, or the time difference stood in their way.
After their kiss, they find ease once more in the predictability of their routines and, perhaps, for the very first time, comfort in the physical distance between them. He is on assignment this time in the jungles of Asia, half a world away, and while the time difference makes actual phone calls few and far between, their correspondence never falters. She wakes most mornings to his inane musings and goes to sleep just after texting him her own. Conversations are ongoing and interspersed with the exchange of memes and gifs and reels in between (never tiktoks because Penelope refuses to add another app, doesn’t want to feel the need to follow him in yet another medium).
The frequency of their correspondence sometimes slows, but it never stops.
Sometimes, during lonely nights after even lonelier days, Penelope wonders how they manage to spend all this time talking without saying anything at all.
*
They do not talk about the kiss.
Until they do.
On a Wednesday, three weeks later, Penelope wakes up to a series of texts sent the night before.
Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
20 May 2025
[21:57]
Colin Bridgerton: I shouldn’t have left, Pen
Colin Bridgerton: Fuck
Colin Bridgerton: That kiss
Colin Bridgerton: I wish I had stayed
Colin Bridgerton: I need you to know that
Colin Bridgerton: [This message was deleted]
Colin Bridgerton: [This message was deleted]
Outside, it is raining, the steady downpour hitting her window in a cadence that would typically soothe her but does little to quell the way her heart stops and restarts inside her chest. The force with which it begins to pound against her ribcage overwhelms her. She reads and rereads the texts, her hands shaking as she holds her phone, her thumbs pausing over the keyboard. Her mind is blank, filled with static and memories of him replaying on a continuous loop. There is no answer Penelope can think of that doesn’t give herself away, that doesn’t give what little she has left that has not already been given to him, so she simply responds with nothing.
Closes the app. Tosses her phone to the side. Tries to go back to sleep but can only think of that kiss, the way he had tasted, the perfect fit of him against her.
She cannot help but wonder if he is somewhere thinking of her, too.
*
He must feel regret and overwhelm at some point, because hours later, there is another series of texts:
Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
21 May 2025
[13:57]
Colin Bridgerton: I drank too much last night.
Colin Bridgerton: My travelmate had some lao-Lao which is delicious but wicked strong and
Colin Bridgerton: That’s not the point
Colin Bridgerton: Sorry I made it weird
Colin Bridgerton: When we specifically agreed not to make it weird
Dread starts to fill a pit deep in her gut. It is not unfamiliar, but it weighs her down, makes the panic stick in her throat. She should have responded that morning, she knows, but the part of her that avoids confrontation at all costs with everyone and never wants to disrupt their equilibrium hoped he would simply move on.
Because she needs to. She wants to.
The thing about existing with the burden of unrequited love etched into your skin and bones is that you grow accustomed to its weight, at times even managing to forget it is there. It becomes a part of you, intrinsic to your very being, but then, when something happens to make it known once more, the weight is suddenly unbearable again.
They have not talked about the kiss, and she does not think about it, as a rule, but she dreams of him, and only him. She wakes most mornings wanting for things she has long since believed she can never have. Would never have.
She has always worked best when she deals in facts, in absolutes. When she maintains consistency. She relies on that habit now.
Penelope: You didn't make it weird
Penelope: It is what it is
Colin Bridgerton: What do you mean?
Penelope: I mean you had to leave. I don't fault you for that
Penelope: And we were just caught up in the moment
She can see the dots appear, disappear, and appear again.
Colin Bridgerton: That was some moment, Pen.
She hesitates.
Then:
Penelope: It was
*
The following weekend, after a few days of being off the grid for travel, Colin FaceTimes her from Dubai.
It’s late afternoon for him, nearly lunchtime for her. She is still in her bed, covers to her chin and trash television filling her mindless Saturday afternoon. Still, she answers by the second ring, bleary-eyed from zoning out for far too long but also suddenly wide awake. His grin is wide and infectious when the video connects. He greets her with his customary Hiya, Pen then pans the camera around. He’s on the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa, so high up that she can see the crystal blue waters in the distance. It is a view she knows he has seen countless times before, one he returns to due to its sheer magnitude and engineering marvel, but also because it never fails to make him feel like the world is somehow both endless and insignificant.
As the sun begins to set along the horizon, the surface of the Arabian Gulf is just beginning to be painted with brilliant hues of orange and blue.
“It reminded me of you,” he says, still off-screen.
The view, combined with the subtle amount of wistfulness and sheer contentment in his voice, makes her chest hurt.
*
Penelope does not wait for him. Not before and certainly not now.
This is important for her to note.
She falls in and out of lust and in and out of love. She builds a life that she is entirely content and mostly happy with.
Her love for Colin is something that simply is.
Early on, when she was young and horribly naive, she felt consumed by her love for him and burdened by the feeling of failure that encompassed her when she realised he did not, would not, could not love her back. She learned this was a fallacy created in her own mind, that her feelings for him were as uncontrolled as his lack of feelings for her. Penelope chose to stay his friend, knowing her life was better and far richer with him in it, but with time, she is comforted by the realisation that she does not need Colin in her life.
It is vital, this distinction, because it provides her with control.
When he is away, her life does not devolve into chaos. She does not wither, and she does not wait. She has a life that is completely separate from him. She has routines and friendships, relationships with his siblings and his mum that are entirely independent of him.
When he is away, she moves and keeps moving.
She adjusts. She endures. She thrives.
She misses him, but the act of missing him becomes as intrinsic as the act of loving him, and yet another thing she carries with her.
But after—
Everything is different.
*
Penelope wakes up to three redacted texts on a Saturday, a month into him being gone.
He is in Cairo now—she thinks. It has been hard to keep up during this assignment. Colin is a well-sought-after photographer, and his publisher has paired him with a prolific journalist who is doing a series of articles that has them in eleven locations in as many weeks. He is at the start of a one-year contract, something he has earned through hard work and is a pretty big deal—even though he would never remark on it. The last time they had talked, he was at an airport, and his flight was delayed by an entire day. He had sounded exhausted, and without the usual enthusiasm for adventure he typically carries despite any and all inconveniences that come along with the job. She had stayed up with him for as long as she could, keeping him company. She fell asleep with the phone tucked between her pillow and face. He had hung up and sent her a text about how cute her snoring was. She had flushed, embarrassed, but also a bit delighted that he knew that about her now.
Her response to his redacted texts and lack of even a greeting is a single question mark. She doesn’t expect a response, but his is instant, even despite the time difference that separates them.
Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
7 June 2025
[07:23]
Colin Bridgerton: I was being weird
Colin Bridgerton: After we promised we wouldn’t make it weird
Colin Bridgerton: Sorry
Something catches in her throat. Without thought, she starts to scroll up, back hundreds of messages to the ones he sent a week before about their kiss. She’s thought about it a million times since—what he felt bold enough to say and what he did not. She stops herself immediately.
Penelope: You’re always weird
Penelope: Probably wasn’t a fair ask
Colin Bridgerton: Rude
After a few minutes of silence, Colin sends her a reel that has her giggling. They exchange a few back-and-forth, and they do what they always do—keep moving forward.
*
Later that evening, she has a date. A third one with a friend of Kate and Anthony’s, not a lawyer, but someone in their circle. His name is Aiden. He is handsome. Smart and dependable, and knows nothing about photography, and likes to travel, but only so far, and is very interested in learning everything about her. They go to a nice restaurant, and he holds her hand and listens to her ramble on about her day. Tells her she looks beautiful, in a tone that is filled with both awe and affection. Things with Aiden are simple and easy, and every look, every touch is purposeful, filled with the promise of more, and Penelope welcomes the consistency. Welcomes the reprieve from having to read between the lines in an effort to decipher any hidden meanings.
After dinner and drinks, in the back of the taxi, he puts his hand on her knee, and she shifts into him. He murmurs, come back to mine with the perfect amount of apprehension and want. She feels herself nod and shudders at the way his fingers graze higher on her thigh.
Instantly, Penelope wonders if Colin likes it in the car.
The thought pops into her mind, completely unbidden, and she becomes angry with the way the arousal coils deftly in her stomach at the mere thought.
She does not allow herself to think about Colin again until later, after she has feigned a headache with the promise of another date soon and is tucked away in her flat. A wine glass dangles between her fingers, nearly empty, and she reaches forward for the bottle of Pinot on the coffee table to refill it. A text from Aiden comes through, but she swipes it away without reading it. Alcohol makes her both clumsy and brave, and she allows herself a moment to do what she could not before: she scrolls up, through hundreds of messages and pictures and gifs, and settles on the texts from over a week ago.
I shouldn’t have left, he had said.
That kiss, he had written.
Her curiosity piques with her tipsiness and overtakes her.
Penelope to Colin Bridgerton
7 June 2025
[22:05]
Penelope: Did you think about it before?
The blue dots appear instantly. She sits up straighter on the sofa. Places her wine carefully to the side. Waits. Wonders, briefly, if she should have clarified what she meant, but—
Colin Bridgerton: Kissing you?
Penelope: Yes
Colin’s replies are immediate:
Colin Bridgerton: Then yes
Colin Bridgerton: Have you?
Her belly clenches.
Penelope: Yes
The feel of her phone vibrating in her hand startles her. Their picture, one from years before at Daphne’s wedding, blinks up at her in the dim light of her living room. Her throat dries instantly. Her fingers are shaking as she presses the button to connect the call.
“I can’t stop thinking about that kiss, Pen,” he says in a rush, not even bothering with a greeting. His voice is dark and thick, heavy with something she doesn’t quite recognise.
The debate wars within her mind for half a beat before she gives in and takes a leap. “Me either.”
“Yeah?”
The bit of hope laced in the word causes something to swell within her chest.
“Yes,” she breathes, resolute and bold, and he sighs something heavy and relieved in response.
There is rustling, the sounds of him making himself comfortable, and she does the same, falling back into the cushions of her sofa. She closes her eyes. Imagines him in bed, in her bed. Forces them back open immediately.
“I wanted to hear your voice,” he says. “I miss your voice. I miss you, Pen.”
It does something to her, always, to hear him say that, but he says it now with a note of desperation that makes her ache. She wonders, briefly, if he’s drunk. Almost asks him. But she’s known him for years, knows him better than anybody, and the pitch and sharpness of his tone are too serious, too deep for that to be true.
“I miss you too,” she says, almost in a whisper.
“Penelope.”
His voice is low, strangled almost, and she is able to finally recognise the heaviness behind it as desire. As want. She thinks back days and weeks, to text messages sent and unsent, to the way he had looked at her as they said goodbye, the way he had kissed her, the way he had kept kissing her. She thinks back further, months and a year, perhaps even two, and is able to see in his actions and inactions what she taught herself to stop looking for a lifetime ago.
“I wish you were here.”
It’s honest and safe, something she has said to him a million times over throughout their friendship, but it rips something guttural from him, a moan and whine rolled into one.
“I wish…” Colin starts and stops. Hisses an inhale.
The silence that follows gives them space to mind their boundaries, that line boldly drawn and redrawn between them. Both remain quiet, nothing but their breaths echoing over the line.
Their mutual inaction reads as permission.
Penelope closes her eyes again, bites at her lip, reaches a hand between her legs, and into her knickers because his voice has her aching. She’s soaked, has been since she thought of him in the taxi, and a delicious thrill runs along her spine. This isn’t the first time she’s touched herself to thoughts of him, but it is the first time she has done so with the sound of his breathing in her ear. With him knowing. With him wanting her to. She feels the pressure spark and build, take over, and she has barely even touched herself.
The phone is cradled between her shoulder and neck, one hand pressing fully against her cunt, the other slipping under the cotton of her shirt, grazing the curve of her breast just before squeezing. She realises, suddenly, that it is his shirt she’s wearing, an old sports tee she nicked from him over a decade before.
She flicks her thumb against her clit as the sound of his breaths quicken. She thinks about his hands in his boxers, palming his cock, thinking about this, about her. Wants to ask him if he’s jerked himself off to thoughts of her before, but is too afraid of what his answer may be.
Tells him instead, “I’m wearing your shirt.”
Colin’s breathing becomes rough in her ear, panting almost. “Fuck,” he gasps, like the word is wrenched from his lungs. “Are you—”
“—Yes.”
The next words fall out of his mouth, jumbled and in a rush, so quickly she wonders how long he has been trying to contain them. “I wish I were there. Wish I could see you—Taste you. Can’t stop thinking about what you taste like. I want to make you come, Pen. Will you let me make you come?”
The sound of him begging causes her knees to spread more, her hips jerking to chase the pressure of her hand. It’s usually hard for her to do this, to get herself off with nothing but her fingers—even if he is typically the only thought on her mind at the time. It has to be a whole thing, an event almost, because she is never able to get out of her head long enough to relax. But he is with her now, his voice is in her ear, and the desperate sounds he’s making have Penelope so keyed up and on edge that she actually arches her back from the pleasure of her own hands as she slips two fingers inside of her just to temper the ache.
“I think about you all the time, Pen. Think about putting my mouth all over you. Tasting every inch of you.”
The noises she makes quickly turn obscene, and his breathing turns shaky in response.
“I bet you’d feel so fucking good. I want to make you feel so good. Tell me you want that too.” He breathes and waits. Takes in a gulp of air before continuing when she does not answer. “Tell me you want me, Penelope. Please.”
His voice is pleading, utterly wrecked, and her mind goes blank, completely brain dead. Pleasure overrides all of her senses as her fingers recklessly switch between sliding over her clit and inside of her.
“I want you, Colin. So fucking much.”
He comes then, suddenly and with a grunt on the other end of the line, and the sound of him lost to pleasure, lost to her, is enough to tip her right over the edge.
They’re quiet as they both come down, and she falls asleep to the sound of him in her ear and her heart in her throat.