CHAPTER ONE - Away from Paris
Hi there!
Fair warning, this is a slow-burn romance, with quite a few curses.
This is a follow-up of Lost and Found, and Never before although you can read it as standalone, you will understand the story line and the characters if you read it first.
I hope you will love this merry gang of misfits, and this love story, as much as I do.
F.
PENNY
I’m free! I’m free, and I’m going home.
At 30 years old, I finally am free.
I’m excited, happy, I feel trepidation, and yet guilt for leaving Nate and Alexis behind. I agree with Ron Weasley for a second, wondering how I can feel that many emotions at once without exploding.
Maybe I should explain myself.
Hi, I’m Penny. Well, Penelope, but no one calls me that. Ever. The only thing you can do that really pisses me off. Only my mother calls me Penelope, that should tell you enough.
Right now, I’m leaving Paris, and two of my friends behind: the half of my lifetime quartet of friends.
There were four of us, initially, since high school.
In middle school, I had a few lessons in common with another class, where Nathan and Jaimie were, and we talked, once in a while. Jaimie was already gorgeous, all curvy and curly, with a wonderful smile, extremely kind, and a strength of character you wouldn’t believe for such a small girl.
Well, small… not more than me. It just happens that all our friends are giants, who dwarf us all.
Jaimie and Nathan were attached to the hip. Nathan, especially, was glued to her. What I didn’t understand at first, the guy seemed to have everything: known Olympic gymnast, his climbing career the constant talk of the town, his good looks even more. Blond curls, clear blue eyes, perfect complexion, there were so many girls following him, staring at him, you’d think he would get a big head and amplified ego about that, or abuse his popularity, but he ignored it all. Once you knew him, he was kind, loyal to a fault, honest to the point of rudeness, and the best friend you could wish for. At the beginning, I assumed, as almost the whole school did, that he and Jaimie were together, and I never looked at him like the other girls did. I don’t look at boys who’re already taken. I never even thought about him that way. And by the time I learned they weren’t dating, we were already good friends.
The first day of high school, I dragged Alexis after me: I knew her because we took the same bus, and she seemed so lost that day. We went to sit at the double table in front of Jaimie’s and Nathan’s, turned around to talk with them, and even Alexis said our quartet was formed that day. She was shy, blond, very curvy and slender, as popular with the boys as Nate was with the girls, and she didn’t give a hoot about it. Beautiful, and foul mouth, like you wouldn’t believe.
Nathan calls our quartet “Our Merry gang of misfits”. Others, that you will meet if you read this story, have many other names for us. I, in my mind, always called us the Lost Children. That’s something the four of us have in common: parents’ problems. Nathan’s parents were cold, unloving and only focussed on his olympic accomplishment. When he got injured during training, and saw his career rushing into the drain, his parents as good as disowned him.
Alexis’ mother left when she was very small, and she spent her whole life ignored by her father: he was an angry and bitter man. He was not abusive, but he worked a lot, drank even more, and ignored his only daughter completely. She had to figure everything out on her own. It’s a miracle and a tribute to her loving heart and extreme human decency that she never took a wrong turn in life.
Me, I had helicopter parents. From the youngest age, I had to fight my mother’s tears, my father’s shouting rallies of “After everything we’ve done for you” for every, every single piece of independence I wanted. It got better, a little bit, after my sister was born, a “happy little accident” when I was 14, because their focus went on the golden child that couldn’t do anything wrong. When I was still at school, even with her being a toddler, they had their work cut out for them: capricious, screaming at the very hint of a “no” coming her way, Melody had them running scared to contradict her, and for a few years, it alleviated the pressure on my shoulders a little.
A little. I still had to fight, tooth and nail, for every single choice I wanted to make, from choosing my own clothes to wearing make-up or going out…
Studying in La Sorbonne saved me, although the first year, they still called me 3 times a day. I had to threaten to cut ties completely for them to leave me in a reasonable and relative peace. The phone calls are still the equivalent of a bomb explosion’s aftermath, though, and I avoid talking to them as much as possible. Especially now: their golden child is 16, they can’t handle her. She doesn’t do shit at school, she lies, she is rude, they made her a monster. They tried to dump her with me a few times, so far for short times, and it was a nightmare enough. Now it seems my leaving Paris was timely, a few months later and the child would have been left into my loving care. No, thank you.
So, yeah, even though I have parents, I was a lost child too.
And then, there was Jaimie. Her mother left when she was 2 or something, but she was the only one of us with a loving father: he was a hard working dude, always working, always on the move, so she spent her life missing him, but he was funny, kind, and they shared an obviously strong bond of love. Only, he was never there, and when he finally settled down, he got cancer and passed very quickly, before we were 20.
Jaimie had another parental figure in our life, and this one is important for all of us: her auntie Carol. Old hippie, a generous, loving, warm little woman who became our confidant, and second mother to us all, from the first day Jaimie took us along to visit her in Collioure. From that moment on, we spent all our holidays, weekends, vacations, and getaways in the spur of a moment at Carol’s, and it’s because of her, in a way, that I’m moving there now.
I studied in Paris, as did Al. Nathan coached gymnastics to kids until he bought his own gym, here in Paris too, where he continued coaching, and Jaimie found a job here later. So it was as a reunited quartet, each with our own place, that we lived in Paris, at least until a few months ago.
What happened was this: Le Café, Carol’s little coffee shop, filled with books, cats and crystals, crumbled, with Carol in it. Carol was in a coma for a couple of months, so Jaimie was the first one to leave Paris and move to Collioure, to take care of everything. Carol woke up, thank god, but will never be able to live in her house or take care of her shop anymore.
This is one of the reasons I’m moving there: I’m going to take care of the shop on a part-time basis.
Once there, Jaimie met Thomas again. Thomas is an old friend of us all from high school, they had a thing back then, at Uni, then not anymore.
Now, they’re living together in Carol’s old house and they’re very happy together. . Thomas has a younger sister, Emma. Wonderful girl, and she joined our little merry gang and fits right in.
Two friends of Thomas’, got involved in Carol’s case, (it became a criminal case when it became obvious that the shop didn’t collapse on its own, but that the so-called repair man Carol had hired didn’t do his job properly. At all. Long story). Their friendship with Thomas and involvement made us meet the both of them quickly, and like them even quickier. They fit in, we all love the same things, music, series… Our original quartet, called the Scoobygang by Carol, has now grown to eight people.
One of these 2 guys was involved in his capacity as a professional fireman, Louis, a huge guy, extremely good looking, and the other, Samuel, in his capacity as a volunteer fireman, as well as Carol’s insurance agent.
Samuel. Well, we all call him Sam. Or Sammy. Or Moose, depending on our mood. Huge, gorgeous. Solid as a rock. A heart of gold, a mop of dark blond hair and lovely brown eyes… My bff within our extended gang, The Samuel to my Rowena. Without the initial animosity between the characters in Supernatural (We’re all super fans of the show), but with the easy friendship, closeness and understanding they develop in the end.
The one man I hope to get closer to in the future.
