Chapter Text
The bar is dim, dark. As deep at the late December sky. Old sconces and dated neon signs hang unintelligibly on the mid-century red brick wall casting hues of white and red throughout the cramped space. It seems every twentysomething had the same idea: a Friday night warming themselves among like-minded bodies and the cheapest drinks in town.
Penelope Featherington is bobbing and weaving, sidestepping around groups in makeshift bubbles all their own, making her way back to her found friends with her third drink of the evening. Carefully balancing her cocktail close to her chest whilst twirling around warm bodies. She’s tipsy, not drunk. Definitely not drunk enough to conjure things or bump into a stranger. Unless... that stranger wanted her attention.
Maybe she was seconds from knocking square into him. Maybe he purposefully made his way into her path. Maybe she saw him out the corner of her eye and stopped short, caught in the headlights of an old daydream.
It didn’t matter who did what. For he was standing before her, a crooked and signature boyish smile gleaming on his lips.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
Maybe they said more (formalities on how they are, what he’s doing here, why he’s in her city). Maybe they kept it short (too tongue tied for what to say in the face of an almost-lover, one more time). Maybe they read the room (the electric laced hope radiating off every corner of this dinghy little place neither of them would find themselves in way-back when and surrounding them). Maybe there was really only one question to ask.
He asks it out of humble curiosity, a flippant formality for taking up her time. The words come out lighter than candy floss in his cadence.
“ Are you here with anybody? ”
Penelope should be studying. Instead, she’s out with her close friend Stella, and a couple of blokes (plus one fifth wheel) who think they’re taking the girls home, planning on having a good time.
She shook her head at his question, nodding in the direction of her friends trying not to stare and wishing they could eavesdrop. One pair of blue eyes trying to keep a noncommittal façade as he watches them intently.
Penelope sees none of that. Doesn’t even feel the way that guy’s sharp gaze is shortening the strings between them, willingly reeling her in and away from that stranger . The only thing in focus is Colin Bridgerton. Everything is a blur of light stream stripes drowning the rest of the world out. It’s Penelope and Colin, and the nostalgic tunes softly scoring it all.
“ Just some friends ,” she responds. “ You? ”
Colin responds quickly, a half nod that should help explain why he is here (in her bar, her city);
“ Healey. ” He motions to an opposite corner - Penelope can just about make out the back of Danny’s head above the crowd. She’s hit with a recollection that Danny Healey plays football at the college down the hill. That Colin and Danny were teammates in secondary - good friends to this day, still.
Memories come in short bursts, playing like motion portraits lining the walls of Hogwarts as her mind races the moving stairs. Making her way back to something comfortable. Calling back on who she used to be. A glimmer of the Cool Girl he once had feelings for.
A raise of a thick brow accompanied by a teasing smirk paves the way for her sassy remark;
“ How’s that working out for you? ”
Colin chuckles. He can’t help it; it’s a Pavlovian response to her good-natured barbs. He moves to take a sip of his beer, then thinks better of it. Should probably say something.
Maybe he does.
Maybe they’ve side-stepped out of the carved pathway for prolonged moments so no one asks them to move or shoves them out the way. Innate movements to keep what they’ve found.
Maybe they’re standing in the midst of a packed bar for minutes upon minutes, reconnecting. Inching closer and closer. Building the foundations of a chapter they never got to finish. Minutes passing and her friends are chancing glances and taking bets.
Maybe the conversation fizzles out and their eyes are still stuck on the other. The rush of emotions from all that time ago rises, bubbles through like the beginnings of an eruption. Eyes roaming features (how they’ve changed, matured in the lost time, yet still look as good as they did back then). He’s more defined, she’s cut her hair. His presence still engulfs her, and hers does the same to him. Maybe they haven’t really changed at all if they’re willing to forego their night for a minute of each others time. For an opportunity to be seventeen again.
Maybe she moved first. Maybe he did. Maybe they both took the leap with liquid courage hanging blue and green stars in their eyes.
Before either knows it his free hand cradling her neck with deftly delicate fingers, his lips are ghosting hers. For a fraction of a second he’s there waiting and ready, doing what he should have countless times before.
And with the eyes of no one from their past, the anonymity of this place (this city, this bar), Penelope curls her toes to close the distance.
Light and warm. The weight of the moment overpowering the alcohol coating their lips and drowning the bar out. White flashes behind her eyelids and she has never felt more alive.
A step closer, and closer still.
Until their bodies are flush and her fingers are burrowed in the fabric of his sweater, her drink precariously kept upright between their bodies. The sweating bottle of his beer pressed into her back. Lips parting, mouths opening, tongues exploring. They stand tied up in the middle of the crowded bar until their lungs beg for breath. Even then they barely part. That if they do they’ll wake up from this dream and be nothing to one another once again.
Penelope’s chest is all but heaving. Her eyes hooded and dazed, stuck on the lips she finally got to kiss. Her fists frozen around the blue strands of his sweater. They have barely had time to fill their lungs when he speaks. Colin’s breaths caressing her flushed features as he says,
“ Wanna get out of here? ” Asks with pure, raw hope and sheer optimism to rewrite the past.
He sees her eyes widen, dart to the side, the shape of her lips rounding on an excuse. So he’s quick to rectify -
“ I have a room. ”
Her blue eyes get impossibly bigger, her mouth shuts and then just as his fingers itch to keep her in this moment a sly smirk finds him and she’s saying, “ Yes. ”
His megawatt smile shines brighter than the banks of snow in daylight. Colin is quick to break free of their embrace just enough to deposit his half drunk bottle on the nearest surface whilst Penelope downs the rest of hers. He grabs her hand, leading her through the crowded maze and out the door.
Stepping out into the real world the pair are met with a gust of evening chill as the dive door slams behind them. They stop in their tracks, glance at the other like it was part of some script. And just like a prewritten scene they’re merely replicating, they drop their adjoined hands.
The icy northern air brings fresh views. Colin and Penelope don’t need to talk, they simply know what comes next.
In sync, they reach into their respective pockets and pull out their phones to text their friends they left - well, Colin does. Penelope doesn’t even bother to look at the four unread messages from Stella, all she texts back is: Colin . That name says more than she could put in words. Conveys more than she could type in the short few seconds that she has left them and Him behind for one night with her biggest what if.
“ Hey. ”
Colin’s voice is low, hoarse and weighted with all the promise of tonight. He reaches out, wraps his hand around the one not holding her phone like a vice, and tugs her by the tips of her fingertips towards him - into him. Colin Bridgerton kisses Penelope Featherington with every reckless thing he’s harbored in the last few years.
Hand-in-hand, the cold dampened by the electric courage flowing freely, Colin and Penelope briskly make their way down the road to the local inn.
All the while three pairs of eyes watch them through a frosty window.