Can I Play With You?

Roman felt listless. It had been nearly three hours and Penny still wasn't back yet.

He knew that his brother-in-law had a tendency to ramble but did he have to be like this when she was still recovering? She had only been home from the hospital for a few days; she probably shouldn't be out right now at all.

He was doing his best not to be overbearing because he knew that drove her crazy but he couldn't help being worried. Watching her get wheeled into the OR had been the most terrifying moment of his life.

People always thought that Roman had everything; money, looks, a fancy high-paying job. More than once his taste in women had been questioned because he could have married anyone but he married an upper-middle class girl who wanted to become a graphic designer.

They didn't understand. Penelope had saved him from the weight of his parents' expectations.

They chose to live in Brentwood when they could afford to buy a house in Malibu because they didn't want to live near any movie stars, choosing a nice but not as flashy neighborhood in the L.A. area.

They were strict, austere people who put an insane amount of pressure on their only child. Both of them were only children as well so Roman didn't even have cousins to play with.

Nearly every moment of his schedule was planned from the moment he was born. His father was always busy—the hospital wasn't the only property he owned—and his mother didn't seem to know what to do with a child.

He was enrolled in every sport, music, art, or language lesson one could possibly imagine and was expected to maintain perfect grades. Never interacting with other kids outside of school or these lessons, he wasn't all that great at making friends.

Despite being surrounded by people, Roman was terribly lonely. To make things worse, the neighborhood they lived in didn't have any children his age. It was primarily made up of young couples without children (or who had toddlers) and empty-nesters.

By age twelve, he could speak Spanish and French, knew how to make a clay pot on a pottery wheel, played six sports (though he only truly enjoyed basketball), and had a blue belt in taekwondo but didn't have a single person he actually considered a friend.

Moving from elementary school with its smaller single classes up to middle school where he suddenly had a different teacher and classmates for every subject was overwhelming. Roman did his best to be friendly with everyone but had no idea how to make a real connection.

That was when Penelope came into his life like a ray of light breaking through the clouds of his loneliness. After one particularly frustrating day at school where multiple classmates called him a loser for being so out-of-touch about what was popular among their peers, he shot baskets in his front yard to blow off steam. Imagining the ball was their heads as it slammed against the pavement was particularly satisfying.

How was it his fault that he didn't know anything about being a normal kid? His parents had never let him be one!

He was so angry that he didn't even notice the moving truck pulling up to a house diagonally across the street from his. He continued chucking the ball at the basket and missing it more than half the time because he threw with too much force.

"Whatcha doing?" a young female voice asked from behind him.

Roman whirled around and saw an elementary schooler of indeterminate age peering up at him curiously. She wore a white t-shirt with a fluffy kitten printed on it and a denim skirt, was missing a couple of teeth, and had the brightest red hair he had ever seen tied into two braids.

He frowned. "Who are you?"

"I'm Penelope but you can call me Penny if you want. All my friends do. My family is moving in over there," she said while pointing to the truck.

Roman finally noticed it and saw a woman with hair as bright as her daughter's carrying a box into the house while a redheaded toddler followed in her wake. It wasn't often that people moved in or out around here.

"I see," he said, not knowing how else to respond. "I'm Roman."

Penny smiled at him and laughed a little. "Are your parents obsessed with all things Greek and Roman too? That's why I got my name and my brother is Perseus but we call him Percy because that's a lot for a baby."

He blinked at her in surprise. He had no idea why his parents had named him the way they had. It never occurred to him to ask.

"Can I play with you?" she continued. "My mom told me to stay out of the way until I can unpack my room but there's nothing to do."

No one had ever asked to play with him before. During recess in elementary school, he either stood awkwardly to the side by himself or somehow snuck into someone else's games.

Roman wanted to say yes but what came out of his mouth instead was "do you even know how to play basketball?"

"No, but I'm sure you can teach me!" Penny replied with a confident grin.

That had been how it all started. He did end up teaching her the basics of basketball even though she wasn't very good at it and he had to lower the hoop height so she could reach it better.

After that, she frequently caught him outside while he was playing. It reached a point where Roman started going out during a certain time of day because she would usually be out there and come over to play with him.

A few months into this, his mother was coming home from a gathering with her friends and seemed oddly thrilled that he was playing with someone else. That led to an introduction between the Cross and Logan parents.

They hit it off immediately once his mother realized that Iris Logan was somewhat famous in archeological circles. Apparently she had named him Roman because she had studied history in college so they had a lot to talk about.

With another parent to guide her, she eased up on her expectations of him slightly. He was still going down the path his parents laid out for him career-wise but his extra-curricular activities were cut down significantly so he had more time to himself.

And under Penny's friendly, cheerful influence, Roman became much braver interacting with his peers at school and actually managed to make some friends. They taught him what was cool and helped him become more like a normal kid.

Her timely appearance had changed the course of his life forever. She became his most precious person very quickly though it hadn't been a romantic sense—or so he had thought.