In Love Across the Multiverse

When Penelope Logan opened her eyes and her hazy vision focused, she realized the most handsome man she had ever seen was holding her hand. He was also a perfect stranger.

She jerked her hand away immediately and tried to sit up but that only caused a wave of pain to come over her so she laid back down. Oh. She was in a hospital bed. It was coming back to her now.

After getting home from her second job, she was so out of it that she lost her footing and fell down the stairs at her apartment complex. This ridiculously attractive man must have been a Good Samaritan who saw her fall and took her to the hospital.

Penelope internally sighed. Of course an Adonis like this would be the one to come to her rescue at such an embarrassing moment.

He was sitting down so she couldn't be sure but he looked tall and was wearing a sharp suit. His eyes were crystal blue and his perfectly coiffed hair was dark, kind of like that actor who played Superman a while back. He had a nice jawline too.

He smiled at her in relief. "Glad you're awake. How are you feeling?"

Panic suddenly seized her when she looked out the window and realized the sun was in the wrong place in the sky. This wasn't the time to be drooling over some eye candy!

"What day is it?!" Penelope shrieked.

If she was unconscious all night and hadn't been able to call in at her morning call center job, she was going to get fired! It didn't pay much but it was the only full-time job she had. Her second job as a cashier in a drugstore was only part time and would never pay the bills.

The debt from her father's cancer treatment and funeral expenses last year would never get paid off without the call center job. Since her younger brother was still in college and barely able to pay for himself, there was no way he would be able to help.

The handsome man seemed confused by her panic. "Uh…it's Wednesday. Why do you ask?"

Dread filled the pit of her stomach. No no no no no. She fell down the stairs on Monday. Which meant she hadn't called in to either of her jobs and was now likely fired from both.

"Phone. Where's my phone?" Penelope asked frantically, unable to search for her pockets because the hospital gown she was wearing had none.

He pulled it out of the pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to her with a perplexed expression on his face. What was that about? Never mind, that wasn't important right now. She needed to call her bosses and explain.

If she got a signed doctor's note and this guy's testimony vouching for her, she would be able to get her jobs back, right? Right?!

Penelope was so preoccupied by her panic in searching through her contacts list for her supervisors to realize that the phone she was holding was different from the one she remembered. She definitely didn't own the latest iPhone; she had bought her iPhone 6 used and its battery life was horrible.

"Where…are they?" she mumbled to herself.

Neither of her supervisors' contacts were in there but there were a lot of names she didn't recognize. Including somebody named Roman who had heart emojis surrounding his name. The only names she did recognize were her brother's and parents'.

That was when she realized that there was something weird about the phone. It had unlocked with her touch ID so she hadn't noticed before but this phone was slightly bigger than hers should have been and had a different case.

Her case imitated a pile of fries and this one looked like a bunch of those colorful little French cookies she could never afford to buy but had always been curious about. This wasn't her phone so why had it opened with her fingerprint?

"…Penny? Are you okay?" Penelope's head snapped up at the sound of his voice and saw the man staring at her with concern written all over his face.

Penny? Only her closest friends and family called her by that nickname.

"I don't—who are you? How do you know my name?" she asked nervously.

None of this made sense and her head was fuzzy. She needed to call her supervisors but she didn't know their numbers. This phone was hers but not hers and this ridiculously handsome man knew her nickname but she had never seen him before in her life.

The concern on the man's face grew even more apparent. "Penny…it's me. Roman. Your husband?"

Roman? As in emoji hearts Roman? This had to be some kind of joke.

Penelope wasn't married. She hadn't even been dating anyone before this. She'd had the same hopeless crush on the guy who shared her desk at the call center for two years now but that was it.

"I don't have a husband. Who are you? What do you want with me?" her voice rose in pitch out of nerves with every sentence.

Roman frowned and pressed a button nearby before responding. "Easy there. You must be a little confused because of the anesthesia. You did just have surgery, after all. It's okay, Penny. I mean you no harm."

Penelope's panic grew worse. Anesthesia? Surgery? Why would she need surgery for falling down the stairs?

Come to think of it, her pain was concentrated in her abdomen and that was a little weird. Falling should have caused some sort of head injury or maybe a broken bone in one of her arms or legs.

Was this a dream? Dreams weren't supposed to hurt though! The pain in her abdomen was unbearable when she tried to sit up earlier. Exactly what sort of surgery did she supposedly have? She had no idea what was going on here and it was scaring her.