Trivial

Wrong Answer

The number of players dwindled as they realized they didn't know Penelope as well as they anticipated. It wasn't their fault. Penelope was a very private person. They failed to answer the year she graduated from Oxford, her favorite book, or her first pet. Soon enough, only five players survived; Agatha, Eloise, Colin, Violet, and Felicity. Agatha was out when asked how Penelope received the scar on her left knee. Violet was out when asked the name of her first article published in The Sunday Times, to which she was very disappointed in herself.

Prudence asked another question, and Penelope sunk into her seat, hiding her face from Colin as she knew what his answer would be and knew it would be wrong. "Who was Penelope's first crush?" Felicity would be wrong too. She was too young to have known who it was at the time. The three of them held up their answers and Colin's eyes bulged.

"Who is Thomas Fillsburgh?!" Penelope glared at Eloise and cursed her for answering the question correctly. Colin was a jealous person, and she hoped he would never find out that she once had eyes for someone other than him.

Eloise puffed out her chest proudly, realizing she had won the game. "Thomas was a boy in our fourth-grade class. He offered Penelope gum one day at lunch, and she fell in love with him."

"El, I did not FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM. It was nothing." Penelope mouthed the words, 'shut up,' to her best friend.

"Right, you and Tommy only ate lunch together every day for a month and held hands in the hallways and napped together and-"

"El!" Penelope snapped.

"You napped together?" Colin's voice broke, and he once again looked like a sad puppy. It was as if he had practiced that face for years. "I thought I was your first crush, Pen."

"It's not as if I was your first crush, Colin. You barely noticed me until just a few years ago."

"That's not true. I have only ever had eyes for you." Nearly everyone in the room choked on laughter as Colin glared back at them.

"Well, that would be weird, considering she was nine and you were fourteen when you met." Colin went silent, angrily agreeing with his sister. He wasn't sure what he was angrier about, that he had lost the game to Eloise, or that Penelope once liked another boy and she hadn't told him. She was nine at the time, but still.

Penelope reached out a hand and placed it over Colin's before he pulled it back. "Colin, you can't seriously be upset about this. It was two decades ago." Colin pouted. "You are so dramatic," Penelope huffed.

"You married the oaf. This is what you signed up for." Benedict chuckled, attempting to sneak his twenty pounds back from the pile before Eloise smacked his hand away.

"Ben, these are my winnings! Keep your grubby, paint-covered hands off of them!"

"What do you plan to do with your pile, sister?"

"I'm not sure. I may buy a boat. Or a train."

"With 260 pounds? Good luck."

"Ah, he can do maths as well. Here I thought you could only doodle, Ben." Eloise leafed through her bills, ensuring it was all there.

"Don't make me tax that money, El. No one likes a sore winner." Penelope quipped, hoping that ignoring Colin might make him forget about this nonsense with Thomas Fillsburgh. It did not.

"How could you like someone else Penelope?" Colin whined, folding his arms tantrum-like.

"Good God, Colin, stop embarrassing your poor wife." Anthony ordered his younger brother. "Get over it."

"Really, Colin, you can't possibly think that Penelope waited all those years for you to make a move, did you?" Colin knew that Penelope had a crush on him when they were younger. Her flattery was a constant in his life, and it never occurred to him that she might have liked someone else before she met him, or after.

"Eloise, you are not helping!" Penelope gritted through her teeth. "Colin, please, I am with you now. What does it matter what boys I have been interested in before?"

"There was more than one?!" Penelope only seemed to be digging herself into a deeper hole the more she tried to reassure Colin. His jealousy was a little flattering if she had to admit it.

"Colin, perhaps this is a conversation you save for later, yes?" Colin reluctantly nodded to his mother. "Now, who wants cake while Penelope opens her presents?" Every Bridgerton sibling, including Colin (especially Colin), voiced their approval.

"You got me presents? That is highly unnecessary."

"Nonsense, dear. It is your birthday, enjoy it." Agatha demanded with a fierceness that Penelope thought it might be detrimental to her health to object. She handed Penelope a small box wrapped in a beautiful purple ribbon. Inside was an even more beautiful metallic green fountain pen, engraved with her initials.

"Mrs-Agatha, this is wonderful. I can't thank you enough." Penelope hesitantly reached over and hugged Agatha, startling both of them a bit before they embraced it. "I can't wait to use this." Penelope smiled widely, tracing her thumb over the engraving.

"Open mine now!" Felicity exclaimed, a little too loudly. Hyacinth nudged her in the side. "Sorry, ours. It's from both of us." Penelope peeled back a crinkly gift basket, and she was surprised to reveal an assortment of lemon themed items and different kinds of lemonade. Her sister did know her well.

"I love it! I'm not sure how I will finish it all, but I love it!" Penelope's eyes widened as she slowly realized just how much was in the basket.

"We will help!" Hyacinth laughed.

"Open my present, Pen." Penelope lifted the lid from a rectangular box decorated in The Sunday Time's news clippings. This was definitely from Eloise. Penelope's eyes watered as she stared at the tickets in front of her. "Two front row seats to the Spice Girls reunion tour."

"Oh, El, you remembered!" Penelope choked between tears. She hadn't planned on crying today, but it was all too much.

"It's just the Spice Girls, I hardly think that qualifies for the waterworks." Colin grumbled, secretly hoping his gift caused the same reaction.

"It's not just the Spice Girls, Colin," Eloise scoffed. "Pen and I first bonded over wearing matching Spice Girls t-shirts. We've been best friends ever since."

Penelope laughed through her sniffling, "We must have listened to every one of their albums a million times. I can't believe you got these, El. This is amazing. Thank you." Eloise pulled her best friend into a tight hug, tears nearly forming in her eyes too now.

"How is anybody supposed to top that?" Francesca asked, embarassed by her gift in comparison.

"I believe I can." Colin grinned, pulling a piece of paper from his coat pocket.

"Whatever is on that paper cannot top my gift, Colin. I know her best. I have a win to prove it." Eloise challenged, anxiously watching Penelope unfold it.

"Colin, what is this?" Penelope's eyebrows crinkled upwards.

"Good job, brother. Your wife doesn't even know what it is."

"Shut up, Ben!" Colin barked. "It's a writers retreat. I heard about it while I was in Greece a few years ago. I thought it would perfect for you, and they happen to have another two week course coming up this summer, so I bought us plane tickets. I thought I could show you all the places I told you about in our letters. What do you think?"

"Colin, I don't know what to say. I-" Penelope really was at a loss for words, tears pooling around her eyes again. She thanked him in the only way she saw fit. Penelope threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed him hard. "I don't know how to thank you," She whispered.

"I can think of something." Colin grinned wolfishly, placing a sneaky hand on her rear and squeezing it, causing Penelope to yelp. She would be in for a long night.