“Well, yeah. I am.” I defiantly tilted my chin up.
“You don’t have to do that. Camden left.”
“This has nothing to do with Camden.”
He narrowed his eyes. “If not Camden, then what?”
“I really don’t want to talk about it with you. Or anyone.” I turned back to Lewis. “I accept your offer. Can you take me back to your place?”
Penn’s head turned to look at Lewis with shock written across his face. “What?”
Lewis held his hands up. “Hey, man, I didn’t want her to run off into the night. I tried to convince her to stay.”
“After the last couple of weeks,” he said, looking back in my direction, “you were going to leave without saying anything?”
“Technically, I told Lewis to tell you,” I said with a shrug.
“Wait, weeks?” Lewis asked.
“Yes, I’ve been staying at the beach house with Natalie this whole time,” Penn said with as much defiance as me.
“Hey!” I chided.
We’d said we wouldn’t tell his friends that he was there, so they wouldn’t come bug us. He was about to ruin all of that.
“Okay, okay. I officially rescind my offer for you to stay at my place. I see that I stepped into the middle of this,” Lewis said.
“You didn’t step into the middle of anything,” I told them both vehemently.
“I think I did.” He nodded at us both and then left us alone.
“So, what really happened?” Penn asked, his voice lowering in concern.
“I said, I don’t want to talk about it. You know what? I’m just leaving.”
“Fine. I’ll take you back to my place.”
“Don’t you need to stay?”
Penn arched his eyebrow. “What part of this party made you think I wanted to be here for anything other than you?”
I snapped my mouth closed, speechless. That was not what I’d thought he would say.
“Me?”
He nodded. “I hate galas, but I came to this one to spend time with you. And then Katherine stole you the entire time. So, I would be happy to get out of here with you.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. It was…romantic. I’d sworn I wouldn’t go down that road with him again. And still, my insides squirmed at the attention. I loved that he was ready to leave the party with me. And the look of concern on his face. And all the things that I shouldn’t care about. Including the uncontrollable jealousy I’d felt when I realized that he and Katherine had been…or maybe currently were an item. Going home with him would be against everything we’d worked toward.
But I found myself nodding anyway.
Then we were out of the building and into a waiting cab, headed toward his place.
Silence stretched between us. A silence that was tense. I’d never experienced this from him before. In Paris, we had conversed so effortlessly that it had been my undoing. The last couple of weeks of silence had been noticeable but easy. As if he had always been meant to be there. The conversations we’d had since we started talking again were like Paris all over again.
Now, we were huddled together in the back of a cab without a word to say to the other. And dozens trapped just under the surface. Pride and years of pent-up anger holding them in place.
I tried to ignore whatever was coursing between us as I slid out of the cab and took the elevator up to the top floor of his building. The elevator ride was a silent battle of wills to see who would crack first.
What I’d heard tonight from Camden and Addie warred with what Penn had said at the end of the night. Perhaps I was overreacting about it all, but mostly, I was confused. I didn’t know what was true or if I should even care. Let alone what I felt for Penn. The person he had been versus the person he was now versus the picture others had painted. Somewhere in it all was the truth.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re so upset?” Penn asked once the elevator closed behind us and he’d gotten Totle from the bedroom.
“I’m not upset.” Totle ran around my feet, and I hoisted him into my arms until he calmed down.
Penn just raised an eyebrow.
“I’m confused. I don’t know…who you are. I don’t know who any of you are or what you want with me.”
“What we want with you? Why would we want something from you?”