Playing at Forever - By Michelle Brewer Page 0,45
at her reflection in the mirror, that she discovered she had nothing at all to worry about.
She wore a pink dress—more form fitting than her last had been, and much shorter, with a pair of darker pink high heels. The girls at the salon had been very helpful when it came to putting her together—they handled everything, giving Penny pointers for future reference. Her hair had been tied up in some fancy up-do that she could never recreate, but she enjoyed it nonetheless.
She was ready for her L.A. debut, as the girls had called it.
“Hey Pen?” Tommy called.
“Up here,” she replied, looking at her reflection once more.
“Sorry I’m late. You wouldn’t believe how bad traffic was. I’d forgotten after being in Ravenside for—” He came to a stop as he entered the bathroom, both his mouth and his body.
“Darn right you’re late,” she told him, using her most haughty voice possible.
“Well, don’t you look like the perfect little L.A. socialite.” She frowned, looking over her reflection once more.
“You don’t like it?”
“I didn’t say that,”
“You called me a socialite.” He stepped forward, holding her arms with his hands. “You think I look silly.”
“I didn’t say that either.” Tommy touched his forehead to hers. “I think you look very pretty, and I think you’ll fit right in at The Ivy. That’s all.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, according to the girls at the salon, I’m debuting.”
“They weren’t wrong.” Penny couldn’t understand why he wasn’t as excited about this as she was. Shouldn’t he want her to fit in with his crowd?
“Do you want me to change? Take my hair down?” Penny reached up to the mess on top of her head and Tommy laughed, shaking his head.
“No, Penny, you look great.” He reached up to take her hands. “Really, you do. Don’t do a single thing.”
“But you’re clearly not happy with—”
“It’s just that—” Tommy sighed, shaking his head. “It’s just me, Penny. Really.”
“Well then you’d better explain, because I’m not going out like this if you don’t like it.” She placed her hands on her hips, suddenly feeling very self conscious. Tommy groaned, turning his back and crossing the large bathroom.
“I don’t like the thought of exposing you to these people. If they see you, with that amazing combination of cute and sexy, they’ll eat you alive.”
“Wait, are you trying to tell me that I look too good?” Tommy laughed, finding her eyes for a moment before finally nodding his head.
“You know, that about sums it up.” Penny laughed then too, running across the room and taking Tommy’s face in her hands so that she could kiss him on the cheek. “If you’d like, you can run along downstairs and show Graham what a monster he’s created. I just need to jump in the shower—it won’t take me very long to get ready.”
“I’ll see you downstairs then!” Her excitement had returned full force as she nearly danced down the stairs.
“My oh my, don’t you look like a shiny new Penny,” Graham grinned, sitting at the island in the center of the kitchen. An open beer sat in front of him. “You’re going to make quite the splash, I can see it already.”
“What else is on my agenda?” She actually was curious, but she only asked to turn the attention away from herself.
“Well, tomorrow evening you two will be dining out once more. That’s really about all that I’ve got lined up for you this trip.”
“This trip?”
“Well, you’ll be back, obviously. Tom’s going to be having a premiere within the next month or so. I’m going to make sure you two get in to a Lakers game next visit. I can just see you two all cuddled up, floor seats…”
“You’ve got it all planned out, don’t you?” Penny sat down on one of the stools across from Graham. “Do you even have our breakup planned already?”
“It’s my job, Penelope.” Penny nodded her head, deciding once and for all she didn’t like Graham all that much. “You signed on for this. Remember that. You were the one who came to us.”
“I went to Tommy. You just happened to be there.” Penny told the man.
“You do know that this is just temporary, don’t you? You’re the flavor of the month right now, but he’ll move on. He always does.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing all of this is just for show, isn’t it?” She really, really didn’t like him. Who was he to say anything about their relationship? He knew nothing about them.
“Okay,