Playing at Forever (16 page)

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, let’s get this show on the road,”
  Tommy
announced, bouncing down the stairs airily.  He wore a pair of dark jeans with a gray dress shirt and black sweater vest—the picture of perfection.  Penny was, once again, taken aback by how handsome he could look without any amount of effort at all. 

“You kids have a good night.”  Graham called as Penny hopped off her stool and hurried to catch up with Tommy.  She didn’t even bother looking behind her to acknowledge the other man.

“You two looked pretty serious back there.” 

“Oh, it was just business,”
  she
told him.  Wasn’t it always?  “You’re driving?”  She questioned as the garage door began to open. 

“Is that okay?” 

“Of course,”
  Penny
told him.  Inside the garage were two very fast looking cars, one some classic convertible, the other much more modern. 
“Your choice.”

“Let’s go with the one that’s least likely to make a mess of my hair,”
  she
told him, approaching the newer car. 

“The Porsche it is.”  Penny hopped into the passenger seat, starting to feel slightly nervous. 

“Don’t worry, Pen.  It’s just business as usual.  Just smile a lot.  Laugh here and there.  These people are no different from you.”

“That’s what
you
say,”
  Penny
shook her head, knowing better.  Just because Tommy thought the world of her didn’t mean everyone else would. 

“It’s what I
know
.”  She sighed as he backed out of the garage and hit a button, allowing the gate to open.  Within moments, they were flying through the crowd of photographers, taking off down the street. 

It took much less time to get somewhere in L.A. with Tommy behind the wheel, Penny mused as they pulled up to a very busy looking restaurant.  A patio encased by a short, white picket fence buzzed with faces she recognized.  “All right, Pen.  Here we go—no turning back now.”  Tommy squeezed her hand as the valet approached, opening her door for her. 

As she stepped out, several cameras began flashing and Penny turned to look for Tommy—feeling his hand in hers before she could see him.  He smiled at her as they walked toward the entrance.  “Good evening Mr. Davis,”
  the
pretty girl welcomed him.  “We have a table waiting for you on the terrace.”

“Thank you,
Miley
.”  Tommy nodded, following the woman who approached them.  Penny clung to his hand, looking straight ahead so as not to stumble if she saw someone too famous. 

“Graham must’ve called in some favors for this one,”
  Tommy
muttered as they were seated at a table very near the fence. 
“To get this table on such short notice?
 
Unheard of.”

“Well, that Graham is certainly something, isn’t he?”  She had to remind herself to keep smiling.  “Tommy, isn’t that Ryan Wilson behind you?”  Ryan Wilson had been the villain in one of Tommy’s more recent movies.  Tommy turned around to look.

“So it is.”  As if on cue, the other actor turned around to greet Tommy.  “Ryan, this is my girlfriend Penny.”

“Finally settling down, are we?”  Ryan gave Tommy a pat on the back. 
“About time, man.”
  He turned his attention to Penny.  “You’ve got yourself a good guy here—especially if you can get him to put down some roots.” 

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,”
  Penny
smiled.  “Let’s just see if he can make it through dinner first.”  Ryan laughed, nodding his head.

“You’d be a fool to mess this one up, man,” 

“You know, I’m starting to think you might be right.”  Tommy told the man, grinning happily as Penny tried to hide her enthusiasm.

By the end of the night, one thing was clear:  Penny was a hit.

Tommy took an extra long shower the next morning, trying very hard to let the hot water relax his tense muscles.  He knew it was useless, though. 

Being around her this much was…killing him. 
Literally.
 

He sighed, tossing his towel aside as he left the bathroom. 

Penny was upstairs, presumably still sleeping after their late night.  She’d had a ball, joking around with Ryan and his date.  It had been everything Graham had hoped it would be and more. 

The two of them had been quite the pair. 

It wasn’t that Tommy was unhappy with the results.  No, it was quite the opposite. He was elated everything had gone so well, especially for Penny. 

But it meant that her integration into his life was almost complete.  Soon enough, he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without being reminded of her in one way or another.  And for a relationship that began with a predetermined expiration date…well, that didn’t bode well for him. 

He’d had a hard enough time locking her away into the back of his mind last time.  He could only imagine how much more difficult it would be now. 

For a few moments, Tommy allowed himself to contemplate the possibility of keeping her in his life.

But then he changed his mind as he imagined her laughing with Ryan last night, only this time she was laughing at him with a different look in her eye.  No, Tommy couldn’t take that. 

He couldn’t even stand the thought of another guy looking at her.  How would he do if he had to watch someone else put their hands on her? 

Out of the question.
 

She would move on, eventually.  A girl like Penny was meant to have a family—he could tell how much she wanted one just with the way she handled Amy’s girls. 

Someday, she was going to make an excellent mother. 

Unlike Tommy, who only seemed to destroy any life he touched. 

He shut the refrigerator door and decided he would go upstairs to check on Penny before he had to leave for yet another day of contract negotiations and interviews.  Damage control, as Graham called it. 

As he opened the bedroom door, though, he realized that Penny wasn’t sleeping—from the sounds of it, she was taking a shower.

He knew he should turn around and go—but for whatever reason, Tommy was set on making things even harder for himself.  He peeked around the corner to find that,
yes,
Penny was definitely taking a shower.  He saw nothing more than her shadow through the obscured glass—but it was more than he needed to see. 

He immediately turned and left the room, heading for the closest bathroom.

This time, he was going to take the coldest shower his body could withstand. 

“Hey Tommy, do you mind if I use your computer for a few things?” 

“
Hm
?”
  He looked up at her, looking very distracted. 
“Oh, my computer?
  Sure, go right ahead.  I’ll be gone most of the day again.  Feel free to make yourself at home.” 

“We’re having dinner again tonight, aren’t we?” 

“Yep—reservations are at eight.” 

“Things went well last night, didn’t they?”  Penny sat down on one of the stools and plucked a few grapes from the bowl in front of her.  “I never would have thought that Ryan Wilson was such a nice guy.  He always plays such a jerk.”

“Well, they call it acting for a reason,”
  she
frowned, looking down at the table. 

“I guess you’ll be off soon, then, won’t you?”  Penny tried once more, but still, he wouldn’t even look at her. 

“Probably should get going, yeah.”  He rose to his feet and finally looked at her, but only for a moment.  “I’ll see you tonight then.”

“See you tonight.”

The tension in the air was so thick, she could almost taste it.  Whatever it was, she didn’t like it in the slightest. 

With a heavy sigh, Penny headed back upstairs, over to Tommy’s office.  She only wanted to check her email, really.  Her parents often sent her all sorts of things—from legitimate letters to jokes they passed on.  Even if she didn’t reply to all of them, she at least liked to acknowledge that she received them. 

She sat down at the desk and moved the mouse around, pleased to find the computer was on.  But as she went to open the browser, a different window popped open.  Penny stared at it for a moment.

It was clearly a document of some kind.  From the looks of it, it appeared to be a script.  A wave of excitement jumped through her—maybe this was the script for a movie Tommy was thinking about doing. 

A dilemma of ethic arose as she tried to decide whether to go through with reading it or not.  On the one hand, it was obviously property that did not belong to her.  On the other, though, it might be something that could possibly damage Tommy’s career. 

This was how Penny justified scrolling to the top of the document and beginning to read.

She had no idea how much time had passed—in fact, she had been so caught up in the script she was reading that she hadn’t even heard the door open. 
“Pen?”
 

“Oh my god, you startled me,”
  Penny
jumped, her hand covering her heart.  “Wait, aren’t you home early?” 

“Meetings didn’t take as long I thought they would.  Thought I’d come home early and see how you were doing.” 

“Oh, I’m—I’ve just been…reading.”  She could hear the guilt in her own voice. 

“Reading what…?” 
And the near-anger in his.
 

“I wasn’t snooping, Tommy—I swear I wasn’t.  I just wanted to check my email and then this document just…popped up.” 

“It just popped up.”  It was not a question, but instead a statement of disbelief.  “How much, exactly, have you read?”

Oh, this was bad.  Penny bit her lip.  “Um, well…all of it.”  She paused.  “Some parts twice.” 

“Oh, come on, Penny—that was
my
business.  You don’t see me digging through your personal files—”

“Wait,
you
wrote that?” 

“No, I wasted my time on it.”  Tommy walked over to the computer and, without even asking Penny to let him
in,
he took the mouse from her and closed the file.