Read Playing at Forever Online

Authors: Michelle Brewer

Playing at Forever (10 page)

BOOK: Playing at Forever
3.74Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“I’ll do it, Tommy.  I’ll go along with whatever Graham wants me to.”

“Now
that
is music to my ears.”  Penny looked over her shoulder to find Graham sitting in an armchair, a pleased smile on his face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five

 

Tommy looked between Graham and Penny, not exactly sure what he should do. 

“Just wait a minute, Graham—what happened, Penny?  What’s wrong?”  It was pretty obvious that, whatever it was, it had really upset Penny.  Her eyes were red, her cheeks tear streaked. 

“It doesn’t matter,”
  she
shook her head.  “I’ll play whatever role you want me to, just so long as it means I can buy them out.” 

“Did Kevin say something?”  Tommy was suddenly very angry.  Who the hell was this guy, going around threatening Penny? 

“No,”
  Penny
shook her head, sniffing quietly.  “So what’s the plan, Graham?” 
she
asked, sitting on the bed and wiping at her cheeks.  Tommy watched her, her expression very serious.  “How do we do this?” 

“Penny, I can just—”

“I’m not taking anything from you unless I can do something for you in return.”  She held his eyes for a long moment, pleading with him.  He could see the pain there, the heartbreak.  He could also see the determination.

And so, finally, Tommy gave in. 

He sat down on the bed beside her, resting his elbows on his legs as he ran his fingers through his hair.  “How do we do this?” 
he
asked, feeling powerless.

“We’ll play it slow.”  But as Graham continued on, Tommy couldn’t bring himself to listen.  It didn’t matter, really. 

This wasn’t supposed to be how this happened. 

He was supposed to help Penny, like she had always done for him.  He couldn’t remember a time since he’d met her that she hadn’t been there for him when he needed her most.  And how had he repaid her? 
By taking off, by disappearing for ten years.
  What if she had needed him then?

He had wanted to make it up to her. 

“This is going to work, Tom.  This is going to be good for you.”  Graham was saying.  “You’re doing a good thing here, Penelope.”

“So now what?”

“Now, I’ll leave you two to discuss your own arrangements.  I’ve got phone calls to make.”  Graham rose to his feet and put his sunglasses on.  “I think I’m going to like doing business with this girl.”  

Neither Penny nor Tommy spoke until they heard Graham’s tires squeal as he pulled out of the parking lot. 

“You didn’t have to do this, Pen.” 

“Yes, I did.”  She stared at the floor.  “They’re getting married.  She wants to take The Seaside from me, just like she took Kevin.”  Tommy watched as the girl beside him wiped at her cheeks.  “I need something from you, and you need something from me.”

“I would have given you the money.  You know that.” 

“I wouldn’t have taken it.  The future of your career is unclear, Tommy.  I can do this.”

“And what is
this
, exactly?”  Because it didn’t matter to him whatever terms Graham had set up for them.  This was his relationship.  This was
his
friend. 

Penny inhaled a haggard sounding breath. 

“We’ll act like a couple.  Pretend we’re in love with each other.”

Pretend
.  Tommy hated that word. 

“And how, exactly, are we supposed to do that?” 
he
questioned.  What was allowed?  What wasn’t?

“I don’t know,”
  Penny
sighed.  He felt the bed move and he looked up to find Penny reaching for the bottle of whiskey that was now on the floor beside the bed.  She unscrewed the lid and brought the bottle to her lips, taking a long drink.  He could tell from her reaction that she didn’t like the liquor, but that didn’t stop her. 

When she finished, she passed the bottle in his direction and he took it, following her lead. 

“Graham said we take it slow.  A few dates here and there. 
Nothing out of the ordinary.”
 

“What about the rest of it?”  He couldn’t help it.  Even now, all he could think about was kissing her.  Ever since last night, it was almost impossible to think about anything else.

“This is just business,”
  she
told him at last.  “I’m done mixing business with pleasure.  Look where that got me last time.”

“No mixing business with pleasure. 
Got it.”
 

“And absolutely
no
kissing.”  She told him, looking up to find his eyes. 

“No kissing. 
Got it.”
  Tommy lifted the bottle to his lips once more, taking another long drink. 

He passed it to the girl beside him, and she followed his lead this time. 

Suddenly, he wasn’t looking forward to whatever the future had to offer him nearly as much as he had been only a few short hours ago.

Because, only a few short hours ago, Tommy had almost believed that, maybe, he could romance Penelope Lang for real.  He knew it was a bad idea, and he’d told himself that repeatedly. 

He would only mess it up, like he always did—and instead of just losing a girlfriend, he would lose the one girl he’d ever really cared about.  

But he couldn’t shake the desire, no matter how hard he tried. 

At least until just now, in this moment.
 

Now, he could see it all too clearly.

 

When Penny woke in the morning, her head was pounding.  She sat up, looking around the room only to find Tommy sleeping in the armchair, his feet propped up on the foot of the bed.  “I feel like death,”
  she
groaned, moving very slowly as she crawled out of the bed.  The bathroom seemed like a mile away, but she made it eventually.

She looked almost as badly as she felt, she thought as she glanced into the mirror. 

“Remind me to never,
ever
drink whiskey. 
Ever
.”
  She told Tommy as she opened the door.  On her way back to the bed, she picked up her purse and ran a brush through her tangled hair, dabbing on a bit of lip gloss.  She had already done her best to remove the raccoon eyes sleeping in her mascara had given her. 

“At least you were able to sleep in a bed.”  Tommy stood up to stretch.  “I feel like I slept in a suitcase.” 

“I told you that you could share the bed.” 

“Oh, I definitely made the right choice.”  He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged several moments later. 

“I need to take a shower.”  She felt very gross.  “Want to give me a ride to Amy’s?”

“You sure you really want to be on the back of a motorcycle right now?”  Penny’s stomach churned. 

“On second thought, maybe I’ll walk.”

“I’ll go with you,”
  Tommy
was already sitting down to put his shoes on.  “Just take a couple aspirin, drink something with sugar in it, and eat something light.  I know it doesn’t sound appealing now, but you’ll feel better once you take a shower.”

He was absolutely right on point.  Her stomach was turning at the mere thought of eating anything at all. 

When he finished with his shoes, Penny pulled the door open, ready to walk out into the cool morning air.

But as she faced what appeared to be a mob of photographers, Penny froze. 

Tommy was there in an instant, pulling her back inside and shutting the door.  He swore angrily, looking around the room as if searching for something to break. 

“What was that?”  Penny asked dumbly. 


That
was probably Graham’s doing.”  Tommy raked his fingers through his hair.  “Okay, change of plans—I’m going to have to give you a ride.  You’re going to have to hold on to your stomach, Pen.  When I open the door, you just stay close to me.”  Penny nodded, suddenly feeling very helpless. 

He held her eyes for a moment before pulling the door open.  Penny attached herself to him, ducking her head into his chest as they yelled questions at him.  He said nothing as he climbed onto the bike, Penny jumping on quickly behind him. 

They didn’t even bother putting helmets on as Tommy took off, flying out of the parking lot faster than the paparazzi could follow. 

Penny held tightly, pressing her face into his back as she closed her eyes. 

“You okay?” 
he
questioned as they came to a stop in Amy’s driveway.  Penny only nodded, taking Tommy’s arm as she climbed off the bike.  “I’m sorry, Pen.”

“Hey, this is what I signed up for, isn’t it?” 
she
shrugged her shoulders.  “It’s just going to get worse, isn’t it?”  Tommy nodded solemnly.  “I’ll learn, then.”

“Want me to come to the restaurant tonight for dinner?”  Penny nodded.

“I owe you from last night.”

“Believe me, Penny Lane.  You don’t owe me anything.” 

“After all this, we’ll call it even.”  Penny told him, backing away.  He started up the motorcycle and she watched as he took off down the street, the definition of a rebel—even after all these years. 

Amy was sitting at the bar, a cup of coffee in front of her. 

“Is someone doing the walk of shame?”  She questioned as Penny tried to sneak upstairs unnoticed.  “I didn’t hear you come in last night.”

“I didn’t,”
  Penny
said, biting her lip.  Amy looked up, her eyes widening ever-so-slightly as she took in Penny’s appearance. 

“Wow, Pen.  You look…”

“Hung-over?”
  Penny took a seat on one of the stools and Amy nodded, hurrying to the refrigerator and returning with a glass of orange juice.  The smell revolted Penny, but she knew she needed to drink it.  “I crashed at Tommy’s motel last night.”

“I figured that much.”

“Neither one of us was in any condition to even walk home.” 

“That bad?”
  Penny sighed, resting her head on the counter top. 

“Kevin proposed to Gina, Amy.  He proposed to her, and we’re not even divorced yet.”

“Are you
kidding
me?”  Amy slammed her coffee cup onto the counter and Penny flinched.  “Oh, sorry,”
  Amy
reached out to rub her friend’s back. 

“I wish I was.  Gina felt the need to share the news last night.  She also decided to threaten to take my own restaurant from me.”

“That sneaky little—”
  Amy
broke off, biting her lip.  “Are you okay?”

“Well, it was a little bit of a shock at first.  But it doesn’t hurt as badly as I thought it would.  Kevin and Gina, I mean.  The Seaside, on the other hand…”  Penny thought back to last night.  How desperately she wanted to save her restaurant.  How much she was willing to do in order to do just that. 

Should she tell Amy? 

No, she realized.  No, the less people knew, the better. 
For both her sake and for Tommy’s.
 

“And how did things go with Tommy?”  Penny shrugged her shoulders.

“I just wanted to make it go away.” 
Which was exactly what she had done.
  She had erased the problem by taking Tommy up on his solution.  And then, she had erased the problems that arose
because
of that solution by drinking whiskey. 
Lots and lots of whiskey.
 

“And did you…?” 

“Nothing happened,”
  she
told her friend.  It was the truth.  They had spent the rest of the evening talking about the plan.  They would go out on a few dates, maybe spend some time in L.A.  They could hold hands and hug—things they normally did even just as friends, but that was where the line was drawn. 

She thought about the one rule she had given him. 

No kissing. 

She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to maintain the façade.  Kissing Tommy the first time had been a lapse of judgment.  Kissing him the second time—
that
had been a mistake.  Penny wasn’t willing to let it happen again.

They were friends.  This was something she had to continually remind herself. 

And kissing him…well, that made her want to forget all about being friends. 

Penny didn’t
need
romance right now.  She’d had that, and it hadn’t given her anything worthwhile.

No, what she needed was business.  And that was exactly what her arrangement with Tommy was. 
Business
.
 

“You sure?”
  Amy questioned and Penny pulled herself away from her thoughts. 

“Positive.  Of course, the tabloids will probably claim something different.  They must have found out he was here—and of course, they just had to be waiting out there the one morning I want to just…disappear.” 

“You were photographed?”  Penny nodded grimly, taking another drink of her juice. 
“By paparazzi?”
  Penny nodded again.  “Oh wow, Pen—that’s so—you’re, like, famous now!”  Penny laughed then, shaking her head. 

“No, I’m pretty sure the word is
in
famous.”  She sighed.  “I have to take a shower.  I should be at The Seaside already.”

“Let those two handle it.  You don’t need to be there, dealing with them.”

“No, but I should be.  It’s my restaurant.”  She shrugged her shoulders, finishing off the orange juice.  “I’ll see you tonight, Amy.” 

Penny was, once again, facing her day with dread.

 

Tommy was livid.  He had known the paparazzi were going to track him down eventually—that was a given.  But he thought it awfully funny that they had shown up just hours after Graham had left.  Didn’t he understand that, sometimes, a person just needed a few days outside of the spotlight? 

He hadn’t returned to the motel right away, instead opting to spend a good portion of the day out on his bike.  He drove along the coast, taking in the fresh air, pushing all of his thoughts out of his head.

By the time he’d returned, it was already getting dark.  He pulled up to the motel, the swarm of photographers milling around.  It didn’t take long for them to jump up and circle him, but he pushed forward, saying nothing.  Even on the other side of the door, he could hear them out there, begging him for answers. 

Who was she?  Where did she go?  What brought him here?  Was he planning on staying?  It wouldn’t be long before they had the answers to most of those questions, not in a small town like this.  People were probably already talking about Tommy’s return and what his relationship might be with Penny.  He’d seen it at The Seaside yesterday morning. 

BOOK: Playing at Forever
3.74Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Brightside by Tullius, Mark
Model Crime 1 by Carolyn Keene
Burn My Heart by Beverley Naidoo
What Would Emma Do? by Eileen Cook
One Choice by Ginger Solomon
One Broke Girl by Rhonda Helms
The Dusky Hour by E.R. Punshon
Metal Fatigue by Sean Williams