For a few minutes anyway.
“There’s a bathroom,” I assure her, hoping this edginess I’m picking up from her is just nature calling.
Praying it’s not her worrying about something or someone else.
My dressing room isn’t far, but it’s even further from where I’d rather be taking Penelope right now.
I’d sooner have her in my suite or better yet, at home.
Once inside I don’t have to draw her a map, and she makes her way silently to the bathroom while I feel my hands clench and unclench.
Fuck. I’m actually nervous…
It makes me smile.
I haven’t felt like this since… well. Since maybe the first time I took to the stage. I was a kid back then.
Probably the same age as Penelope…
Shut up!
I shift my hands, running them over my shirt instead, and consider changing into something less showy and more me when the bathroom door opens silently.
“Better?” I ask, feeling and sounding a little overexcited.
Penelope is fine with it but still looks a little like a fish out of water.
There’s a strained silence and I realize I still have my hands held against myself, looking like a wacko as well as sounding off.
Not the impression I wanna give now that we’re alone.
“I was gonna change,” I mumble, eyeing the racks of costumes for each part of the show as well as some street clothes.
“I can go…” Penelope says, but she’s not going anywhere.
I shake my head, frowning.
“I said you were mine,” I tell her. “For at least a little longer, I hope?” I ask, my lips pulling into a smile when she blushes again, studying the floor instead of this thing between us.
Surely I’m not imagining it. She has to feel the same way.
Unless…
“You have someone waiting for you,” I muse aloud, feeling the sting of bitter defeat at the same time as kicking myself for even saying the words aloud.
Even thinking them.
I don’t know how or why, but the thought of her with anyone else seems impossible to me.
It just can’t be.
She looks confused for a second, her mouth opening and closing but no words coming out, then she shakes her head.
“Only my stupid boss, my landlord,” she mutters.
Her boss and her landlord?
Christ is there anyone else?
Still. I shouldn’t be so surprised.
A girl like Penelope…
“I-I mean…” she stammers, growling at her own frustration as she looks up.
“I mean, my landlord, who is also my boss. One of my bosses… It’s…complicated,” she finally manages to get out.
“He’s waiting for me… He paid for the cab,” she adds, looking worried.
I don’t mean to spell it out, but I need to fucking know right now.
“So you and your boss?” I venture, closing my eyes and pinching my brow.
I can’t say it. I won’t.
“Oh, god no!” Penelope cries out, catching my meaning.
She laughs, almost hysterically as she tries to control her own emotions. Both of us back-peddling, only to make sure we understand one another.
My feelings are a little more at ease knowing I was mistaken about her being taken.
“So there’s no one?” I ask firmly, almost sounding like I’m accusing her now. Needing to double-check.
She shakes her head so fast her ponytail swishes and snaps silently against both her cheeks.
“It’s just me. Alone… Single,” she says, hugging her elbows and gnawing at her lip before looking down again.
“I don’t believe it,” I mumble to myself. Unable to believe my luck today.
But you’ll be taken soon enough, Penelope.
I’ll stake my claim before tonight is through if I have my way.
“You don’t believe a girl like me could be single or should be?” she asks abruptly. A touch more sass in her voice than before.
I like it and chuckle quietly to myself.
“I mean…” I start to explain but shake my head instead. “Let’s forget about it,” I suggest, but glancing around I remind her in a low voice about something she might already be aware of.
“I’m a, uh… bachelor myself,” I confide in her, and we both laugh, when she pretends to be shocked, looking at me sideways in mock disbelief.
“I’m sure you have your share,” she quips, her face falling at her words “…Of women I mean.”
Not even trying not to sound bitter now.
If only you knew, Penelope.
If only you knew.
There’s a gentle rapping at the door and Miles’ head pokes around the frame, his eyes half-closed as he winces.
“Sorry to bug you, Jett. But security’s out here, there’s a bit of an issue with someone claiming to be your uh… guest’s companion.”
Penelope groans at the same moment I can hear a loud, gravelly voice from outside.
“Your boss?” I ask her, cocking a brow and joining the dots.
The asshole she was sitting next to. The one I made out like I was gonna pick.
“I’m a huge fan. And Penelope’s got work in the morning, I just wanna have a quick word,” The voice continues.
The deep voice of the security guard is humoring the guy, but if I don’t move fast they’ll toss him out in a not-so-friendly way.