I fight the urge to just bundle her into the car and claim her right here, if I’m honest.
But the city’s finest public transport beats me to her. In a moment she’s on a bus and I’m following behind.
No doubt headed for the building that houses a certain newspaper I’ve had more than one run-in with over the years.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Penelope
After last night, the last thing I feel like doing is working downstairs at the diner and having to start on my piece for the newspaper.
Any thought of Jett Masters or his magic show makes me wanna heave right now.
Speaking of magic, as I lay on my sofa bed pretending I actually slept, my phone hums with an incoming call.
It’s Nancy, another waitress from the diner. Begging me to let her take both my shifts today.
“I need the money, bad,” she pleads, sounding more desperate than even I feel right now.
But a whole day off from the diner? I smell a rat.
“What about Tony?” I ask her, smiling when she swears at me even mentioning his name.
“He knows, it was his idea I call you. He won’t be in today either.”
Double-win.
Today is looking up already and I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet.
Hanging up I stretch a little as I start to consider just how I might be able to prove Jett Masters is an entertainer with zero talent and certainly no magic involved.
In the cold light of day, and after a strong cup of coffee later, I tell myself that I’m just an obsessed fan and nothing could or ever would have happened between us.
That’s what my brain is trying to tell me as I scan my apartment walls.
It must be about an acre of Jett plastered all over it, making it just a teensy bit hard to not think about him in a positive light right now.
The second ring from my phone in as many minutes sees my heart leap into my throat.
Nancy’s changed her mind. It’s all a windup…
All these things whirl through my mind out of habit until I see it's Karlee.
My other boss, from the newspaper.
There goes my day off.
Not one to miss out on doing me a favor by giving me tickets, Karlee wants my article typed and proofed by noon.
Tit for tat. Scratch my back. Whatever you wanna call it.
“I assume you’re almost done with it anyway?” she asks dryly, the sound of a busy newspaper office in the background.
Shoot.
I totally forgot that a Friday story means having it ready for the late Saturday edition.
Fuck.
Too much Jett on my brain and not enough work getting done.
For any other article, I would have stayed up late to write it, and gone over it in the morning before handing it in.
That’s the pre-Jett Penelope though.
Things are different now, and even if I never see him again I know I’ll never be quite the same.
Yay me.
“Just get down here ASAP,” Karlee drones before hanging up, not even waiting for me to say a word.
Glancing at the clock I’ve got enough time to shower and dress quickly.
Grabbing my gear I scrape what change can be had from the dish by the door for the bus. A shiver runs through me as I’m dashing to catch the bus right by the diner, almost missing it.
I can swear that I can still smell Jett’s cologne somehow.
Stop it, Penelope. That sort of thinking isn’t helping. Now focus!
I puff my cheeks and resign myself to drafting what I can on my laptop as the almost empty downtown bus shudders through sleepy city blocks.
Working like this on the fly is nothing new to me.
I did a science degree working three jobs and no sleep, plus the internship so I’m not worried about that.
It’s having to write about Jett.
A part of me wants to run him down, discredit his act and his whole franchise.
Tell the world he’s just another phony, fake swindler.
But my heart says differently.
I’m only mad because things didn’t go the way I wanted.
I was practically convinced that there was something between us…
He’s a real man, and I’m just a girl really.
An older guy like him and a younger girl like me?
Even without magic or his money, it’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination.
“Reads like a fucking love letter…” Karlee mutters to herself as she scans my first draft before spinning my laptop back around on her desk.
She heaves a bitter sigh and glancing at the time, she twists her mouth in thought.
“I sent you, Penelope because I thought you’d be the only person in this building to do the job without any sort of emotional entanglement,” she huffs.
I look down at my feet, not even remembering what I wrote on the bus about Jett. But I have to agree, none of this has had my usual clinical air about it.