“You shouldn’t have done that.” Penelope smiles, gripping my arm tighter. Smiling wide when she looks up at me once we’re on the sidewalk.
“You’re right. He shouldn’t have,” I correct her, smiling back. Letting her know that I’ve got her front and her back from now on.
And nobody, nobody says or does anything to my woman that she doesn’t like.
Without running it by me first.
“I think I will make John a serious offer on this truck.”
I grin once we’re on the road again.
“I think that’s a great idea,” Penelope chirps, sighing blissfully. Like she should as we make our way through traffic.
Her cell chimes and she answers without checking who it is, smiling up at me instead as we pull up to a stoplight.
I can feel her whole mood shift long before I see her shrink into her seat.
The gravelly voice of Tony Favela fills my truck through the tiny speaker on her phone.
He’s shouting at her, pissed Penelope has been MIA for two days now, telling her she’s fired as well as homeless.
All her things will be thrown out on the street…
I can see how upset she is by it, and before the light turns green I snatch the phone from her and in a calm, even tone explain how things are going to go down.
A short drive, and with a ton of protests from Penelope later, we pull up at her old place.
Her old workplace.
As expected, there’s nothing thrown out on the street. And I ask Penelope again if there’s anything she really needs from inside her old apartment.
“A couple of things would be nice,” she sniffs. Still getting over the shock of her phone call.
“Then let’s go.” I smile calmly.
Every fiber of my being is wound up tighter than I’d like her to see, but I’m determined not to lose my cool.
We’re just here to get her things, then we’re gone and no she won’t be coming back.
Her ex-boss is nowhere to be seen, but I can still smell him.
Something about cigar smoke and sweat tinged with a little fear. Just gets into everything.
“Can you wait here?” she asks me, and I can see how ashamed she is. How embarrassed she is by where she’s been living. How she’s been living.
But I shake my head gently.
“I love you, Penelope. Remember? And I’m not leaving you alone for one second, especially in this place,” I tell her firmly.
But I wait by the door once we’re inside, pretending at first not to notice how many pictures of me she has up.
The girl had taste long before she met me, what can I say?
I don’t make a big thing of it though, she’s got the real thing now.
I’m here now, giving her time to go through what she wants to take and what she can leave behind.
There’s not much to choose from anyway, and I feel my heart ache knowing she’s been living like this for god knows how long before I met her.
Penelope figures that her boss has gone out since I spoke to him.
Giving me a watery smile she asks, “Were you really gonna do that to him?” referring to the promise I made Tony Favela, a diner stool, and his fat ass.
“I’ve made bigger things disappear,” I shrug, happy to see her smile again. Wiping the solitary tear from her eyes, I lean in and kiss her.
“Let’s go home,” I whisper.
“And where exactly is home?” she asks, sniffing one last time before becoming my girl again. Her old life blown away like dust.
“It’s right here,” I promise her, holding her tight and kissing her again. Showing her that no matter where we are or what we have home is always gonna be us, together.
Forever.
“Oh. And we have a mansion in Malibu,” I make sure and tell her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Penelope
With Jett’s pending ‘unemployment’, and me being ‘homeless’ until we get to Malibu at least there’s really only one thing for it and that’s a fresh start.
I’m not up to speed with all the legal terms, but on Stanford’s advice, and after the evil trio we recorded have been found guilty and put behind bars for a long time, Jett does agree to sell a big chunk of his company to Sebastian Hawke.
The deal?
Sebastian gets to keep all the money from Jett’s last show, the farewell extravaganza. And Jett keeps the majority share of royalties and rights for everything he’s worked so hard for longer than I’ve been alive.
Me? I get another front row seat in the special reserved VIP section, nervous as all hell knowing that Jett is still gonna be performing all his most famous and dangerous stunts and illusions.
Always the showman, but never forgetting his real fans, Jett even has Sebastian Hawke open the show with him, going through his rope illusion for the tenth time.
Sebastian, as well as everyone else in the packed arena still, can’t tell how he does it either.