Addiction - Chapter 25
Wednesday
As soon as my mom and dad drove off, I sighed and turned my head toward James. "That went well, right?" We were sitting in James' car. He hadn't started it yet. He was just sitting there, staring out the windshield.
"In the end, yeah. Your dad...well, he surprised me."
"I'm sorry about what he said. I've never seen him make snap judgments like that before. He's usually really nice. He didn't mean any of that. He was just upset."
"At least he didn't try to punch me in the face." He smiled at me. "What did your parents say to you after I left?"
I wanted to lighten the mood. "They grounded me."
"Wait, what?" James lowered his eyebrows.
"I'm just kidding. They can't ground me, I'm an adult." I was really glad that my parents hadn't tried to ground me. I'm pretty sure I would have just let them. I felt like a kid around my parents. I probably always would.
"So if they didn't ground you, what did they say?"
What is the best way to phrase this? "They just wanted to make sure you didn't sexually harass me or anything."
"Oh God." He put his forehead down on the top of the steering wheel and started laughing.
I started laughing too.
He sighed and lifted his head back up. "That must have been awkward."
"Well, they didn't actually put it like that." I put my hand on his knee. "I think they phrased it by asking how rapey you were on a scale of one to Michael Jackson."
"What?!"
"Just kidding. They said something like pressuring me, or something."
He put his hand on top of mine and ran his thumb across my knuckles. "I haven't have I? Pressured you?"
"No. James, I love you. I want to be with you. I'm not sure what else I can do to make you believe me."
He lifted up my hand and kissed my palm. "I do believe you. I'm sorry that I lost it in there. It almost felt like I was lecturing your father. I didn't mean to do that."
"Well, you were a professor." I shrugged. "It kind of goes with the territory I think."
"Yeah. I just feel like I kind of threw my money in his face. And that wasn't what I meant to do at all. I feel like a dick."
"He certainly pushed enough of your buttons. James, I don't think my dad is mad at you. He seemed embarrassed about how he acted. Please don't over think this. We told them. It's over. Let's just be happy."
"Just tell me where you want to go." He smiled at me and put his key into the ignition.
"Actually, I think I just want to go home."
"Home?" He raised his eyebrow.
"Mhm."
"Penny Taylor, are you referring to my apartment as home?" He looked so happy.
"It's where I feel most comfortable. And of course, it's where you are. So, yes, I consider it home." I smiled at him.
"You know, I'll take you wherever you want to go. Well, anywhere in the U.S. We really need to get you a passport."
"All I want to do is snuggle up in your bed with you."
"Okay. Home it is."
***
When we pulled up to his apartment building, there were even more news vans parked outside.
James seemed to immediately tense. People with microphones jumped out of the vans as his car turned into the parking garage.
He sped up to the third floor of the parking garage and pulled his car into an empty spot.
"Maybe we should've gone somewhere else," he said.
"It's fine. They'll probably leave soon. Aren't celebrities always doing weird stuff? Kanye West and T-Swizzle will get into a knife fight or something and the paparazzi will move on. Especially if you don't give them anything good to talk about."
He laughed and stepped out of the car. He opened up my door and grabbed my hand, escorting me to the elevator. "You do know that I'm not a celebrity, right?" He smiled at me.
"Right. You're just a super sexy, eligible bachelor worth 2.8 billion dollars. You're not a celebrity at all."
We stepped into the elevator.
"Yeah, I'm not worth 2.8 billion dollars." He pressed the button for his floor.
"Oh, right." Because of the divorce. His wife had gotten half his money. Hopefully he wasn't too upset about that. 1.4 billion dollars was still way too much money for one person to have.
He looked down at me and smiled. "I'm worth way more than that." He slid his card into the reader and stepped into his apartment.
"You have more than 2.8 billion dollars?
That's insane, James. What on earth are you going to do with all that.
.." I stopped talking when I saw a huge box in the middle of his living room floor.
It was at least four feet tall and six feet wide.
It was wrapped in blue wrapping paper and there was a huge bow on top.
There was a small box sitting on top of it, also in blue wrapping paper with a matching blue bow.
"Oh." A smile broke over his face. "I almost forgot about that. Apparently I'm going to buy you gifts with it." He walked into his living room. But I just stood in his foyer.
"James, you already got me a birthday gift. I don't need anything."
"It's not for your birthday. Besides, it's kind of for both of us." He smiled at me.
"But..."
"Oh come on. You don't even know what it is yet. If you don't like it, I'll take it back. Just open it."
I walked over to him. "I don't want you to spend your money on me. I just want to spend time with you." I stood on my tiptoes and ran my hands through his hair.
"I know." He placed a soft kiss against my lips. He picked up the small present and tapped his hand on the large box. "Please just open it."
He looked so excited. And the way he was looking at me made me excited too.
I grabbed one of the folds in the wrapping paper and pulled it down.
It was actually ridiculously fun to open a present this big.
I pulled the paper as I walked from one side of the present to the other, and then pushed the paper out of the way.
"Is this a T.V.?" I smiled at him. I guess I had made fun of him enough so that he decided to cave in and buy one.
"Well, after this morning I wasn't really sure if you'd want to go to classes the next few days. So if we're camped out here, I thought you'd like to have a T.V. to watch. You seem to love T.V."
I laughed. "That's incredibly sweet. But you know, I have a T.V. already. I can just bring it here. Melissa won't mind. She's always at Josh's anyway."
"Yeah, but it's tiny."
"There's nothing wrong with my T.V." I laughed.
"I was going to hang it over there," he pointed to the wall across from his sofa. "And I measured and this T.V. is the perfect size for the distance between the couch and the wall. And since Rob is coming, I wanted something to watch the Giants games on. So..."
"You're adorable. I'm definitely not going to make you take back that T.V. Clearly you want it."
"But do you like it?"
"Of course I like it. It's going to be like we're in a movie theater. Thank you."
He laughed and smiled down at me. "And there's one more thing.
" He held out the small box. "Now, before you start protesting, it didn't even cost me anything.
It's just something that I really want you to have.
And after today, I think maybe now's the best time ever.
" He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
My heart started beating really fast. It was a really small box. Is that a ring sized box? No. He said it didn't cost anything. He just said a few hours ago that he wasn't ready to get married again.
He lowered his eyebrows slightly. "Are you okay?"
"What? Yeah."
He grabbed my hand and put the box on my palm. "Open it, Penny."
I took off the bow, slowly unwrapped the box, and lifted the lid. There were two plastic cards inside. My name was on each of them and there was a metallic stripe at the bottom, but nothing else. I looked up at him.
"Welcome home."
"Are these access cards to get into your apartment?"
"Our apartment, yes."
I ran my finger along my embossed name. He just gave me keys to his place. Our place. I liked how that sounded.
"I find it incredibly hard to fall asleep when you're not beside me. I'd like you to move in. If that's what you want too."
I looked up at him. We had talked about this before. Before our fight. A few weeks ago I thought I'd never even step foot in his apartment again. And now he was calling it ours and asking me to stay. This was a big step. And it was definitely a step I wanted to take.
He wrapped his arms around me. "So what do you say?"
"Yes. Absolutely yes." I hugged him, pressing the side of my face against his chest. His heart seemed to be beating as quickly as mine. I felt so safe in his arms. It finally felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.