Chapter 6 #2
“I told him that you said yes, and he said he’d rather I be here so that I could see that you’re just friends.
I told him that I trust the two of you, but he insisted.
I hope that’s all right.” She nodded and told him it was just fine.
“Good. I’m happy for your last day. Let’s have some donuts so that we can celebrate your upcoming new adventure.
Before I forget, I have a list of investments I wrote down for you in the event you wanted to try your hand at them.
They have a good return on them so far, and I’m happy with all of them. ”
“Will you be taking over my money when we marry?” Penrod asked her why he’d do that. “I don’t know. It’s just something that popped into my head. I don’t mind if you help me out with it, and what I have is yours anyway.”
“The same with what I have. It’s all yours, too.
” She nodded, not wanting to talk about money right now.
She knew that they’d have to eventually, but not tonight.
Tonight was for celebrating, and she couldn’t wait.
She told him as much. “All right. So long as you realize that what you have belongs to you and what I have belongs to you as well. I want us to be partners in everything that we do.”
“I can’t be a partner until a year from now. I don’t know what it’s going to matter in the long run with us marrying, but my mom is going to be a problem, I think, no matter what happens with us. She’s going to see the name Hathaway and figure that she has money too.”
“I’ll take care of her. She won’t be a problem for very long.
” She didn’t know why, but she believed him.
She wanted to ask him what his plan was, but decided that she didn’t want to know.
Just as long as her mother wasn’t an issue with her money, then she’d be all right with whatever he needed to do to make her understand that she didn’t have any money just because they did.
Going into the living room where the donuts were, they had fun.
Gilman had some stories to tell about Penrod, and he took it without getting mad.
It was the most fun she’d ever had in a long time, and she was glad that the two of them had shown up.
She might have been depressed about her job had it been just her and Gilman, but she was happy that he’d been able to bring Penrod, too.
At midnight, the two of them left. Penrod had ridden with Gilman, but he’d gone out to the car when Penrod left the house last. She didn’t know what was going on, but she was happy that he kissed her goodnight.
It was a very good kiss, too, and she loved him all the more for it.
Gilman and Penrod left the rest of the donuts.
They’d gotten about two dozen of them, and she grabbed one more before going up to bed.
She was going to sleep in tomorrow and wasn’t going to be the least bit surprised if she slept until ten.
Usually, she was up by four every morning, but she’d not gotten her nap today, and she was almost too tired to get a shower before going to bed.
It was nights like this that made her happy that she’d won the lottery so that she could have more nights like this one.
Still, she wouldn’t tell anyone, not for a year yet or even then, but she was happy to know that she had extra money for the rest of her life.
Getting her shower and into bed, Lori thought of what it would be like to live with Penrod.
He was the best thing that had happened to her other than the lottery, and she was going to make sure he knew that every day of the rest of their lives.
But she also worried that it might be moving too quickly; however, she didn’t care.
Something was so right about this that she couldn’t find fault with it being so quick to fall in love. And she was in love with him.
~*~
Lorena wasn’t happy with her daughter. Lori should have invited her to stay with them and have some fun. She’d had a shitty day as well and knew that a couple of donuts would have gone a long way in making her feel better about life in general.
She’d been cut back to half of her hours.
She knew she’d been lucky not to have lost her job, but it was the first time they’d caught her, and she was getting off easy for the number of times she’d actually been taking a nap on company time.
She’d just get a little power nap in and be all right for the rest of the day.
As it stood right now, with her hours being cut, she’d be lucky if she was going to be able to make her rent and have food at the same time.
However, what she’d not told her daughter was that it was only for a week and not for the rest of her employment with them.
Again, she’d been lucky that they’d not caught her before this.
Going to her place, she wasn’t unhappy with her home.
It was much nicer than Lori’s was, and it had a bit more room with the second bedroom.
If anything, when she threatened to move in with Lori, she should have had her move in with her.
The place was bigger and better anyway, even though the rent was about the same.
She liked that she had a bigger place than Lori did and that she didn’t have as much in the way of extras that she did.
Like the pool that was there for her to use, not that she’d ever been down there to use it, but it was nice to say that she had one if she wanted to use it.
There was also the laundry mat that was on her floor, too.
She could even leave her things in the washer overnight, and someone would put them in the dryer for her.
She didn’t always leave it in the washer, but when she was running short of change, that was the way she got out of having to do it on her own.
Her apartment was simply bigger, too. The living room alone was big enough for her to have guests over, and they’d not be crowded.
Even with the second bedroom, she had plenty of room to have people stay over if she wanted.
The second bedroom had a bath too, and she loved that she didn’t have to use other people’s bathroom habits.
She’d cleaned enough messes up on her job to know that she didn’t like sharing with others around.
She kept it neat, too. She didn’t care for clutter and didn’t have any kind of things on the wall or shelves that would be considered fu-fu.
There were no knick-knacks around where people could see them.
There were no pictures on her walls. All of that was considered clutter by her, and she just didn’t want it hanging on her walls.
She didn’t even have a television that hung on the wall, but just a small one in her bedroom that she rarely used anymore.
She was just too busy with life to have something so distracting as a television that she rarely used.
Being pissed off at Lori was futile, she knew. Lori didn’t take her threats seriously enough for her well-being, and she didn’t care that her daughter treated her like she was nothing more than a pest. She wanted to be treated like her mom, and her daughter didn’t do anything like that.
“Bitch.” She realized that she’d been talking to herself more and more lately and blamed that on Lori, too.
Since she’d been working her other job, she’d insisted that she have one too.
It only took about four days of staying with her to realize that they didn’t get along all that well, not enough to cohabitate anyway.
In order for her to have her things the way she wanted, she needed to have a job, or she’d have to live with Lori.
There was no way that she was going to allow that to happen again, no matter how much she threatened her otherwise.
There were times when she hated her daughter.
She’d never been one to show affection, and Lori had wanted that until one day she’d told her that she didn’t want her to touch her anymore.
Lorena had hurt her feelings; she knew that, but all that touching was getting on her last nerve, and she didn’t like it.
It was about then that Lori stopped telling her that she loved her, too.
Both things she could live without, and she’d been just as happy not to have her mauling her to death when she needed something from her.
She found that she didn’t even miss it as much as she probably should have either.
Lori had come along in the worst part of her life.
She’d been out of work for a while and had no place to live.
Staying with men who would put up with her was all right with her, and it’s what got her Lori in the first place.
The welfare department made sure she had some place to live with her daughter, and they even provided her with a food card so she could eat.
It was the only reason that she’d kept her when she could have easily given her away to someone who might love her like a daughter.
She’d been dating several men, so she had no idea who her father was.
There was no name on her birth certificate either.
She just didn’t care who it had been, but that had been all right with them, too.
No one was going to be paying her child support if she didn’t name one of them as the father.
Then the department of welfare had made her get a job after Lori left home, and she’d never had a nicer place to live since then.