Page 62 of The Show

He brushed his lips against mine, all too briefly, then craned back.

“But I will say one other thing… just now… that was the third time you made that face,” he pointed to my face, accusingly, “when I mentioned Jupiter Reeves. Please don’t tell me he’s your type. It’s way too conflicting for me.”

I blinked once, twice, three times, trying to make sense of what he said, but… nope. Couldn’t.

“Um, what?”

“If he’s your type tell me now, and I’ll go straight to Rafe’s tattoo guy and tell him to cover me. I’ll also be cancelling Jupiter’s contract.”

I laughed, even harder when the seriousness of his suggestion didn’t seem to drop from his expression, and shook my head. “No, I don’t have a thing for Jupiter Reeves. I seem to have developed a thing for sports club owners that I appear to have married in the last few hours.”

“That’s a relief, Mrs. Michaelson. I’m glad to hear it.”

I smiled, suddenly so overcome with happiness I may as well have been drunk. I was certainly drunk on something.

I looked away, needing to break the tension building between us before I carried out the very real fantasy I’d been trying not to think about all morning.

“Hey, see these?” I gestured to everything I’d been reading. “Reckon I can take these home to keep going through? There’s some good stuff here.”

“Well, seeing as I own this club, I guess I own these books too, so yes, you can. But maybe sneak them out in your giant purse for now, so we don’t attract attention. Not that there’s anyone to stop us.” He glanced around the room, empty save for the two of us, then checked his watch. “We should probably head out; I need to go and find Rafe.”

“Okay.”

He gathered up all the albums and books I’d piled on the table and stood up, holding his hand out for me.

I took it, and that’s how we exited the archives. Together, holding hands.

Me, holding hands with Penn Shepherd, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I was beginning to think that maybe it should be.

11

Penn

Holy shit, I loved my life!

LOVED.

I’d always had an appreciation for it; for the immensely privileged world I’d been born into, but fuck me if it hadn’t turned on a dime in the last week.

Almost like my guardian angel had been shining upon me.

Thanks, Pops.

I cut the Range Rover’s engine in the spot next to Rafe’s Batmobile, or SCC Tuatara as he preferred to call it, and got out. The biometric pad on the wall beeped the affirmative when I pressed my thumb against it; the hidden panel sliding open to reveal the elevator which would take me straight to his Batcave, or Operation Center, again, as he boringly preferred to call it.

When Rafe decided to branch out on his own and build his own pro-bono legal firm, he needed a location. Luckily, his property portfolio had just the place, all it required was a little renovation. What was now a slick red brick and glass architectural wonder in the heart of Soho, featured in many a design magazine and filled with the best and brightest legal minds, used to be a run-down sewing factory.

During the renovations, I’d helpfully suggested he added a secret Batman style entrance. It was one of many suggestions I’d given him - see also, Batcave, Bat Elevator, and so on - not expecting him to take me seriously, because he rarely did. But much to my unparalleled glee, they’d been on the architects’ blueprints when he’d shown me one afternoon over a beer. He did draw the line at a pole to slide down though, becausedon’t be ridiculous, Pennington. I can’t slide down a pole in a suit.

In lieu of the pole, he’d had a second elevator installed which carried him directly to a bookcase inside his office. It was not that elevator I was currently in, however. The one I was in had just opened into a vast chamber housed in the depths of the basement; the space which would always be referred to as his Batcave, whether he liked it or not.

He did like it; I knew in my heart.

Before I’d met Lowe at the stadium, I’d spent the few hours I’d been awake trying to figure out how the fuck I was going to find this Marnie chick. I’d searched for her online, and after a couple of rudimentary scans through social media and Google brought up zilch, I decided I needed to bring in the big dogs.

“Hey, dude, brought you a present…” I called to the big dog himself, waving a paper bag in the air as I walked through the office toward his desk.

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