My palms sweated horribly as Tommy pulled into the driveway of his apartment complex, and I almost gasped at the luxuriousness of it. I mean I knew the man lived well, but damn, I was really starting to notice the slightly 'crisp' appearance of my clothes all of a sudden as I stared first at myself and then at the building. Not that Tom looked any better after running into the house after me, but he could be covered in mud and still look drop dead gorgeous. Don't you just hate people like that? I mean if you dropped me into a puddle of mud, I look like I've been dropped into a puddle of mud—simple as that. You drop Tom into a puddle of mud, and he comes out looking like he's sporting a new trendy spa treatment. I sighed as he pulled the keys from the ignition before looking over at us, and I lifted a brow as I stared at the doorman standing rigidly at the entrance of the complex while wondering, quite pathetically, if I was in some sort of screwed up romantic comedy where Tom was going to have to find a way to sneak his two very disheveled, smelly guests inside his room.
"This is not a suit and tie kind of joint is it, Tom?" I asked teasingly as he chuckled while Sadie rolled her eyes.
"Oh Please, Jude! It's just a house, and I really hear Tommy's shower calling to me up there." Sadie said as I shrugged at her before pushing open my car door trying my best not to envision both the words 'Tommy' and 'shower' in the same sentence. Uuuugghhhh! Sadie just had to say that, didn't she? I almost groaned at the thought as I climbed out to follow Tommy and Sadie to the door, and Tom looked back at me knowingly as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. The rat!
I smiled sheepishly at the 'butler' or whatever he was as Tommy greeted him merrily before slipping through the entrance. I saw the man peruse us suspiciously as we walked by him into the huge main room of the place, and I could just see housekeeping visibly cringe in my mind's eye as soot marks stood starkly against the carpet where we stepped gingerly. 'Oh, please God! Don't let Tom's floors be white,' I thought to myself as we paraded up the stairs before climbing into a set of elevators marked Penthouse 1. I fidgeted nervously as we moved upward, tapping my foot to the beat of the new song I had been working on when Tom's foot suddenly stepped roughly onto the end of my toe, and I gasped as I looked up at him.
"What did you do that for?" I asked as I jumped up and down before grabbing my foot firmly while cursing silently at Tom as he just shrugged before leaning against the elevator door and chuckling.
"Because you are driving me nuts tapping your foot like that, Jude Harrison. If you're that uptight, wait until we get into my apartment, and I'll hand you a guitar. Okay?" He asked gently as I stared at him slightly bemused. So, I had a problem entering Tommy's domain. So what? It's not like I didn't have a right to. We had suddenly moved from only seeing each other at the studio and occasionally outside of it to me living with him for a short period of time athis house. Can you blame me if that was a big step for me? Okay, let me rephrase that. I was downright terrified. There was no way I could ignore the pain in my chest that tended to engulf my entire body when he was around now that we would be in constant proximity. And now knowing that he was married, I had to fight off the pain even more intensely than I had to before. The doors 'dinged' open as I lay immersed in my thoughts, and I could feel Sadie and Tommy both staring at me in bewilderment as I just stood there staring down at my feet taking that one small significant step into the one world I thought that I would never have access to—Tommy's world.