Undiscovered Melody |COMPLETED|

Chapter 32

"Men!" said Marinette, rolling her eyes at the cowardice of the two males who had practically sprinted from the room to avoid having to tell Penny the potentially upsetting news.

Penny took a seat across from Marinette. "Well, you might as well tell me the bad news, as I can only assume that's what it is since they made a very quick escape. Just let me get my notepad." Penny took her notepad and a pen out of her bag and looked expectantly at Marinette.

"I know it's kind of short notice, but Luka and Jagged were thinking that Kitty Section should open the show and then be part of the finale," said Marinette in a rush. She didn't really know what would really make Penny panic about this news, but she assumed that there must be some time consuming formalities involved or something.

Penny set down her pen and notepad. "That's it?" asked Penny.

Marinette nodded, confused at how calm Penny was since Jagged had set her up to expect a scene.

Penny shook her head and gave a quiet laugh, causing Marinette to raise her eyebrows in a silent question.

"I'd expected that Luka might need some kind of closure, so I already had a draft of the contracts made up for Kitty Section in case he had the same idea I did," said Penny.

"Wow! You're good!" said Marinette.

"Thank you," said Penny. "But, now you have to keep this next part I tell you a secret." She waited for Marinette to nod her agreement before she continued. "As you may guess, I don't appreciate it when Jagged springs these kinds of surprises on me. Despite me telling him this a million times already, he still does it. Since he seems incapable of changing his ways, I came up with a way for him to make it up to me after the fact. But, since he can be so dense, I've had to make it obvious to him how displeased I am, though one positive from all of this is that I find that he behaves better for a bit after he thinks he's done something that I'm not happy about. So, I'd appreciate it if you help me put on the act that he and Luka are expecting! Ready?"

Marinette giggled softly. "Ready?"she questioned, wondering just what Penny was going to do.

Penny then stood up and cried out "He what?!" setting in motion a scene meant to convince the two males that they had completely inconvenienced Penny.

From the other room, Jagged winced when he heard Penny's exclamation which had then segued into a tirade about Jagged expecting too much of her at such short notice. He started rubbing Fang's belly a bit faster which caused a deep throated growl from Fang until Jagged slowed down again.

"I'm sorry to cause so much trouble," said Luka. "What can we do to make this up to her?" he asked.

"Let me think. I'll come up with something," said Jagged as he started mentally going through the extensive 'sorry, Penny' list of things he'd done to make up for his past actions.

When the adjoining room became silent later, Jagged motioned for Luka to go and see how things seemed. Luka stood up and peered around the corner. He saw Marinette and Penny seated side by side on the couch, each quietly sipping on beverages of some kind. Marinette noticed him and gave him a mischievous smile which caused one of Luka's eyebrows to quirk up. When she didn't say anything, he ducked back into the room and took a moment to think about what was going on. Something told him that Penny wasn't really as upset as she seemed and Marinette's behavior indicated that maybe the scene was just all part of some accepted arrangement. And probably not his responsibility to mess with it by relating anything he was thinking to Jagged.

"I think it's safe now," said Luka.

"Phew! That one didn't last too long. You should have seen how long the one lasted when I asked her one morning if she could find someone to make Fang an outfit that matched mine for the concert that night. She was just a bit beyond annoyed with that one, but she came through. Just like she always does," said Jagged fondly.