First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) (23 page)

“
You don’t have a TV, do
you?”

“
Of course I do.” I realized
I was older than her, but she didn’t think I was…older than
television?

“
I didn’t see one in your
apartment.”

Oh. That’s what she’d meant.
“That’s because it’s very ingeniously hidden away until I need
it.”
Landscaping show… No, that will make
me seem even older, if I show an interest in gardening.

She leaned up. “Well, where is it?”

“
You know where the couch
is? The window in front of it?”
Game show?
They still make those?
“The television
slides up from the floor.”

“
Oh, it does not!” she said,
indignant. “That’s like
The Jetsons
or something.”

“
You’re twenty-two, what do
you know about
The
Jetsons
?” I demanded. “Remind me the next
time you’re over, I’ll show you.”

“
Fine. But I won’t believe
you until you do.” She wiggled to get more comfortable, and I
willed my penis to stay dormant. Which was a huge mistake, because
once I thought about the fucker, he was like a puppy who’d just
woken from a nap and was ready for attention.

“
Hey, could you reach under
the bed? I’ve got a heating pad under there,” she asked.

I leaned over the edge, grateful for the
redirection of my mental energy, but silently praying I didn’t grab
a pair of her panties or worse, another vibrator. I felt along
until I found an electrical cord and hoped for the best. I sat up
with an “aha”.

It was, thankfully, the heating pad she was
looking for. She took it and rolled over, wincing.

“
Do you need any help?” I
asked.

“
No, I’m young, but I’m
allowed to plug things in all by myself.” She wrapped the flexible
pad around her middle and groaned.

“
That bad, is it?” When I’d
lived with Gena, I’d hated seeing her in such misery every month.
Then, selfishly, I’d begun to hate it because it had meant that
we’d once again failed, and it would be another month before we
would learn if we were having a baby. And as those months had gone
on and on, I’d selfishly adopted her pain as my own. Now, seeing
Penny in so much discomfort, I felt like the arsehole I had
been.

“
Yeah. Thank you for not
saying, ‘it’s not that bad.’”

“
What idiot would say
something like that?” I asked, trying my best to look shocked at
the very notion of such insensitivity.

I’d said it before. I’d learned my
lesson.

Her face made it clear to me that she knew I
was a fucking liar. “Everyone.”

“
I would never say that,” I
continued to lie. “Mostly because I don’t know what it feels like,
but also because I don’t feel like having a woman rip a handful of
my intestines out in retaliation.” I put my arm around her
shoulder. She laid her head on my chest, and the way she fit with
me, like we’d done this a thousand times instead of a handful,
created a sweet ache beneath my ribs.

I hugged her closer. “You’re the only woman
I would eat pizza in bed with. Just so you know.”

“
You’re the only man I
wouldn’t hide my period from.” She yawned.

I chuckled at that. Was it a dubious
distinction, or should I have been charmed? “Forgive me for saying
so, but I do think you’re getting the more pleasant bargain.”

There was something on the television. I
didn’t care what. Watching her fall asleep was far more exciting
than anything Hollywood could write.

Chapter Twelve

“
What do you think,
Ambrose?” I asked my cat as he blinked up at me from his perch on
the back of the toilet. I combed my hair down one more time and
straightened my tie. “God, she’s right, I do look like an
undertaker.”

Ambrose turned his head away.

“
Well, fuck you very much
for your vote of confidence.” Meeting the parents. This would be
interesting. I’d heard all about Neil’s meeting with Sophie’s
family, and how terrible it had been. I hoped, with Penny, things
would go a little more smoothly.

I wouldn’t blame them if they were freaked
out over our age difference. It was a bit creepy, when I really
thought about it. When I was with her, I barely noticed it anymore,
unless she came up with some pop culture reference I was woefully
clueless about. I definitely agonized over it every time I was
about to go and meet her, but I would have agonized over something
with any woman I was dating. Insecurity tended to present itself
that way. But when we were in public, I did notice the occasional
disgusted look, and it was difficult to ignore. I didn’t have to
answer to those people, and their judgment still bothered me.
Penny’s parents, however, I did have to explain myself to them.

I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

When there was really nothing else I could
to do to look any better than what God had graced me with, I nodded
to myself in the mirror and went to the closet to get my jacket.
Ambrose followed me, and I dodged him as he tried to rub against my
ankles.

“
What are you doing to me,
you wee bastard?” I demanded. “I’m trying to impress these people,
not look like I rolled in the corpse dumpster at the animal
shelter.”

I went down to the car and looked up the
address for the restaurant on my phone, then turned on navigation.
GPS could be fucking useless in the city, at times, but it would at
least get me near the place. Penny had picked a fairly upscale
location for this meeting, perhaps out of naiveté. Situations like
this were rarely made better by throwing more money on top of them.
But I was sure she wanted to impress her family, since she didn’t
see them often.

I pulled onto the street just a few minutes
late, cursing traffic all the while. Luckily, there was a handy
parking place. I half-walked, half-sprinted to the door of the
restaurant.

The hostess smiled at me when I approached,
but I was too fucking nervous to crack one in return. “I’m meeting
someone. The reservation should be under Parker?”

“
Right this way.”

I scanned the room, looking for Penny but
unable to spot her. A woman whose appearance was remarkably like
hers turned her head and smiled, and it took a second and a look
away for the jolt of familiarity to sink in. She’d gotten a
haircut. A fucking amazing haircut, chin-length and tousled, as if
she’d just rolled out of bed.

It looked even better if I
adjusted the context to “just rolled out of
my
bed”.

“
Penny, I didn’t recognize
you!” I wanted to absolutely maul her, but I held myself back.
Instead, I made myself content to put an arm around her waist for a
fleeting, but close, hug and a kiss on her cheek. “You got your
hair cut. It looks beautiful.”

No, it didn’t. It looked damned sexy, was
how it looked.

“
Thanks.” She smiled, but it
didn’t have the megawatt flash it usually did. Then, she turned to
her parents, reminding me of the purpose for the visit. “Mother,
Father, this is Ian Pratchett, my boyfriend.” I put out my hand and
shook her father’s. He nearly ground my finger bones to dust. I
just nodded at him pleasantly. Penny had called me her boyfriend,
and not in the hypothetical. I could endure all manner of pain with
the endorphins rocketing through my endocrine system.

“
Ian, this is my father,
James Parker, and my mother, Deborah Smythe-Parker,” Penny
finished.

“
James, Deborah. Very nice
to meet you.” That remained to be seen. They looked as though their
pictures could have been beside the definition of WASP in the
dictionary. Mrs. Smythe-Parker had a very tight face for someone
who was supposed to be close to my age, and blond hair swept up in
the kind of hairdo a politician’s wife would wear. She also had the
facial expression of a politician’s wife, the frozen smile of a
woman standing next to a congressman explaining exactly what he’d
been doing with a twenty-year-old male escort in an airport
bathroom.

Mr. Parker had a George Hamilton tan, or
possibly just a regular tan made darker by the absurd whiteness of
his huge teeth, and white hair he wore in a classic side part that
eerily echoed my own. I hoped I didn’t look so much like a
television news anchor days before retirement as he did.

As we sat, I continued, “Your daughter is
one of my favorite people.” I gave Penny a wink.

Deborah laughed, a short, unpleasant sound
full of disbelief. “How kind of you to say.”

“
Not at all.” I wasn’t sure
why should would doubt me. Did she think I was trying to flatter
her by complimenting her daughter?

“
I notice your accent,”
James said, almost accusatory. “Where are you from?”

I considered telling them I was from
Germany, but I didn’t think they would get or appreciate the joke.
“Scotland.”

They didn’t speak for a long, long time.
They just stared across the table at Penny and me. I supposed it
would be a bit awkward to meet the man your daughter was dating,
only to find that he was your age. It made me feel like a bit of a
pervert, when I thought of it in those terms.

Finally, her mother asked, “How did the two
of you meet?”

“
My boss fixed us up,” Penny
told her.

“
I went to college with her
husband,” I explained, so it would seem less like an older man
hooking his hot young secretary up with a friend. “Sophie was
adamant that we would like each other.”

“
And we do.” Penny smiled at
me, and for the first time since I’d arrived, it wasn’t a guarded,
hesitant expression.

I smiled back in genuine relief. “That we
do.”

“
What do you think of this
haircut?” her mother interrupted, with another mean-sounding laugh.
“Penny is always going through a rebellious stage.”

Going through a
stage?
What is she, a fucking
teenager?
“
I said
I thought it was beautiful,” I reminded her, trying not to come off
too terse. But there was a quality about her question that really
nagged at me. “Are haircuts considered particularly rebellious
these days?”

“
It is when Penny does it.”
Even just saying her name, Deborah made it seem like her daughter
was an unpleasant topic, not fit for discussing at the dinner
table. “She’s always been a bit of a problem child.”

What the fuck does she mean
by that?
It was such an intentionally nasty
thing to say, and to someone her daughter cared about. I couldn’t
think of a polite response, so I stared back in silence.

Thank God for the waiter, who came by with
menus and a wine list. It would give me something to occupy myself
while I tried to convince myself that Penny’s parents’ behavior was
all a big misunderstanding.

Maybe since her mother was so frosty, I
would have better luck with the father. “So, James, Penny says
you’re in town for a symposium?”

“
Yes, that’s correct.” That
was all. The man nodded in punctuation, and the conversation
closed.

Penny opened it back up, or tried to. “My
dad is a surgeon.”

The busboy came to fill our water glasses,
and I leaned back so he could reach mine. “Really? What kind?”

James stared placidly at me. “A hand
surgeon.”

“
And you’re an architect?”
Penny’s mother asked. Her eyebrows lifted, and she blinked in
expectation of my answer.

It had been a long time since I’d met a
woman’s parents, and even longer since it had felt like a job
interview. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop. I could have used
a cigarette—no, two cigarettes—at the moment. “Yes. I’m a partner
at my firm. Pratchett and Baker. We work on commercial properties,
mostly office and medical buildings.”

“
The occasional hotel,
right?” Penny asked. Though it was an innocent topic of
conversation, I hated the mental road it led me down. With each
passing week, I could stand the idea of being separated from her a
little bit less.

“
Not too many,” I explained.
“But I am looking at a potential project in the Bahamas, soon.” I
gestured to Deborah. “And you, what do you do?”

“
I’m an
anesthesiologist.”

Those lucky patients. They got to be
unconscious in her presence.

“
So, you’re a partner?”
Deborah brought the conversation right back around to me. “Does
that mean you own the firm?”

“
Yes. I founded it with an
associate I’ve worked with for some time.” What else was there I
could say about it, since she was so interested? “It’s challenging,
but I enjoy it.”

“
It sounds like a lot of
work. Long hours?” she asked.

Fair question. I would want to know if my
daughter was dating someone who wouldn’t have time for her. “I have
a strict policy of staying under sixty hours. There are too many
health risks for a man my age if I try to work all the time. Burt,
my business partner, he’s already had a heart attack. I’d like to
avoid that for the rest of my life.”

“
Working so little, you must
be salaried?” she asked.

Ah. She hadn’t been interested in my job or
looking out for Penny. She wanted to know what kind of money I was
making. I wasn’t used to this approach; usually people just asked.
“Oh, you’re an architect? How much money do you make?” It was
somehow less insulting when stated so plainly.