First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) (36 page)

I’m sure the goal was to frighten Penny
away, but she just smiled slyly at me. “Have we?”

“
Sure, earlier this week.” I
winked at her.

“
Is it official, then? Have
you set a date?” Danny asked, so helpfully I wanted to bash him.
“You need six months for counseling at the very least.”

“
She has to come over,
first,” Bill supplied, because we didn’t have enough horrible going
around the table.

“
Come over?” Penny sounded
confused, and slightly frightened.

“
Convert,” Annie explained.
“But they can’t get married in the Church, anyway, because of the
divorce.”

“
No one is converting to
anything,” I snapped finally. “Leave her alone, for Christ’s sake.
That’s a long way off. Neither of us have asked, and nobody has
said yes.” I took a deep breath, getting myself under control.
“Besides, we wouldn’t even think about a wedding until I came back
from Nassau.”

Penny went very still beside me. I wanted to
turn to her and tell her that I would marry her, right now, in this
dining room, if she said the word. Even if I had to give my nephew
merciless charlie horses to get him to agree. But that wasn’t the
kind of declaration I could make with Annie waiting there like a
bomb about to explode at the slightest provocation. Penny didn’t
need that.

Ask her.
The thought came to me so easily it shocked me.
Artificial timelines be damned. I could ask Penny to marry me that
night. Sure, I didn’t have a ring. And it wouldn’t be terribly
romantic with both of us stuffed like ticks. But nothing was
stopping me.

Nothing except an acknowledgment of my past
romantic history, and what rushing into things had cost me in the
past. I wanted to marry Penny, and I wanted that marriage to have a
solid foundation.

I had to give my sister credit. Throughout
the dinner, she did make an attempt to be kind to Penny. She didn’t
go on the attack, at least, not toward her. She did, however, tell
plenty of embarrassing stories about me. For example, the brief
period of time when I was five years old and obsessed with peeing
out of windows. My Flock of Seagulls haircut—which I maintained was
not as terrible a look as Annie made it sound—was also roundly
mocked. But all of the stories were told lovingly. My sister was
truly trying to make an effort, and I appreciated that, at
least.

After pie, Bill stood and declared, “Well,
I’ll get to these dishes.”

“
Nah, Dad, I’ve got them,”
Danny said, though there was no danger of him actually having to do
them. Bill secretly enjoyed doing the washing up.

Bill waved a hand at his son. “You don’t get
many days off. Go take a nap while you can. I’ve got the whole
weekend.”

“
I can help,” Penny said,
shooting up from her own chair. Bless her, she wanted so badly to
make a good impression. Why couldn’t Annie see that?

“
And Ian and I can take out
the garbage,” Annie said. “Starting with that carcass.”

Of course she would want to get me alone
again. As we packed away leftovers and scraped off plates, I tried
to guess Annie’s angle. Would there be more shouting? More
scolding? Whatever it was, I didn’t want to hear it.

We took the rubbish out to the bins, and
Annie snagged her cigarettes from the mouth of the ceramic frog.
She offered me one without asking.

I lit up gratefully. “So. What do you think
of her? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“
She has a nice laugh,”
Annie conceded. “And she doesn’t seem like a gold digger. Or a
monster. And she’s not a child, though she does look like
one.”

“
I’ve seen her mother. The
youthful look seems to be genetic.” I took a long inhale. As I
exhaled, I added, “Though I pray she doesn’t become that
bitchy.”

“
Well.” Annie took a drag as
she contemplated. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what I
think.”

“
It doesn’t.” I shook my
head. “I love you, Annie. You’re my sister. I will always love you.
But you have to trust me to learn from my own mistakes. Penny is
good for me.”

“
But are you good for her?”
Annie sighed. “I’m not asking this because I don’t want to see you
happy. Or because I don’t trust you. I’ll never understand why you
would lie to us about how your marriage ended—”

“
I didn’t lie to Danny,” I
pointed out. “He just couldn’t tell you I was lying.”

“
The secrecy of the
confessional is bullshit,” Annie muttered.

“
Why do you think I’m not
good for her?” I asked, genuinely curious and not confrontational.
I knew that if Annie had some kind of concern, she wouldn’t hide
it, and it was probably something I needed to hear.

“
You’re too old for her,
Ian.”

Hearing it from Annie’s mouth was a far more
devastating blow than when I said it in my own mind. I could ignore
myself—I was good at it—and to hell with what anyone else said. But
if Annie thought it…

“
It’s not fair,” she went
on. “You’re saying you want to have children, and that’s fine. I
wanted that for you, too. But we’re both getting older. You know as
well as I how fast things can change. Look at Da.”

Our father had passed away from cancer at
age sixty. One day, he seemed fine. He just had some acid reflux.
Then he was diagnosed, and within two months, he was dead, the
cancer eating him alive from the inside out. That fast, and he was
gone.

I flicked the ashes from the end of my
cigarette. While I could rationalize to myself that anyone could
die at any moment, that I could be hit by the proverbial bus the
next day, it would be flippant to ignore the reality that as a
person aged, their chance of death and illness increased. Da had
been sixty. I was fifty-three. If I died then, our child wouldn’t
even be ten years old.

The back door opened, and I spun to see
Penny hauling another garbage bag behind her. “Ian?” she asked,
grimacing and waving away wisps of blue that drifted toward her.
“You smoke?”

“
No.” I tried to hide the
cigarette behind my back. I had no clue why the hell I was doing
that, when I’d already been caught.

“
Then is your coat on fire?”
Penny demanded.

“
He quit a long time ago,”
Annie said, yanking the cigarette from my hand. The burning end
raked across my knuckles and I cursed, bringing my fist to my
mouth.

“
I’m a bad influence on
him,” she explained.

“
You burned my fucking hand
is what you did.” The coldest thing near me had to be the metal
railing on the stairs. I pressed my injured flesh against it.
“Sorry, Penny. I swear, this isn’t a regular
occurrence.”

“
No, don’t worry. It’s, um.”
She shook her head. “No, don’t worry about it.”

Oh God, she was angry. Women her age had
gone through all of that “Just Say No” education, hadn’t they?

“
Don’t tell on me, would
you?” Annie asked, pointing to the house. “I think I do a good job
of hiding it.”

“
It must run in the family,”
Penny said, and the wry humor in her voice preyed upon my abundance
of Catholic guilt.

Penny jerked her thumb over her shoulder.
“I’m going to go back in.”

“
I’ll be along in a minute.”
I scuffed the soles of my shoes on the pavement. How could I be so
cold, but my fingers burn so much? “I’ll need ice for my
hand.”

“
Well, I have to put this
trash away first, actually,” she said, as though she’d just
remembered the bag in her hand.

“
No, let me.” I stepped up
to take the handles of the bag from her. “Consider it my
penance.”

She went back inside, and I waited until the
door closed behind her.

“
You’re in trouble,” Annie
sing-songed, and we both laughed. It was good to feel the tension
between us ease some.

“
I am in trouble,” I agreed.
“Annie, I know you love me. And you’re always looking out for me.
But maybe this time, I have to see my selfishness through. I know
I’m not going to live forever, but none of us are. I want a child.
And Penny isn’t stupid. She knows that our age difference is going
to leave her without a husband long before she’s old. But she’s
willing to do this with me. Do you realize how important it was to
her to stay a virgin?” I lowered my voice, because I didn’t want
Penny to overhear inside the house. “She didn’t want to be with
anyone before, but she chose me because she trusted me.”

“
I hope you were
responsible,” Annie said.

“
Yes, mother, we used a
condom. I’ll be sure to confess that,” I threatened.

“
Not to my son, you’d better
not!” she hissed.

Annie was in very deep denial as to what
kinds of things Danny heard in the confessional. She sighed. “Do
you love her, Ian? And by love, I mean, are you ready for her to be
the last woman you’re with, for your entire life?”

“
I am.” I could say that
without any hesitation. “That’s the God’s honest truth, Annie. I
really am.”

She put her hands on my shoulders, the
cigarette she’d stolen from me still burning between her fingers.
She flicked her finished one to the ground. “Then I’m happy for
you. I truly am.”

When we entered the house, it felt as though
we’d left our earlier argument outside. A massive weight had lifted
from my chest, and I felt as though I could finally breathe and
enjoy the rest of the holiday.

Bill, however, stared at us as though he’d
witnessed a murder.

“
Bill, you look like you’re
going to pass out,” I joked, and laughing, asked Penny, “What did
you do to him?”

When she turned, she glared as though she
were ready to take my head off. Something was not right, and the
hair stood up on the back of my neck.

“
We were just talking about
you and Gena,” she said, cold fury in her tone.

Everything came over a bit like in a war
movie, when shells are exploding and men are losing their
hearing.

“
No, no, no,” I said, as
though I could somehow reverse whatever Bill had told her. Ah,
fuck, I knew what Bill had told her. “Penny, it’s not what it
probably sounded like.”

“
I don’t think this is the
proper place to discuss this,” she said, in the same tone with
which she’d told the women in the park to fuck off with their ugly
babies. I didn’t like being the target of that tone at all. “Let’s
go talk about it in the car while you drive me home.”

She turned to Annie and Bill. “Thanks for
inviting me today. It really was a lovely meal. I definitely got to
know someone better.”

Her voice cracked, and she hurried through
the kitchen door.

“
Ah, damn it.” I ran my hand
through my hair.

“
He didn’t know,” Annie
said, as though I might turn on Bill.

“
I know. I know, I just—” I
brushed it off with a wave of my hand. Annie could explain it all.
I needed to go after Penny.

“
You’re going?” Danny asked
her as she pulled her coat on. She bolted out the door without
answering.

I didn’t answer him, either. There would be
plenty of time for that explanation later, as well. Hopefully not
during a conversation about why Penny and I had broken up.

I cursed as I pulled my coat on and hurried
down the front walk. Penny stood beside the car. She shook all
over, bouncing one foot in agitation. I’m not sure she even
realized she was doing it. “Thank you for bringing me here. I got a
much clearer picture of who you are.”

“
Penny, there is a perfectly
reasonable explanation for this.”

“
You’ve been saying that a
lot, lately.” She had a point there. It wasn’t much of a leap to
imagine what she thought of me. She’d been convinced I’d been
cheating on her before, too.

And that wasn’t fair. I’d never given her
any reason to think that of me. “And you’ve been assuming the worst
of me a lot, lately. Get in the car. I don’t want to have this
fight on the sidewalk in front of my sister’s house.”

“
Don’t tell me what to do!”
she nearly screamed. “And don’t tell me to be fucking reasonable
about this. You cheated on your ex-wife!”

“
I didn’t cheat on
Gena!”
Don’t shout at her. Your lies did
this, not her.
“I told Annie that I cheated
on Gena so she wouldn’t know the real reason we got
divorced.”

“
On what planet is that
supposed to make sense to me, Ian? ‘I didn’t want my sister to know
that my marriage broke up because of this totally not horrible
reason, so I told her I was a complete asshole,
instead?’”

When she put it like that, it really did
sound like a pathetic attempt at a lie.

“
I know it sounds
implausible—”

“
Implausible?” She laughed
bitterly. “Ian, why should I trust you?”

“
When have I lied to you
before?”

“
You told me that Gena
didn’t want to have children. Bill says that the two of you saw a
fertility doctor.” She crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
“You apparently smoke, that’s out of left field—”

“
I smoke an occasional
cigarette, that doesn’t make me a murderer!”

“
But it does mean that there
are fairly simple things about you that you haven’t bothered to
share with me. Do you think if you just don’t tell me things, they
don’t count?” She stopped and pressed her fingertips to her temple.
“How do you really know Carrie Glynn?”