First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) (9 page)

It was bafflingly easy to talk to Penny. She
asked questions and was genuinely interested in the answers. When
she hadn’t understood what I was talking about, she’d said so, and
that had made it much easier for me to do the same in kind. When
she’d asked me the difference between a structural engineer and a
production architect, I didn’t feel stupid asking her why Sophie’s
magazine issues came out a month ahead of time and had to be worked
on for weeks in advance. There were no awkward silences; it felt to
me like we were soaking up as much as we could hold from each
other.

When I happened to look at the clock on the
dash, I felt like the kid who has to leave the birthday party
early. “I hate to cut this short, but mass is at ten a.m. And Danny
is going to kill me if I don’t come to his church tomorrow.”

“
Cut it short?” She laughed,
her fantastic laugh that had hooked me from the very moment I’d
first heard it. “Ian. We’ve been hanging out since two this
afternoon. I’m pretty sure we broke a dating rule here.”

“
Some rules are made to be
broken.” And some clichés will fly out of your mouth before you can
stop the wretched fuckers. I turned off the car and braced myself
for the temperature change between the ice-cold interior and the
humid August night outside. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your
door.”

Her door wasn’t far enough away to merit a
walk for a walk’s sake. I wanted to kiss her again, and she damn
well knew it, from the way she dipped her head as she came around
the back of the car. There had been so many times during the day
I’d wanted to take her hand and hold it, or in a more extreme
sense, push her up against a tree in the park and absolutely ravish
her. But we were going slow. A kiss at her door at the end of the
night, that wasn’t too sinful, was it?

As she passed me, reaching
in her purse for her keys, a hopeless sort of frown passed over her
face. My first thought was I had done something or said something,
or worse,
not
done
something or said something I should have done. “You look very
grim.”

“
I was just thinking about
how much fun we had today.” She paused, as though more words had
been coming, but she’d thought better of them.

And that sad expression never changed, which
didn’t convince me she’d been thinking about fun at all. “If that
was meant to be reassuring…”

“
No,” she said, too quickly,
and made a pained face. “I mean, I had a really good time, and I
hope we keep having fun. I want to know how this story
ends.”

She could have shot me in the heart with a
fucking elephant tranquilizer and it would have had less of an
effect on me. I’d been completely smitten with her all day. We’d
talked about those forbidden, extremely personal topics at the
park, but I hadn’t realized that every moment we’d spent together,
every laugh—there had been many—and every new revelation, had been
another press on an emotional accelerator. Now my heart was a
metaphorical car teetering on the edge of a cliff, and I still
wanted to slam my foot on the gas pedal.

Fuck it
. I wasn’t getting any younger. If the fortune cookie had been
right, Penny was the one. I’d waited long enough for her to show
up, there was no sense in holding back now. “Maybe it’s better to
hope that it doesn’t.”

I leaned against the building with one
forearm, and she didn’t move away from the broad expansion of my
personal space. She was physically small, but she had a presence as
big and bright as a firework. She gazed up at me, wetting her
bottom lip with the tip of her tongue—I could still remember
exactly what it had felt and tasted like in my mouth—and I leaned
down.

“
This is ill-advised, at the
very least,” I warned her.

“
Yeah, I’m way too young for
you.” Her breath teased my lips. She pressed her palms against my
chest then tugged me forward by two handfuls of my shirt. Our
mouths found each other as though we’d done this a hundred times. I
truly hoped we would do this at least a hundred times. Her
enthusiasm wasn’t just flattering. It was a drug that only made me
crave her more. I wrapped my other arm around her waist, still
using the wall for balance, which was lucky because our feet became
an awkward, clumsy tangle between us.

I heard a car door slam and jerked my head
up, praying police intervention would not become the hallmark of
our dates.

She gripped my shirt tighter and said, in a
half-whispered plea, “Nobody’s going to see. And if they do, they
won’t care.”

Far be it from me to argue with her about
her own neighborhood. I caught her up in both of my arms, and she
leaned against my body like I’d kissed all the strength out of
her.

A loud, jingling crash cut startled Penny,
and she looked away to shriek, “Rosa!” at a dark-haired woman
leaning down to scoop up her keys.

“
I’m sorry, I was trying to
sneak past.” The woman, Rosa, gave me a steely-eyed assessment. I
had the distinct impression she found me wanting. But she looked to
Penny, said, “Carry on,” and disappeared through the
door.

I stepped back, scratching my neck.
“Remember those signs from God you were talking about?”

“
Yeah, he is clearly
reminding you that you have church in the morning.” She sighed.
“That’s my roommate. You’ll have to meet her sometime when you
haven’t just been feeling me up in front of her.”

Ah, the over-protective friend. In the past,
I would have taken an immediate dislike to the very idea of Rosa.
After all, her sage advice might end up being an obstacle to
overcome, as it had gone with women in my past. Though I didn’t
know her, I was relieved Penny had someone looking out for her. A
person would have to be totally oblivious to not notice Penny had
been through some painful relationships in her past, no matter how
cheerful a face she might try to put on.

Still, I had to defend my self-control. “I
was not feeling you—”

“
I’m fucking with you, Ian.”
She grinned as she rose on her tiptoes to reach my lips with hers.
“Just one more?”

A groan of pained restraint caught in my
chest. I did kiss her, but I didn’t linger; the longer I stood
there, the more difficult it would be when I had to walk away.

“
I’ll call you tomorrow.” I
reached out and stroked the backs of my fingers down her jaw. The
need to touch her was a gnawing pain beneath my ribs. Even that
small contact was enough to take some of the edge off. “If that
isn’t too soon?”

“
Not too soon at
all.”

If I called her fifteen minutes from now,
would it be too soon? “All right. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,
then.”

I couldn’t resist a quick, closed-mouthed,
entirely-appropriate-for-a-PG-movie kiss before I turned away.

“
Wait!” she called as I
opened my car door. “What’s your middle name?”

That was certainly an odd question. I turned
to see her standing halfway inside her building, her lips bent in a
mischievous smirk, and I answered her, “David. Why?”

“
Designing our wedding
invitations,” she shot back with a laugh that assured me she
wasn’t, in fact, ready to try on dresses quite yet. It was a fairly
ballsy joke to make on a second date. I had to give her credit for
that.

“
You’re a frightening
woman,” I teased as I slid into the driver’s seat.

But, if I were being entirely truthful with
myself, she could have been dead serious and I wouldn’t have been
half as frightened as I should have been.

* * * *

Sunday
dinner at my sister’s house was always part passive-aggressive,
judgmental attack, part paranoid concern for me now that I was a
divorcee. The woman could turn, “I’ll pray for you,” into a
condemnation and a declaration of love all at the same
time.

“
Danny told me you were
seeing someone,” she said as she dropped a bowl of mashed potatoes
in the center of the table. I’d only been in the house for fifteen
minutes; I’d been timing how long it would take until she brought
it up.

No one in my family could keep secrets. If
Danny hadn’t been bound by the sacred and absolute secrecy of the
confessional, his mother would have known a lot more about the
situation than she did.

I knew Annie was
disappointed in me for the failure of my marriage. I was
disappointed in myself. But, if she knew the real reason Gena had
left me, she would have hated her. I wouldn’t have been able to
deal with my anger at Gena
and
Annie’s anger at Gena at the same time.

“
Is this the same girl…”
Annie’s voice trailed off.

“
No. No, that was a one-time
indiscretion. Give me a little credit.” I couldn’t look her in the
eyes.

She sighed heavily and went to the kitchen,
leaving me alone at the table with her husband. Bill was a big,
tall guy who’d put on some weight in his middle years. His dark
eyes were small under his perpetually furrowed brow, but he only
looked tough. In reality, he was the kindest, gentlest man I’d ever
met. He was like a clean-shaven Hagrid.

Tapping his fingertips on
the white lace tablecloth, he said quietly in his deep
Noo Yawk
accented voice,
“I did an apple crumble today. You like apple crumble, right,
Ian?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

His gaze flicked to the empty seat beside
me, where Gena had often sat at the beginning of our relationship.
After we’d married, her visits to my sister’s house had become more
and more infrequent.

“
You know,” he began,
halting for a beat. “You’re not the first man to step out on his
wife. I’m not saying what you did was right, but you can’t keep
punishing yourself.”

“
I’m not the one doing the
punishing.” I gave a pointed look to the still swinging kitchen
door.

“
I think women take it
harder,” he mused. “I know you still loved Gena. You had a moment
of weakness is all. And you tried to make it up to her. You were
willing to stay. God knows that, even if your sister
doesn’t.”

It almost hurt worse to lie to Bill. He
thought I was a poor guy who’d been dumped by his wife after a
good-faith attempt at reconciliation. Not a man who let his wife go
for selfish reasons and without trying to stop her.

“
Sorry I’m late!” Danny
called from the front door. Annie and Bill’s house, the house Danny
had grown up in, was a two-story bungalow with a claustrophobic
interior, so it only took a few steps to join us in the dining
room. Danny whipped his collar out of his shirt and popped a few
buttons, groaning, “If it got any hotter out there, you could have
baked the cherry pie on the sidewalk.”

Bill shook his head. “No cherry pie. Apple
crumble.”

Danny pulled out the chair at the other end
of the table from where his father sat at the head. The kid had
gotten more of his mother’s features than his father’s, thank
God—no offense to Bill. Danny took after our side of the family in
face and body, and he’d gotten our black hair, but his dark eyes
were all Bill’s. Danny’s expressions and mannerisms were
one-hundred percent Annie, though.

“
Do you think you waited
long enough to tell your mother about my date?” I asked as Danny
slumped back in his chair. I kept my tone light, but I was a bit
peeved at him. “It’s not as though I proposed to her.”

Annie came through the door with the ham and
entered the conversation as though she’d been a part of it all
along. “Tell us about her. What’s she like?”

“
Gorgeous,” Danny answered
automatically. “Way out of his league.”

“
Well, you’re not wrong
about that,” I agreed.

Annie frowned. “Gena was gorgeous. Maybe
it’s not gorgeous that you need.”

I gave her a warning look. “She’s also
intelligent, and very kind.” I paused, knowing she was waiting for
the detail Danny had already given her. “She’s also just a bit
younger than I am.”

“
Thirty years!” Annie
exploded. I knew Danny had told her, the bastard. “You realize
she’ll get older, don’t you?”

“
I hope she does.” I feigned
shock.

“
Don’t get smart.” Annie
jerked off her apron and slapped it across the back of her chair.
“Danny!” she barked. “Go get the peas, and a spoon for the
potatoes.”

Danny knew he was being dismissed, and he
left the room with the air of a twelve-year-old resenting his
exclusion from the conversation.

Annie turned her angry attention to me. “You
need to get your priorities straight, Ian. I say this out of love,
because you’re my brother. You need to get yourself right with God
before you worry about finding some new woman.”

“
Ian and the Lord are fine,”
Danny said as he came back balancing a bowl of peas in the crook of
his elbow, a beer in one hand and a big silver serving spoon in the
other. “That’s not a relationship you need to butt
into.”

“
And you needn’t butt into
this one.” I didn’t want this to turn into a full-fledged argument.
Annie and I loved each other, but we both had very strong stubborn
streaks and a history of hurting each other’s feelings. “I’ve been
on two dates with the girl. She’s lovely, and we quite like each
other. Rather than dwell on how destined I am to f— mess this up,
we could try to mind our own business.”

Annie’s mouth set in a hard line. “Fine.”
She glared at Danny, silently admonishing him for his betrayal.
“Danny, say the blessing.”