I tried a smile at Penny. She stared back with a pained sort of expression, the kind someone would have while listening to their boss’s child sing the same off-key bars of an Abba song through an entire dinner party.
Drastic measures were necessary.
I leaned over and made a motion like I was inviting her into espionage. She tilted her head in, wary, and I stage whispered, “This is, quite literally, the worst date I have ever been on. And I think you’re in that same boat with me. Do you want to start over? Somewhere that we’re not so pressured to be on our best behavior, and actually be ourselves?”
Her eyes glittered, and a smile slowly transformed her face. It was like watching a fucking rainbow appear. My mouth went dry, and my pulse sped up. Jesus Christ, my palms were sweating. I hadn’t been this nervous around a woman in years. I’d never been nervous around women, in general.
Perhaps I was in over my head.
Chapter Two
After a bit of quick thinking on my part, I managed to come up with some effortless romance.
Effortless in the sense that we took a cab to her neighborhood and got Chinese takeout, and that bit was her idea. Romantic because I suggested we eat it in the park down the street. Sure, it was a cheap date, but she was in her twenties. A late-night picnic in a park round the corner from a Chinese restaurant probably counted as spontaneous and sexy.
To my surprise, a late-night picnic wasn’t all that bad for a person my age, either. As I’d suspected, being out of the stuffy atmosphere of the restaurant had lightened the mood considerably. Once she wasn’t so nervous, Penny could talk.
And talk.
“And then, when I was seventeen, I had to have my wisdom teeth out, and they made me take Percocet. Have you ever been on Percocet?”
“Wait… Weren’t we talking about Shakespeare in the park, a moment ago?” I blinked at her, my chopsticks halfway to my mouth. It wasn’t easy eating a meal out of cartons balanced on your lap as you sat on an uncomfortable park bench.
She scrunched up one side of her face. “I talk too much. Sorry.”
“No, you talk just enough,” I assured her. “Any more than this and you’d be overwhelming. But you’re at a good level right here.”
Her lips quirked into a reluctant smile.
“Unfortunately, I know the name of the cat you left behind to go to college, and I know that cherry is your favorite flavor of cough syrup. But I think we skipped over some important information.” I reached for the takeaway cup of soda beside me. “Tell me about your family.”
Her eyebrows rose, and she swung her foot a little as she searched for the answer in her food. “Ugh. Okay, please don’t tell me this sounds lonely, but I’m an only child, and my parents are not close to their families, so it was kind of just the three of us.”
That seemed like paradise to me, but apparently, that wasn’t the reaction she’d gotten from people before. “I don’t think that sounds all that lonely. Honestly, around the time my last little brother was born, I would have been happy to live on my own in a cave somewhere.”
She swung her hair over her shoulder. Her neck was impressively long.
God, I wanted to touch it.
I shook myself out of my momentary stupor when she asked, “Why? What’s your family like?”
Taking a breath to distract myself from my increasingly intrusive thoughts about her neck, I told her, “I’m the fourth of nine children—”
“Nine?” She covered her mouth to keep her kung pao chicken from escaping.
I was too used to the reaction to do more than nod. “Four boys, five girls.”
“Wow. And do they all live in…You’re from Scotland, right?” She sipped from her drink, those glossy pink lips closing so slowly around the straw I swore I could feel them on my cock.
Pull yourself together, man!
“Yes. I am originally from Scotland. And, yes, all but one of my siblings still live there.” That was a bit of a fib. Two of them had passed away long ago. Even though “don’t talk about dead relatives” hadn’t been on the list of don’ts for a first date, common sense suggested it might be a downer.
“So, how long have you lived here?” she asked, then added, “The country. Not New York.”
“Oh, about…” I hadn’t thought about it in so long it took me a moment. “Twenty…seven? Yeah, twenty-seven years now.”
“Wow. I didn’t know they’d let you stay that long.” She set her cup down. “So, you were here before I was born.”
Ah, that one smarted. I decided to ignore it. “Well, they don’t really have much of a choice about letting me in. My dad is American.”
“You’ve got dual citizenship?” Her eyes widened. “I’ve never met anybody who had that before!”
“Well, I’m glad to be your first. I hope it was amazing.” The joke fell flat. That had been on the list of don’ts; don’t joke about sex.
I didn’t want to go back to the horrible, awkward way the date had started out, so I shifted to something more neutral. “What about you? Where are you from?”
“Pennsylvania. Harrisburg. Very upper-middle and boring. But then, I moved here—” her face lit up like she was talking about her first love, “—gosh, almost five years ago, and it completely changed me.”
“You grew a second head?” I joked. “Or you shed the superfluous head you already had?”
“Thank God. That second one was totally ugly.” Her nose crinkled when she smiled. “I just meant I went from having a personality that had been written for me by all the people around me to coming to this place where I was a blank slate. I didn’t have to fit in with my clique back home, anymore—we were so The Plastics—”
“Plastics?” I interrupted her.
“Yeah, from Mean Girls?” She waited for a sign of recognition, but I couldn’t give her one. I had no fucking clue what she was talking about, but she just went on like a verbal wildfire. “It’s a movie. Anyway, I felt like I had to fit in with them, I had to get perfect grades, make my parents happy. Now, I’m here, and I get to be whoever I want.” She nodded slowly, a self-aware smile bending her lips. “And, someday, I’ll figure out who that person is.”
“I hate to break it to you, but no, you won’t.” I had no idea why I said it. I wasn’t trying to terrify her, but it felt good to be able to spill some of my midlife crisis out. Sloshing it onto someone who probably would never see me again was even better, because if she judged me, what harm was done? “Look at me. I’m fifty-three years old, newly divorced, absolutely none of my life goals accomplished, and I’m out on a blind date.”
“I’m on a blind date, too,” she reminded me.
“Yeah, well, you’re on a blind date, but you’re on a blind date thinking you might meet someone new and exciting you can really connect with. I’m just terrified that you’re going to start laughing at me.” When she did start laughing at me, I added, “See? We’re there already.”
“Gosh, is that what I have to look forward to at fifty-three?” Her nose wrinkled when she laughed. She studied me, a little too intensely, for a second before she smiled and turned back to her food. “You know, I like you a lot better here than in some stuffy restaurant.”
I wasn’t sure how she made that sound like a compliment, but it was possible I focused too much on the part where she’d said she liked me.
I cleared my throat. God, I couldn’t be cool for one moment, could I? “I find you just unbearable, with your beautiful face and your infectious laughter. I haven’t had a fun night like this for a while, and I just hate it.”
Some of that online advice had warned that I shouldn’t give her too many compliments. I supposed it was too late for that.
She dipped her head, but I still saw the pleased smile she subdued as she looked up. Her eyes still smiled, though. “Sophie told me you’re an artist?”
“Ugh.” It actually came out of my mouth. An “ugh” because while I loved to draw, probably more than I loved doing anything el
se, I hated talking about it. It was private and just for me, like jerking off. People knew I did it, but it wasn’t something I wanted to share with everyone.
Penny picked up on that. “Am I not supposed to ask?”
“You can ask.” My stomach crawled inside out whenever I had to discuss my work with someone, but I would force myself to endure it.
She shrugged and daintily plucked a pea pod from within the container she held. “What do you do? Painting, sculpture—”
“Drawing. Portraiture, mostly.” I was already shading the contours of her face in my mind as I spoke. “Figure drawing.”
“So, people.” She nodded, digging her chopsticks through her food. “Are you any good?”
Ah, the dreaded question. “Now, how am I supposed to answer that? Am I any good? If I tell you, ‘yeah, I’m fuckin’ great,’ I sound like I’m bragging. If I say, ‘No, I’m shite,’ it’s like I’m fishing for compliments. Either way, I come off like a fucking prick.”
Good fucking Christ, Ian! I had been trying so hard to control my natural vocabulary, but she was so easy to be with, I’d relaxed. Let my guard down. And now the F’s were flying out all over the place.
She giggled and covered her face with one hand. “That is the most swearing I’ve ever heard on a first date.”
“This is me on my best behavior. I may as well own up to it now.” I hoped she took that for the full disclosure it was and not just a pithy response.
Penny set aside her carton of food and rummaged in the paper bag between us, coming up with two fortune cookies and a welcome change of subject. “Okay. We have to find out what our future holds.”
“Or our lucky numbers and how to say ‘pork’ in Chinese.” I took the cookie from her and popped open the wrapper.
“I’ll have you know, I take these things very seriously,” she warned as she tore the plastic open.
“What, fortune cookies?” Was that endearing, or a warning sign?
“A fortune cookie is the reason I walked into that restaurant tonight.” She cracked hers in half. “Aren’t you glad I did?”
Beyond glad. Even sitting in the anemic glow of a park light, she was like a warm ray of sun on my face on the first day of spring.
It was probably better to downplay that. “I am. Maybe I’ll start putting more stock into these, then.”
I pulled the strip free from an open end of the cookie and read it, developing what was certainly some kind of fatal arrhythmia as I did.
The love of your live will step into your path this summer.
Fuck me.
“Mine says, ‘Humor usually works at the moment of awkwardness.’” Penny declared. “What does yours say?”
“Nothing, it’s stupid.” I tried to fold it up, fairly certain that this amount of awkwardness would not be fixed with humor. “And it’s got a typo.”
“A lot of them have typos,” she argued, reaching for my hand. Our game of keep away had the unintended effect of bodily closeness; she put her hand on my knee to steady herself as she leaned over to chase my arm.
“No,” I said again, holding the paper higher. “I don’t want you to see my lucky numbers and steal the lottery winnings that are rightfully mine.”
One of her breasts brushed my chest, and my awareness of her sharpened. She wasn’t some adorable little pixie who said funny things and filled out a dress well. She was a flesh and blood woman, and the flesh was…pretty fucking spectacular. I was so distracted by her tits pressing against my chest and arm that I fumbled the paper. She snatched it triumphantly and sat back, her blond curls bouncing.
What the fuck had just happened? Incidental physical contact with a woman hadn’t distracted me like that since my twenties.
Her brow furrowed as she read the small red print on the slip. Then, she snorted and said, “Well, I hope she hurries up. It’s already August twenty-first.”
She turned to me, and a laugh died on her lips, her smile slowly melting into an altogether different expression that mingled hints of shock and uncertainty with the faintest flecks of possibility. Neither of us said anything, for far too long.
“Excuse me, sir. Sir!”
A figure came up the path toward us, a round man with a head the shape and color of a pink Easter egg and wearing a dark stocking cap. Sweet Jesus, let it be a mugger, if only to save us from this embarrassing situation.
“Uh-oh,” Penny said beside me, her eyes wide.
“NYPD,” the guy said, in a tone that suggested he was unimpressed with us. “Are you two aware that this park is closed from sundown to seven a.m.?”
“No, I can’t say as I noticed.” I’d noticed. And I’m a terrible liar, so I was sure he could tell I’d read the sign on the fence and strolled on in, anyway. I stood and extended my hand. “Terribly sorry. We’ll go.”
The officer’s gaze moved to Penny, then back to me as he asked her, “Miss, how old are you?”
“I’m twenty-two,” Penny offered, reaching into her purse. “Do you want to see my ID?”
“No, ma’am.” The officer didn’t break eye contact with me to address her. “Are we on a date here?”
“Yeah, a blind date,” Penny said.
I had a terrible feeling that I knew what the officer was getting at.
“We were set up by a mutual friend,” she went on, while I tried to send her mental signals to kindly shut up before I spent the weekend in jail.
“A friend? You mind telling me what kind of friend?”
I could vividly imagine the feeling of the handcuffs closing on my wrists.
“A work friend,” she told him with her wide, dazzling smile.
Her endearing naiveté was about to get me arrested for soliciting prostitution.
She looked from me, to the officer, then back. Her expression changed in an instant. Finally, she understood.
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” She stood, waving her hands. “I am not a prostitute. Not that there’s anything wrong with sex work. I mean, besides the illegality of it. I don’t know why it’s illegal, I mean, if it’s ethical, and nobody is getting hurt—I’m sorry. I’ll stop talking, sir. Officer. Is that impolite to call you sir? I’ve never talked to a police officer before in a disciplinary… Am I getting arrested?”
Somehow, her ineptitude interacting with the police gave me a calm like unto a superpower. In the small, deeply repressed part of my mind that could sometimes instruct me to say the correct thing in a constructive way, at a crucial moment, I found the words, “Penny works at a magazine. I’m old friends with her boss, and she set us up. That’s really all that’s going on here.”
He looked between us both, reluctantly surrendering suspicion. “Trespassing’s your idea of romance?”
“No, I took her to a very expensive restaurant where neither one of us were having a good time. This seemed like the better option. So far, I think it’s going pretty well.” That was quite smooth of me. If it didn’t charm the policeman, maybe it would charm Penny into bailing me out of jail.
“I think it should be going away from the park.” The officer motioned down the path with his flashlight. “I’m coming back around this way in five minutes, and I don’t want to see you here.”
“And we don’t want to see you, either,” Penny agreed.
I was never going to take this one with me to commit a crime, that was for sure and fucking certain.
“We’re going,” I assured the officer, and put my hand on Penny’s arm to guide her toward the bench. Her skin prickled with goose bumps under my hand. “Are you cold?”
“No. Or, um. Yeah? A little bit?” She rubbed her arms.
“Would you like my jacket, then?” I was already pulling it off.
She smiled, her cheeks going rosy. “Thanks. That’s very chivalrous of you.”
“Aye, I learned it in the thirteenth century,” I quipped as I draped it over her shoulders. “Let’s get out of here before Officer Friendly comes back.”
We packed up the remains of our
dinner and gave the crime scene a look over, lest we be tracked down and penalized for littering. We disposed of everything in the trashcan down the path then hurried out.
“I assume we’re safe here,” she said once we reached the sidewalk. “Try not to solicit sex from me, though.”
“I already promised I wouldn’t. I’m a man of my word.” I would have never guessed it, but our brush with the law somehow made the evening seem more successful. We would both at least have a story to tell.
I reached into my pocket and retrieved the fortune she’d gotten from her cookie. “Here. Hopefully, this rings true.”
“We’ll look back on tonight and laugh,” she said with a smile. “Did you keep yours?”
“Nah.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, won’t you be embarrassed when you meet the love of your live tomorrow, and you don’t have the proper paperwork.”
“Let me walk you home?” I didn’t want the night to end. Even with the trespassing and my octopus gaff, I’d had fun with Penny. But it was getting late, and all the advice had said not to let the date go on too long.
Penny didn’t live far from the park. I spent the whole walk wondering if I should offer her my arm. We made a little small talk, but Penny was suddenly quiet. We stopped outside a door between a dry cleaner and a sandwich shop, both closed, with gates and rolling metal shutters pulled over the windows and doors.
I had a moment of nostalgia remembering my first apartment in New York. It had been a disgusting little studio apartment I’d shared with one other guy and his girlfriend. We’d had to battle with roaches that were too big to hide under the hot plate and the cold-water-only shower that had nearly given me pneumonia my first winter in the city.
I didn’t know Penny that well, but I knew her well enough I didn’t want her to live like that.
“This is me,” she said, gesturing to the door. She slipped my jacket off and handed it to me.
I swung it over my shoulder and held it with one hand. “So…thank you. I wasn’t joking when I said I was having fun. Even after the cops came.”
First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) Page 2