“Yeah.” She smiled with her lips closed and nodded. She had a dimple in one cheek. Just the one.
She was beautiful. And I wanted, badly, to kiss her. But was that something people did, anymore? I hadn’t dated in so long. Did women still expect a kiss goodnight? Was it… Was it harassment?
She was still looking up at me, her big, brown eyes as earnest as a Disney princess’s in her porcelain doll face. Then, her gaze flicked to my mouth, and I thought, What the hell?
I leaned in, and she leaned out, bending backwards like she was avoiding a limbo stick on fire.
I’d dramatically misread that signal.
She stepped back. “Nope! No. No, sorry, it’s not you—”
Well, you could have fucking fooled me!
“—it’s just that my breath is really, really bad from dinner.” Her wince of embarrassment turned into a grimace. “I actually did that on purpose. I thought I might be tempted, so I went with spicy and full of cabbage.”
“Oh.” Wait, what the hell did she mean by that? I couldn’t tell if she was saying she wanted to kiss me or she was arming herself against me.
“It’s just that… I like you, Ian. And you know how you said you were old fashioned about paying for dinner? I’m old fashioned about this. I move really, really slow, and I think it’s only fair you know that, if you were thinking about…calling me?”
“I was actually thinking about how much pepper spray was going to hurt.” My eyes watered at the thought, and I bracketed them with my thumb and forefinger to rub my lids.
“Why would I pepper spray you?” A spark of amusement lit up her voice.
I was half-laughing myself. “Because this entire date has been a disaster, and I thought going in for the kiss might have been the last straw.”
She looked down when she smiled. “It wasn’t a total disaster.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m a bit out of practice with dating, and I overstepped my bounds. But slow doesn’t bother me. Slow, I can do.”
No, you can’t, you lying bastard. I’d never been slow a day in my entire life, at least, not sexually. I’d lost my virginity at fourteen, but I’d been feeling up girls behind the school since I was eleven. I hadn’t slowed down since. But maybe a woman like Penny was worth the wait.
“You know, police involvement aside, I had fun tonight, too,” she said. She wiggled her foot on the sidewalk. “Would you want to do it again?”
I’d do it, again, right now, my brain shouted, but that was a scary line on a first date, wasn’t it? “Oh, I suppose I could stomach it.”
She beamed at me. “Well, good. I think you should be old fashioned and call me.”
“No texts,” I swore. I hated texts. I wasn’t even old fashioned about that. I was just old. I felt the beginning of an idiotic grin, and I suppressed it as much as I could. I wanted to punch the air like Judd fucking Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club.
“Thanks for a really… Let’s go with memorable. A really memorable night.”
“It was my pleasure.” I stood there with every intention of watching her walk away, but she didn’t. She turned then turned back as if it were an afterthought. Grabbing my tie, she tugged me down and kissed me on the cheek.
“Have a good night,” she said, and she blushed but probably less than I was blushing.
I waited until she unlocked her door and gave me a little wave. I felt like I’d been smacked in the forehead by a cartoon cupid’s oversized arrows. I bet little stars and birds were going around my head in a cartoon concussion halo.
I got a cab on Lafayette, glad to be off my feet. I reached into my pocket and took out the slip of paper I’d lied about keeping. The love of your live will step into your path this summer.
This was either going to be an insane amount of trouble, or the best worst date I’d ever had.
Chapter Three
As a lifelong Catholic, I’ve always vaguely resented Sunday mornings. Especially when I’d spent my Saturday night with six idiots fixing a fucked up drawing. Intelligently, I knew I didn’t have to go to mass. Emotionally, I’d be looking over my shoulder all week if I skipped it. Every time I stepped off a fucking curb I’d hear my mother’s voice in my head, taunting me from beyond the grave: “If you don’t have an hour for our Lord, maybe he won’t have an hour for you when you’re in need.” So, even though I’d had a late night, I found myself tying up yet another tie, preparing for spiritual battle with myself.
I’d spent the night at the office. There was always something to do, and there was a couch that was surprisingly comfortable to sleep on. These days, I liked it more than my apartment, which remained a minefield of hurt feelings. I still found bits of my marriage strewn all over. When we’d opened the firm, we’d renovated a floor in a midtown skyscraper that had excellent big windows and amazing daylight exposure. I stood beside my drafting table and clicked the lamp on and off. So, it was a bit bleak, with the light gray walls and sparse interior decor, but that hadn’t been my choice. Gena had done that.
God, I couldn’t get away from her.
In the light of day, especially the light of a Sunday, reality was starting to intrude on my high from my date with Penny. What the hell had I been thinking? She was thirty years younger than me. Thirty years, not ten or hell, I would even take twenty. And she moved slow. What would she think of me if she knew all the kinky things I’d got up to in my past? And what did slow mean to a twenty-two year old?
I needed advice, and I needed it from someone younger than me. I rang my nephew, Danny. He was twenty-six. He would know what slow meant.
“You realize it’s Sunday, right?” he said in lieu of a hello. “It’s kind of our rush hour?”
“I know, I’m heading out the door myself,” I glanced at my watch and patted my pocket to check that I’d remembered my rosary. Still had plenty of time to make it to mass, but I would miss confession.
“You’re just leaving the house? Uncle Ian, we start in like thirty minutes.” Danny’s accent had all but faded since he’d come to America when he was ten years old, but I heard loads of Scottish exasperation in it.
I scrubbed my hand down my face and braced for more shame. It’s a hell of a thing when your nephew holds ecclesiastic authority over you. “I was planning to go to St. Andrew’s, this week.”
“Tell me you’re not at the office. Tell me you went home with that girl you were seeing,” Danny groaned.
“No, I didn’t go home with her. I saw her on Friday. What kind of priest are you, anyway?” It was no good lying to him. Lying to a priest was probably worse than lying to a regular person, on the sin scale. “I’m at the office.”
Danny sighed. “I would rather you’d spent the night with your date.”
“Well, that’s what I called to talk about, Danny.” I stressed his name, so he’d know we were strictly off the record with the Lord. “Oh, but I also can’t make it to confession, so I’m going to need an indulgence.”
“We can’t just hand those out, and you know it. Say a rosary for my mom, and I’ll absolve you. Just tell me about your date.” Daniel was slightly out of breath. He was headed in to get all vestmented up, so I wouldn’t keep him too long.
“It started off bad, but it got a lot better. But there’s a problem.” I couldn’t dance around it and waste Danny’s time. “She’s twenty-two. And she says she ‘goes slow’.”
“Goes slow? What does that mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you’d know the answer.”
“You realize that I’m a priest, right?” he reminded me with the patented Pratchett sarcasm.
“You weren’t always a priest,” I countered. “And I suspect you leave that collar at home on Friday nights.”
“Thursdays,” he muttered.
“I don’t know how to do slow,” I went on. “And she’s so… I don’t want to say pure, I don’t want to make it weird. But she’s this little piece of cotton candy fluff. She has a dimple in one cheek w
hen she smiles. Just the one. She’s like fucking sunshine.”
“Oh, then, you’d better not go near her again,” Danny said. “I’ve heard your confessions before.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I told her I would call her.” For clarity’s sake, I added, “She actually said she would like it if I called her. I know that I would like it if I called her. So, do I?”
“Do you what? Uncle Ian, I’m saying this as your nephew and not your priest: you are not going to be able to be with someone that much younger than you who goes ’slow’. That probably sounds judgmental and short-sighted, but in terms of sin, you’re in the majors, and she hasn’t even filled out her Little League paperwork yet.”
“I’ll have you know that I haven’t had sex since Gena left me.” I checked my watch, again. “Look, I think I’m going to do what you do. The whole celibacy thing.”
“Oh, yeah? Let’s see how that shakes out.” Someone called for “Father Daniel” in the background. His response to them was muffled, then he returned to our conversation “I have to go. But I’m adding to your penance. You need to sit down and think about how strange it is for a man your age to be considering a relationship with a twenty-two year old, let alone asking your nephew for advice about it.”
“Okay, that’s what my nephew thinks. What does my priest think?” I pulled on my jacket and headed through the main floor of the empty office.
“Your priest thinks it’s a bad move to get involved. And you need to pray. A lot.”
“Oh, in that case, absolution rejected. I think I will call this girl. Not just to prove you wrong, either.” I punched the code into the security system to lock up. “I like her. I might see what happens.”
“Whatever you do, be honest with her from the beginning,” Danny warned. “That’s your nephew, not your priest speaking. Or…no, actually, it’s both.”
“Are you going to your mum’s for dinner?” I wasn’t sure I was going to my sister’s house today. She’d know that I’d been out on a date. She had a supernatural sense about other people’s business.
“No, one of my confirmation students has a band concert or something at East River Park, and I said I’d go. You want to grab some food and meet me there at two? Your treat?”
“Sure.” I hit the button for the elevator and said, “Look, I’m about to leave. Have a good mass. Break a leg, yeah?”
“Sure. Try not to get hit by a bus on the way, because you’ll go immediately to Hell,” he advised before we disconnected.
I headed out to the street and flagged down a cab, because I’d rather pull a tooth than fight for parking. I spent the ride to St. Andrew’s mulling over what had Danny said. I should think about what it meant to pursue a relationship with someone so much younger than I was. I definitely needed to consider how important the sexual side of said relationship would be to me.
We pulled up to the curb, and I paid the driver. Standing on the sidewalk in front of the church, I mentally tossed around the advice I’d read online. Danny said to take time and consider, but all those websites had said not to wait too long or play aloof when you liked the girl. But none of those websites had advice to give to a man who wanted to date a woman thirty years younger. There were websites out there that did, as I’d found out when I’d googled it the night before, but they were incredibly creepy, and I sure as hell wasn’t taking advice from them.
Danny was probably right. I needed counsel from a higher authority. Prayer had never steered me wrong. Well, it had. With Gena. And my girlfriend before her. And countless other times. But that was usually because I ignored any insight it gave me, anyway. I just need a sign, I told God silently. Anything will do.
There were two old women ahead of me as we entered the church, plodding along like the oldest tortoises in the fucking turtle social security office line. I shuffled behind them, not really walking, but taking a step and stopping until there was room to take another without running them down. One rummaged in her purse the entire time, muttering about the collection and how she hadn’t put in as much the week before.
Then, it happened.
The old woman made a little “whoops” noise, and a sandwich baggie of coin rolls flopped from her hands. A red-striped wrapper burst apart as it hit the floor, scattering pennies—fifty of them—at my feet.
Well, I had asked for a sign.
* * * *
“So, to clarify,” I said slowly as I crumpled my sandwich wrapper and pushed it into the deli bag with the other trash. “You didn’t actually curse out Sister Beth.”
“God, no, what the hell, Uncle Ian?” Danny shook his head and took a drink from his soda. “I would never swear at a nun, obviously. I could just imagine snapping and doing it. She thinks she runs the church. And I don’t mean St. Basil’s. I mean the big-C Church.”
It was a nice day to be outside, talking about cursing at nuns. I rolled up my sleeves and looked out at the river. The Williamsburg Bridge arched across, creating an extension of the city’s skyline over the water. I’d been feeling slightly off all day, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. I realized that for the first time since Gena had left, I was actually optimistic about the future. My life wasn’t over, just because my marriage was. I was capable of meeting new people and rebuilding my life. There was actually a chance I could be happy, again. If not with Penny, with someone else.
But, for right now, I was going to concentrate on being happy near Penny.
Danny checked his phone. “Okay, I’ve got to go. You wanna walk with me?”
I shrugged. “It’s a nice day, why not?”
I threw my trash in a can as we walked, and carried my jacket over my shoulder. I couldn’t say the summer air smelled fantastic—we were in New York, after all—but the afternoon sunshine matched my mood, and the temperature was surprisingly mild for August. People were out walking and cycling and jogging…
A short blond with her hair in a ponytail was running toward us, her fantastic tits held firmly in place by a purple sports bra she hadn’t bothered to put a shirt over. Her tiny running shorts were just tight enough that the rearview would be spectacular. If I’d been paying more attention to her face and not being the lecherous old man that I was, I would have noticed it was Penny before she caught me staring.
She slowed down as she reached us and pulled out her earbuds.
“Penny,” I managed, exerting Herculean effort to not look down at her chest. “This is an unexpected surprise.”
“All surprises are unexpected. That’s why they’re surprises,” Danny said, and I redirected all that superhuman effort into not elbowing a priest in the gut in front of the woman I wanted to go on another date with.
“This sarcastic bastard is my nephew, Danny,” I explained, and I hoped she understood it as a disavowing of responsibility for anything he might do to embarrass me.
Her eyebrows shot up. Danny had told me before that many people are shocked to meet a priest and realize he has friends and family outside of his parish. This was the first time I’d really seen that in the wild. But she wasn’t rude, and extended her hand to take Danny’s. “Oh. Nice to meet you.”
I gave him the brush off. “Why don’t you fuck off over there and give me some privacy?”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Danny said, giving me a raised eyebrow of his own. Then, he added, “He’s been talking about you all day.”
Judas! Just because he couldn’t have a girlfriend didn’t mean he needed to sabotage my efforts at getting one.
The temperature seemed to have risen with my embarrassment. “Well, not all day.”
There was just the right amount of smugness in her smile to let me know that she was happy to hear that her name had come up. She pointed to my tie. “So, do you not have any other clothes? Or is this your park-going suit?”
I wasn’t sure I could speak rationally about clothing with her standing there wearing very little. And why wouldn’t she want to run around the city looking the way she did? She looked
phenomenal, especially with wisps of hair falling from her ponytail and sweat running down her neck into her cleavage—
Eyes up, Pratchett!
“What?” I couldn’t remember what she’d asked me. Clothing. Pay attention, for Christ’s sake, man. “Oh. No, I just came from mass. I’m feeling a wee bit overdressed, now.”
In the current political climate, admitting to a religion could be stepping into a minefield. So, when she said, “Well, I’d better—” I panicked.
“Yes! Sorry. I didn’t mean to imperil your cardiovascular fitness.” She’s freaked out at your Catholicism, and now she’s going to literally run away! This is probably your last chance, man, and you’re spouting off a fucking thesaurus! “But while you’re here, uh, I was planning to call you tonight. I thought it would look desperate and uncool if I called you yesterday, but now it’s day two, and I don’t have to look desperate and uncool, because you’re here and I can just ask you now.” Oh, for fuck’s sake. Just put some spectacular cleavage in front of me, and I couldn’t form a fucking sentence. I had to look away from her if my brain was going to have enough blood to operate properly. “Would you like to go on another date with me? If you aren’t busy on Saturday, I was thinking we could go on a picnic. A legal, daytime picnic.”
She laughed and smiled wide, showing that single dimple. “I’m totally free. And I would love to go on a picnic with you.”
I hadn’t meant to spring the daytime date on her. I think it popped into my mind because of the way the sun was turning her hair into spun fucking gold. But she’d accepted. That was all I cared about. That, and the way she was smiling at me. She didn’t just want to go. She would love to go.
“Great. I’ll call you this week, and we can hash out the details.” Details like who would bring the food and where we would meet and whether either of us had a picnic basket. I would think of the logistics later, when I could actually think.
“Great,” Penny agreed. She used her thumb to point over her shoulder. “I’m gonna…”
First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) Page 3