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.”
After most Sunday dinners, I would spend a polite amount of time watching some kind of seasonally appropriate American sport with Bill. Today, I was on the fence. Annie had let the subject lie during dinner, but there was a palpable air of brewing conflict between us.
I ducked out the back door for a cigarette. Annie had “quit” a year ago, but the rumpled pack of Marlboro Reds stuffed into the ceramic frog beside the stoop told a different story. I took a dollar from my pocket, quickly rolled it up, and slipped it into the pack to replace the cigarette I’d bummed. She’d thoughtfully left a lighter in the frog. That was my sister, always prepared for any eventuality.
I took a long drag and had t
o stop myself from moaning at the comforting familiarity of both the action and the toxins speeding into my lungs. I’d quit—actually quit, not Annie-quit—over a year ago, but every now and then, I had one. It was stupid; I’d done this dance before, and I knew that one would lead to another, and another, and another, until I was up to a pack a day again.
“I thought you were done with that.” Annie’s voice startled me out of my blissful contemplation of nicotine and ritual. She went to the frog, grabbed a smoke of her own, and the dollar I’d put in the pack. She pressed the bill into my palm. “Keep it. Let’s call that a peace offering.”
“And good cover, right? You can just tell Bill I was the one out here having a lapse in self-control.” I knew her game.
“You caught me.” She lit up with a backward glance at the door then sat on the stoop, plucking at the front of her t-shirt in reaction to the heat. “Ian…”
“No.” I shook my head. I was too tired for round two. “Just don’t. I know you don’t approve of my choices, all right? I understand that, honestly I do. But this is my life to fuck up. If I’m having a midlife crisis—”
“I never said that,” she interrupted, stern but calm.
“But I’m saying it.” I took another blessed inhale and released it before I went on. “I’ve been on two dates with her. I like her. But it’s far from serious.”
“Do you want it to be serious?” she asked, with the same confusing, condemning-yet-concerned tone our mother had employed so many times.
And that was the real question, wasn’t it? Could I see myself in an actual, committed relationship with Penny? Could I see myself in love with her? Marrying her? I’d imagined having sex with her, but could I imagine waking up beside her every morning? And was it too soon to even think about such things?
I gave Annie’s query a thought while I took another lungful of tar and chemicals. “I do. I don’t know that it will be, but I think I would like it if it was. She’s…”
“Young?”
I rolled my eyes at her. “It’s not about that. Believe me, I don’t feel younger when I’m around her.”
“What do you feel?” she asked, like a fucking psychoanalyst.
But damned if it wasn’t a powerful thing to think about. “Comfortable. I know everyone says things like this, but I feel like I’ve known her for a lot longer than two dates.”
Annie narrowed her eyes as she inhaled. When she exhaled, she asked, “Have you slept with her?”
“I haven’t.” There was no need to act outraged or offended at being asked. It would only make her suspicious. “She doesn’t have sex with anyone, actually. She’s never found anyone she’s wanted to have it with.”
Was that too personal a thing to confess to my sister? In hindsight, I should have considered if sharing would have offended Penny.
Annie’s dark eyebrows shot up. “And how do you feel about that?”
“I want to sleep with her. Of course I do. But, if I’m not the guy, I’m not the guy.” The thought made my shrug a little heavier.
“I think you’re getting into something very foolish. You’re not as young as you used to be. You might not be able to keep up,” she warned. But her heart wasn’t in it the way it had been earlier. “You’re a grown man, and you’re capable of making your own choices. Just don’t mess her about. She’s very young, and young girls can have a difficult time turning a man down. It feels like an obligation.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to think too deeply on that. If Annie were speaking from experience, if some awful prick had pressured her into having sex she hadn’t wanted to have, I would have the irrational urge to punch him. It wasn’t likely I would be able to find him to satisfy that urge, but my siblings and I had very deep protective streaks when it came to each other. At least, those of us who were still living did.
“Yeah. Well, she’s a sweet girl. I’m going to do whatever I can to avoid hurting her.” That brought a different protective urge to the surface. I didn’t want to think of the guy who might come along after me, and how he might break Penny’s heart.
Jesus. I was pretty far gone, wasn’t I?
I had a powerful need to talk to Penny. This discussion had somehow made her more real to me, what had passed between us more tangible. I wanted to tell her, but of course I couldn’t. That would make me seem desperate, at best, freaky and scary, at worst.
“Look, tell Bill I’m not going to stay this afternoon. I’ve got a bit of a headache.” I stubbed out my cigarette on the concrete driveway then tossed the butt over the chain-link fence and into the neighbor’s postage-stamp sized yard. There were already butts stomped out all over their driveway. I wondered if Annie had some kind of neighbor’s agreement worked out between them.
I gave Annie a kiss on the cheek, thanked her for dinner, and headed to my car, parked in the alley. As I pulled away, I glanced at my phone in its clip-on cradle on the dash. I held down the button until Siri asked what she could help me with.
“Dial Penny.” I took a deep breath as the phone methodically moved through its steps to do my bidding.
“Is it too early to give you your own ringtone?” Penny’s voice came over the car speakers, startling me. I’d been expecting a “hello”.
“Were we having a conversation I don’t remember being in the middle of?” I asked cautiously. Or maybe she had been on line with someone else. Someone who deserved their own ringtone.
God, I hoped it wasn’t that.
“Seriously?” A spring squeaked. Maybe she was in bed.
Maybe she was lounging in bed in the type of panties that look like very small shorts, and a white cotton tank top with no bra underneath.
“You do that to me all the time.” Her accusation jolted me out of my lecherous thoughts.
“Me?” I couldn’t clear my head enough to remember what we’d been talking about. Starting conversations in the middle, I reminded myself. “No, I don’t. My sister has a habit of doing that, but I don’t think I do.”
She laughed. God, her laugh was fucking fantastic. “Trust me, you do. I can’t believe no one has ever mentioned it.”
“They probably thought it was cool and charming. You just don’t appreciate it,” I said, and my usual playful charm somehow didn’t make it through, falling flat and pathetic to my ears.
She must have picked up on it. “Hey, are you okay? You sounded kind of…different.”
I sighed. This was not how I’d wanted this call to go. My plan had been to flirt with her a bit, test the tenuous chemistry happening between us. Instead, there was no chemistry at all. Just raw, emotional exhaustion. “It’s been a hell of a day already. And it’s really good to hear your voice.”
It took her half a beat to respond. “It’s good to hear yours, too.”
I hoped that was sincere, and not a knee-jerk response to me overstepping my bounds.
“What are you doing, right now?” she asked.
“Driving home. Where I will probably drink a few beers and nap on the sofa.” And try to convince myself not to panic about the fact I was rapidly developing a troubling amount of affection for her.
“Hey. Do you have a pair of swim trunks?”
A man could get whiplash from the way she changed subjects.
“I do… Why?” It was a rather odd question to ask.
She giggled. “Go home, get them, and meet me at my place. We’re going to have an adventure.”
“And this adventure entails water?” I hoped it wasn’t some hip young pool party with obnoxious dance music and drunk college-aged kids causing a very real drowning danger.
“Yes. It entails water. And taking your shirt off in front of me, so no talking about ‘gory wrecks’. Because I looked at your Facebook pictures. You look fine.”
I thought back to how a shirtless photo of me could have ended up on Facebook. Then I remembered the trip to Greece that Gena and I had taken. The last-hurrah-before-the-baby trip.
I’d been so fucking oblivious.
>
Gena was the past. Penny, presumably in a bathing suit, was my immediate future. “I’m still not thrilled at the prospect of my own partial nudity. However, I assume there will be partial nudity on your part, so you have my attention.” I chuckled at my own joke.
“Just get here,” she ordered. “Trust me, this is going to be perfect.”
We hung up, and I considered what kind of adventure she could have planned. Did her building have a rooftop pool? That wasn’t exactly an adventure. Did she want to hijack me to the beach? It seemed unlikely. She was comfortable with being spontaneous with me, at least, and I loved that.
Canarsie to Dumbo to Little Italy was a frustrating, long trip, so I only stopped at the house long enough to rummage through my drawers and find my trunks. I ducked into the bathroom to brush my teeth and scrub the cigarette smell from my face and hands. Then, it was back in the car, praying I didn’t smell too sweaty from spending all day in the shirt and trousers I’d worn to church.
I spent the drive idly wondering about Penny’s swimsuit. I would have bet money that it was what Gena had called a “tankini”, or even a one-piece suit that looked like something out of the 1950’s. I pulled up beside the building, went to the dodgy-looking intercom at the door and pressed the button, hoping I wouldn’t receive a fatal electric shock.
“On my way down!” Penny called over the crackling line. I walked back to the car and waited, leaning against it. The building was four stories, and probably a walk-up. Odds were good that I had a moment to wait.
The wait was worth it. Penny stepped out of the door, sliding sunglasses down from her hair like a model in a 1990’s music video. She was dressed the part, as well, in tiny pink shorts and, God bless her, that white tank top I had fantasized about. She did have a bra on, and the sight of the strap peeking out from beneath her top was almost more tantalizing than my imaginings.
First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) Page 7