I’d never agonized over wardrobe choices so much in my life.
I settled on jeans and a T-shirt. No one outgrew that look. I hoped.
At the sound of the zipper on the garment bag, Ambrose deigned to make an appearance. He meowed plaintively.
“This is not a business trip,” I assured him. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
He hopped up on the bed and stood at the corner blinking disdainfully at me.
“You’d better get used to it,” I warned him. “I’ve got a new romance happening. I want you to be more welcoming to her than you were to Gena.”
Ambrose had hated Gena from the start. I think he felt she had intruded on our boys’ club. It hadn’t helped that Gena had disliked him, as well. Not that I could blame her; Ambrose had taken great delight in peeing on anything of hers he could get near, from shoes to magazines, and once, memorably, on a three-hundred-dollar dress she’d just picked up from the dry cleaner.
I made sure he had food and water before I left, and headed on my way.
When I arrived at Penny’s apartment, I parked in the only available spot, near the corner, locked my briefcase in the trunk of the car and walked down to her door. I pushed the button, and Penny’s voice crackled over the tinny intercom. “Hey! Come on up! We’re unit B.”
Entering the building, I was immediately taken back to my days as a younger man in the city, though I’d never had the money to live in Manhattan proper. Penny’s building was dingy, but not disgusting; it actually smelled as though someone had recently bleached something. There were water stains on the walls of the foyer, and a few missing octagonal tiles under foot. It was a walk-up, but thankfully B was on the second level. Penny already waited at the open door. Even though I was tired and my knees ached and my eyes felt like they were full of sand, I had to smile at the sight of her.
I tried to discreetly ogle her. She wore yoga pants—they were a miracle of modern fashion, and I one day hoped to the meet the inventor so I could heartily shake their hand—and a blue tank top, and her hair was rolled up in an impossibly huge bun on the top of her head. She looked like she was ready to teach a spin class, rather than die of uterine hemorrhage. “You sounded like you were dying on the phone. I’m glad to see you’re not in imminent danger of expiring.”
“No, just generally miserable.” She waved me inside. “This is the place.”
“Not a lot of it,” the woman on the couch said. Rosa, if I remembered her name correctly. When she wasn’t frowning in the harsh blue glow of a mercury light as I felt up her roommate, she was quite pretty, with long, curly black hair. She stood, revealing a slender body and Amazon height. “I’m Rosa.”
“I think we met before,” I reminded her, clearing my throat. “Downstairs.”
“Right, when you two were making out.” She smiled at me as if to make it clear that she wasn’t going to play protective pseudo-parent. “We weren’t properly introduced.”
Penny turned to me. “I was thinking we could watch TV in my room. Keep one foot on the floor so Mom doesn’t worry?”
“Sure. Except for the foot thing.” I winked at her then looked to the roommate. “Sorry, but I have nothing but lascivious intentions toward your friend.”
“Hey, as long as I don’t have to listen,” Rosa said with a shake of her head.
Penny led me to her bedroom, which was immediately off the living room. I filed that away for future reference; I wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to have a roommate overhear any potential sexual encounters.
My feeling of nostalgia for my younger years intensified as I looked around Penny’s room. There were, as I had anticipated, fairy lights decorating the ceiling. Her bed was a full; it would be a tight squeeze, but I could think of worse fates than having to touch her too much in the night. A small flat-screen television balanced precariously on top of a plastic storage cube at the end of her bed. It was every twenty-something’s apartment in New York, and it was fantastic.
“Wow.” My chest ached a bit at the memories that rushed back. “This reminds me so much of my first apartment in New York.”
When she turned around, she looked absolutely crestfallen. “Because it’s so small and shitty?”
“Well, it is small. But this place is better kept than my apartment was. And I shared a bedroom about this size with another guy.” I laughed, trying to make up for whatever it was I’d said that had hurt her feelings. “We didn’t even have beds.”
Trying to make things better did not work. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think about the fact that you probably didn’t want to hang out in some dingy twenty-something’s crappy apartment.”
“Did you not just hear what I said about sleeping on the floor?” This was silly. I toed off my sneakers, hoping the gesture would affirm for her that I wasn’t going to run out the door. “I didn’t expect you to have a million-dollar penthouse. Besides, I’m here to make you feel better, not do a property appraisal.”
From the other room, Rosa interrupted us with a loud, “Food’s here!”
It was good enough to distract Penny. “Wait right here. The remote is in my nightstand.”
I stood in the small space for a moment, unsure of what to do. I was sure it would put her at ease if I made myself at home, so I sat on the edge of her bed and pulled open the nightstand drawer.
There was no remote.
There was, however, a sparkly purple vibrator. With pink and white rhinestones on it.
I closed the drawer so fast the whole nightstand rocked, and the lamp on it wobbled precariously. Beside it lay the remote control for the television.
She’d said on, not in.
And I’d just invaded the hell out of her privacy.
I pulled my legs up on the bed and tried to lean against the headboard casually, but I couldn’t find any position that didn’t shout, “I just saw your vibrator.” Perhaps that was just my paranoid perception of things. But all I could think about was the fact that the adorable power tool in the drawer beside me had known Penny intimately, and I couldn’t stop imagining her using it. I thought about her lying in this bed, the room lit only by those strings of fairy lights, her knees up and apart as she rubbed the toy over her clit. She wasn’t naked in my fantasy, but wearing a white T-shirt that just so happened to resemble the one she’d worn at my place, the neck slipping down to reveal one shoulder. Somehow, that was more painfully sexy than total nudity. Just the suggestion of her body, a slightly darker outline beneath the illuminated fabric, her nipples standing out against the shirt as she threw her head back, moaning—
“I kind of over-ordered,” she said as she burst back in with a pizza box and some Styrofoam containers. “Owing to my condition.”
Can she read my thoughts, right now? God, this would be a bad time to find out she was telepathic. This close to the scene of the crime, I was sure she’d hear my guilt like a telltale heart buzzing away in her nightstand drawer. “Are you sure you want to eat in here? When we’re going to get pizza sauce all over your bedding?”
She frowned. “I don’t know how you eat pizza, but I try not to turn into a yard sprinkler of tomato sauce when I do it. Besides, you’ve had roommates before. You know how important space is.”
“That’s true. It was fairly awkward for me when I wanted to bring a girl back to my sleeping bag.” Not as awkward as accidentally snooping on a new girlfriend’s sex toys but awkward enough.
She sat beside me cross-legged and started opening boxes. Then we ate. And she really, really ate. It would have been comical, if I hadn’t been a little concerned that I might lose appendages. She asked me about my day, how work was, if I’d done anything interesting for lunch, and her responses were mostly monosyllabic, as her mouth was busy. I’d never seen her devour a meal so voraciously.
“What about you?” I asked finally, when she took a chewing break to sip her soda.
“Nothing out of the ordinary really happened. Your job seems a lot more exciting than mine.”
>
Perhaps it was because I’d used so many expletives in describing everything that had gone wrong. “Or less frustrating, depending on how you look at it. I’m dreading going in tomorrow.”
More aptly, I was already dreading disentangling myself from Penny’s arms and vacating her bed. I’d yet to have a proper wake-up with her, where we could laze about all morning without the obligation of work or the scourge of a hangover. I craved that intimacy with her, with an intensity that frightened me.
She wiped her hands then put one on my knee. “Well, thank you for coming over here, even though you’re having a bad week. I’ve been feeling progressively better since I got off the phone with you.”
“Happy to help.” I could talk to her on the phone for seven hours and it still wouldn’t be as satisfying as being near her. Which was going to be an issue if I took the job Carrie was offering me. I’d spent some of my day researching the properties she already managed, trying to find ways to avoid replicating the style she wanted to break away from. I’d been in the middle of doing that before I realized I was actively considering taking on the project.
Now, things with Penny were moving so fast, it seemed like something I should bring up sooner, rather than later. Just thinking about leaving for eighteen months without telling her about the possibility seemed like a betrayal. Maybe it wasn’t smart to bring it up when she felt so miserable, but I had to throw it out there.
I cleared my throat. “Since we’re on the subject of work, there’s something I need to discuss with you.”
“Oh?” She reached for another breadstick. God, what I wouldn’t have given to have twenty-two-year-old metabolism, again.
“There’s a chance I may have to go away on business for…a while. A temporary relocation.” I watched as all the blood drained from her face. The fact that she had paused with the breadstick almost to her mouth without taking a single bite was also alarming. I rushed to reassure her, “Nothing permanent. And it’s not final, by any means. It wouldn’t be until next year. But I thought I should let you know the possibility exists.”
Her body relaxed, and some color returned to her cheeks. She took a big bite of breadstick and spoke around it as she chewed. “Where would you be going?”
“Nassau. The Bahamas.” She probably knows where Nassau is, you prick. Stop talking down to her. “To work on a resort.”
“Oh, wow! Would I be able to come visit?” She lit up at the prospect. For a moment, I thought she was imagining sun and surf and tropical drinks, until I remembered her love of the sea. Did they have octopuses—octopods—in the Bahamas?
“I hope you would.” I pretended to be outraged at the mere suggestion that she might not. “After I came all this way tonight.”
She bit her lip. “Okay. Well, since we’re bringing up unpleasant subjects…my parents are coming to town next week.”
“And that’s unpleasant?” I asked.
“No, but having to ask you this kind of is. They want to meet you,” she said, her eyebrows drawing together as though she were waiting for something unpleasant to happen.
“They know about me?” To my surprise, I didn’t feel an immediate stab of panic over a woman asking me to meet her family when we’d been dating for under a month. Of course, I’d somewhat thrown any normal timeline out the window when I’d blurted out that I loved her, and that was no one’s fault by my own.
“Yeah. I mentioned I was seeing someone, and my mom thought this visit would be a good time.” She shrugged. She was obviously less enthusiastic about the idea than I was. “We don’t get together often, so I think she wants to check you out before things get serious.”
Ah, fuck. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Penny hadn’t responded to my declaration of love in kind. And it didn’t bother me. It meant she was a normal person who knew how mad it was to tell someone you loved them after four dates. But now she was saying before things get serious, and I couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “Are things not?”
“That’s not what I meant.” She chewed her bottom lip. “I mean, I didn’t want to presume—”
“Neither did I,” I hurried to tell her. “But I am quite serious about you, Penny.” Did she even need to be told?
There was a smear of pizza sauce on her cheek, despite her earlier claim of neat and orderly consumption. I reached out wiped it off with my thumb.
“Oh my gosh, way to ruin the moment with my sloppy eating.” She laughed. “Well, I’m serious about you, too. Seriously serious.”
“Good.” The pressure in my chest eased, but I wanted to look cool and not breathe a sigh of relief that would sound like the air going out of a tire. I realized I was staring at her and looked down. It was the only way to keep myself from being distracted by how beautiful she looked, even with pizza sauce on her face. “Of course I’ll meet your parents. Just tell me where to be, and when.”
“I will.” She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“For giving me a chance,” she said, looking around the room. “We don’t have much in common. We’re in such different places, life-wise.”
“You’re thanking me?” Couldn’t she hear how silly she was being? I was a fifty-three-year-old divorcee who didn’t have any food in his fucking pantry. Her whole life was ahead of her, while mine had fallen apart. “If you remember correctly, Doll, I was the one who fucked up badly on our first date. And I’m a hundred and thirty years old. So, thank you for giving me a chance.”
At some point, Penny’s bottomless stomach was satisfied. S he cuddled up next to me to watch TV.
“You do the clicking,” she ordered, laying her head on my shoulder. Though I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to concentrate on finding something to watch with her sweet, warm body pressed against my side.
“You don’t have a TV, do you?”
“Of course I do.” I realized I was older than her, but she didn’t think I was…older than television?
“I didn’t see one in your apartment.”
Oh. That’s what she’d meant. “That’s because it’s very ingeniously hidden away until I need it.” Landscaping show… No, that will make me seem even older, if I show an interest in gardening.
She leaned up. “Well, where is it?”
“You know where the couch is? The window in front of it?” Game show? They still make those? “The television slides up from the floor.”
“Oh, it does not!” she said, indignant. “That’s like The Jetsons or something.”
“You’re twenty-two, what do you know about The Jetsons?” I demanded. “Remind me the next time you’re over, I’ll show you.”
“Fine. But I won’t believe you until you do.” She wiggled to get more comfortable, and I willed my penis to stay dormant. Which was a huge mistake, because once I thought about the fucker, he was like a puppy who’d just woken from a nap and was ready for attention.
“Hey, could you reach under the bed? I’ve got a heating pad under there,” she asked.
I leaned over the edge, grateful for the redirection of my mental energy, but silently praying I didn’t grab a pair of her panties or worse, another vibrator. I felt along until I found an electrical cord and hoped for the best. I sat up with an “aha”.
It was, thankfully, the heating pad she was looking for. She took it and rolled over, wincing.
“Do you need any help?” I asked.
“No, I’m young, but I’m allowed to plug things in all by myself.” She wrapped the flexible pad around her middle and groaned.
“That bad, is it?” When I’d lived with Gena, I’d hated seeing her in such misery every month. Then, selfishly, I’d begun to hate it because it had meant that we’d once again failed, and it would be another month before we would learn if we were having a baby. And as those months had gone on and on, I’d selfishly adopted her pain as my own. Now, seeing Penny in so much discomfort, I felt like the arsehole I had been.
“Yeah. Thank you for not sayin
g, ‘it’s not that bad.’”
“What idiot would say something like that?” I asked, trying my best to look shocked at the very notion of such insensitivity.
I’d said it before. I’d learned my lesson.
Her face made it clear to me that she knew I was a fucking liar. “Everyone.”
“I would never say that,” I continued to lie. “Mostly because I don’t know what it feels like, but also because I don’t feel like having a woman rip a handful of my intestines out in retaliation.” I put my arm around her shoulder. She laid her head on my chest, and the way she fit with me, like we’d done this a thousand times instead of a handful, created a sweet ache beneath my ribs.
I hugged her closer. “You’re the only woman I would eat pizza in bed with. Just so you know.”
“You’re the only man I wouldn’t hide my period from.” She yawned.
I chuckled at that. Was it a dubious distinction, or should I have been charmed? “Forgive me for saying so, but I do think you’re getting the more pleasant bargain.”
There was something on the television. I didn’t care what. Watching her fall asleep was far more exciting than anything Hollywood could write.
Chapter Twelve
“What do you think, Ambrose?” I asked my cat as he blinked up at me from his perch on the back of the toilet. I combed my hair down one more time and straightened my tie. “God, she’s right, I do look like an undertaker.”
Ambrose turned his head away.
“Well, fuck you very much for your vote of confidence.” Meeting the parents. This would be interesting. I’d heard all about Neil’s meeting with Sophie’s family, and how terrible it had been. I hoped, with Penny, things would go a little more smoothly.
I wouldn’t blame them if they were freaked out over our age difference. It was a bit creepy, when I really thought about it. When I was with her, I barely noticed it anymore, unless she came up with some pop culture reference I was woefully clueless about. I definitely agonized over it every time I was about to go and meet her, but I would have agonized over something with any woman I was dating. Insecurity tended to present itself that way. But when we were in public, I did notice the occasional disgusted look, and it was difficult to ignore. I didn’t have to answer to those people, and their judgment still bothered me. Penny’s parents, however, I did have to explain myself to them.
First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) Page 16