His number came up first. It was a twenty-two. I already knew I was an eight. I watched as the rest of the page loaded, trying to remember the few basic rules I’d learned from the numerology book collecting dust on my nightstand.
“Lifepath numbers twenty-two and eight are naturally compatible lovers, especially when working toward a shared goal.” I murmured as I read aloud. “Mutual respect and spiritual harmony can flourish quickly and form lasting bonds. Eight should be mindful of twenty-two’s cautious nature, while twenty-two must learn to compromise. If both partners are willing to work together, this couple may expect to spend many happy years together.”
It didn’t get much more positive than that.
I’d tucked Ian’s drawing into my purse, folding it over carefully, though I’d hated to crease it even once. I opened it and smoothed it out gently on my bed. The drawing wasn’t sweet just because he’d made me look pretty, but because he’d picked up on emotions that I’d thought only I could see. He’d seen my hope and my fear of rejection, and he’d drawn it in my eyes as plainly as if he’d taken a photograph of my loneliness.
But maybe Rosa was right. She was certainly more objective than I was. And it was true; if things moved at the pace I wanted them to move at, Ian would still be in his mid-fifties before we even started seriously thinking about a family.
In desperation, I opened my nightstand drawer and dug through it, knocking my vibrator aside to find the smooth plastic shell of the magic eight ball in the back of the drawer. I pulled it out and flopped back on my bed, shaking it.
“Okay. Do I keep seeing Ian?” That was the question, whether I wanted to admit it or not.
I turned the black globe over, and the die inside floated to the window. REPLY HAZY TRY AGAIN.
I dropped it to the bed beside me. “No shit, Magic Eight Ball.”
* * * *
My phone rang at four. I knew there was a strong possibility it would be Ian, but my heart skipped a little when I pulled my phone out of my hoodie pocket and saw his name on the screen. Not wanting to sit up to turn off the television, I waved my arm futilely across the coffee table until I knocked the remote down. Scrabbling for it one-handed, I answered with “Is it too early to give you your own ringtone?” in lieu of a “hello”.
There was a brief pause. “Were we having a conversation I don’t remember being in the middle of?”
“Seriously?” Did he not realize he did the exact same thing on every call? I hit the mute button on the remote and snuggled back down into the couch. “You do that to me all the time.”
“Me? No, I don’t.” He sounded truly perplexed. “My sister has a habit of doing that, but I don’t think I do.”
He was such a dork I had to laugh at him. “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.” Something in his tone changed, and it threw those first few sentences into an odd light. It seemed like he’d relaxed, though I hadn’t noticed any tension to begin with.
“Hey, are you okay? You sounded kind of…different,” I said, for lack of a better word.
He sighed a tired, rough sound. “It’s been a hell of a day already. And it’s really good to hear your voice.”
Something in my chest squeezed up in that weird feeling that’s almost totally emotion and not a physical reaction. “It’s good to hear yours, too.” I paused. “What are you doing right now?”
“Driving home,” he said, that weariness creeping back into his voice. “Where I will probably drink a few beers and nap on the sofa.”
It wouldn’t have sounded so lonely if he hadn’t sounded so lonely. Even though I’d planned to spend my afternoon much in the same way—I’d been putting off peeing because the couch was so comfy—now, all I wanted was to cheer him up. I looked down at my scrubby clothes. At least I’d taken a shower after my run. Twisting the end of the string from my hood between two fingers, I asked, “Hey. Do you have a pair of swim trunks?”
“I do… Why?” His suspicion made me giggle.
“Go home, get them, and meet me at my place. We’re going to have an adventure.” I sat up and brushed the crumbs from my lunch off my shirt.
“And this adventure entails water?”
I smiled to myself. “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’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,” he said with a chuckle, and those words did all sorts of things to me.
“Just get here,” I said, putting on more confidence than I actually felt. “Trust me, this is going to be perfect.”
After we hung up, I went to my bedroom and rumpled all the clothing in my drawers looking for my swimsuit. It was a red gingham print bikini, with thin, tie-up straps at the shoulders and hips. I’d bought it because it was super cute and sexy, and because Brad had told me I dressed like a little girl. Now, I kind of wished I’d kept my vintage one-piece with the wide halter straps and the low-cut legs. It was easy enough to tell Ian to not worry about how he looked, but every little freckle and scar on my body seemed to be magnified by a thousand at the thought of him seeing them. From a logical standpoint, I knew genetics and exercise had given me the kind of shape that got a woman into a men’s magazines, but they were airbrushed and pushed up and had tons of makeup on. I couldn’t exactly wear a smoky eye look to the pool.
But I assumed Ian wasn’t going to be disappointed when I didn’t walk out of the locker room looking like a Maxim cover model. “Stop being so hard on yourself, Penny,” I scolded myself, and stuffed my suit into my purse. Then I changed into pink denim shorts that were just a little too short and a white tank top. If I was going to be in my bathing suit later anyway, might as well put on my hot-girl, hot-weather clothes. That would give me the boost of confidence I so desperately needed, at the moment. I pulled my hair up, put on some waterproof mascara, and waited. About an hour after his call, the buzzer rang.
I hit the button and said, “On my way down,” because the apartment was way too trashed to let him come up. As I hopped out the door, I slid my sunglasses on so I wouldn’t be all squinty and scrunch-faced in the sunlight.
Ian leaned against his car, wearing navy suit trousers and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled back and collar undone.
Sunday. Right. I couldn’t imagine how distracting he must be in church to anyone who was attracted to men. Or maybe I was biased, because every time I saw him, he seemed a little hotter.
His gaze flicked down to my legs, then guiltily back up. There was that confidence boost I’d been looking for. He cleared his throat. “So, where is this adventure that requires swim trunks taking us?”
I smiled sweetly and pushed up my sunglass to bat my eyelashes at him. “To trespass.”
Chapter Seven
I have snuck into the pool at the One UN hotel somewhere around a hundred times. It has a beautiful panoramic view and a canopied ceiling. It was like swimming in an event tent. Not as glamorous as some of the rooftop pools in the city, but there was never an attendant on duty, and in all the times I’d been there, I’d only seen three guests.
We parked on the street. As we walked toward the building, I reiterated the plan we’d gone over in the car. “Walk through the lobby like we’re supposed to be there. We’re going to go up to the fitness center. We’ll split up at the locker rooms, but from there, you can go right to the pool, no hassles.”
“You’ve robbed a bank before, haven’t you?” he asked, casting a worried glance up at the edifice of the building.
“It’s going to be fine. I do this all the time. I like to break rules if they’re ones I know I can’t get into actual trouble for.” That was true. I would never jump a turnstile or shoplift anything, but I frequently took
food and drink into stores with posted signs, just for the thrill I got if no one asked me to throw it out. “My teenage rebellion was really boring.”
The air-conditioned lobby cooled the sweat on my neck and cleavage, sweat I hoped Ian wouldn’t notice. Luckily, the pool water would wash it off.
The first time I’d visited One UN, the lobby had nearly caused me to run out again. There were so many mirrors and contrasting patterns, it was like a full-on assault on my taste in furnishings. But the more often I came here, the more it grew on me.
“This place is what the Epcot designers probably imagined the future would look like back in the 1970’s,” Ian mumbled under his breath, and I laughed.
“If you come here often enough, you’ll grow fond of it.” I led him down the mirrored, vertigo-inducing hallway, to the east tower elevators.
“How often do you come here, exactly?” he asked cautiously.
“Oh, maybe twice a month,” I said as I hit the button. “Nobody has ever said anything about it before. I don’t know if there are just so many people coming through that they don’t recognize me—”
“They, uh…” He cleared his throat. “They might recognize you. They might just think you’re visiting guests.”
It took me a moment to understand what he meant by his inflection. When I did, I laughed. “Oh my gosh, you’re probably right. Well, there are definitely worse misconceptions that have been made about me in my life than mixing up what job I have.”
“That’s true.”
We got on the elevator, my mind suddenly blank of any conversational topics.
“What sort of misunderstandings would you say you’ve run into about yourself?” he asked, saving us from awkward silence purgatory.
The biggest ones all had to do with sex, or my lack of having it. I hated to keep bringing up the virgin thing. There always came a moment, be it in a friendship or a dating situation, when I felt that my virginity started to define me.
“Well, a lot of people assume I’m a total prude when they find out that I’m a virgin. And a few guys have called me a bitch when they realized I wasn’t going to sleep with them.”
“They called you a bitch because you wouldn’t sleep with them? That’s fucking terrible.” He sounded more offended by it than I’d ever been. Probably because men didn’t realize how often women heard that name hurled at them.
“It might sound shocking to you, but trust me, every woman on this planet has been called a bitch enough that it doesn’t shock us anymore.”
The elevator doors opened onto the twenty-seventh floor, and we stepped out. Ian let me lead the way. “What about you? What are some misconceptions about you?”
“There are some people in my life who think I’m a bit of a playboy. I think I may have earned it.” He said it like it was the most horrible thing someone could think of him, and that didn’t seem fair. Men were expected to embody that Heffner-esque mystique of the revolving bedroom door.
“Now I’m imagining you in a smoking jacket, surrounded by young, hot blonds,” I joked with a sly glance. At least, I hoped it was sly, and not just like I had something in my eye.
It must have worked, because he winked at me and said, “Half-true.”
Someday, I would learn to take a compliment without my whole head turning the color of a cooked lobster.
As always, nobody was on guard outside the locker rooms. Rosa said that she’d come here once, and a man had asked for her room key, but she’d just pretended she’d dropped it and made a big deal about having to go all the way back down to the front desk. I think after that she’d gone to the Mondrian and snuck in there. I’d never managed to get into that one.
When you’re early-adulthood-poor in New York, you have to make your own fun.
I pointed to the locker rooms. “Here. You go in there, I’ll go in there, and we’ll meet on the other side.”
There was a baby changing table in the largest bathroom stall, so I stuffed my purse, clothes, and shoes in it after I’d slipped on my bikini. I stood in front of the mirror and adjusted my straps, and checked out the rearview to make sure the bottoms weren’t saggy. You’ve got to start working your lower abs again, the snotty, critical voice in my head that sounded a lot like my mother said, but I resolutely shook that voice away. I looked fine. Better than fine. I looked amazing.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it when men paid attention to my appearance. I’ve been called a tease more times than I could remember, and it used to bother me. Then I grew out of being embarrassed or apologetic for looking good. If a guy could appreciate a car without driving it, he could do the same with me. I took my hair down, because ponytail holders on wet hair are a major no-no. I tried to shake it out to disguise the dent left behind. I would just have to get wet right away to get rid of it.
I grabbed a towel from the stack provided at the pool entrance and strolled out. The flooring had a super weird texture that always took me by surprise. When I looked up from my feet, I saw Ian standing in the water.
“You got in already?” I asked. No, he materialized there. I could be so dense, sometimes.
He turned around, and there was no mistaking the fact he was checking me out. It was refreshing he didn’t try to hide it. Men usually tried to hide it, and it was always obvious.
His gaze drifted over me from my toes up before he said, “Stop showing off.”
How could one person be so dorky but so smooth at the same time? I looked down to hide the goofy smile I couldn’t rein in and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Sorry. Somebody has to be the prettiest girl in the room, though.”
He looked around. We were totally alone. “Let’s go for prettiest in this hotel. Or the city. That would also do.”
Yeah, right. “Beyoncé lives in this city. But I appreciate the endorsement.”
There were steps into the pool, but Ian was by the ladder, so I used that instead, trying hard not to slip and fall like an idiot as I eased myself down backwards. The water was warm enough I didn’t do anything super uncool like shriek or tiptoe once my feet touched down. “Isn’t this nice, though?” I asked, sinking down to cover my shoulders with water. It felt uneven to be half-in, half-out. “It’s not crowded like those pools you have to pay for.”
“And much less Axe body spray, I’m sure.”
I dunked my head under. If I were alone, I would reemerge like Ariel breaking the surface in The Little Mermaid. That seemed just slightly dramatic, so I came up and pushed my hair back like a normal person. Ian was still just standing there. A sudden realization occurred to me. “Can you swim?”
“That’s something you should have asked before you got me into this pool, isn’t it?” He pointed at the number on the warning sign on the wall. “It’s only five feet deep. I think we’ll be fine.”
I held my hand up to indicate exactly where the water would hit me, which was somewhere around my eyes. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be in trouble.”
“I promise I won’t let you drown,” he vowed then plunged under the water himself.
I kicked onto my back and settled into a float, staring at the canopy overhead. When he resurfaced, I mused, “You won’t let me drown. That’s in my top five must-haves for boyfriends.”
He drifted toward the deep end. “One of my top five requirements for girlfriends is buoyancy. How long can you float like that?”
Having your ears underwater is not conducive to conversation. I’d caught his words, but they’d been muffled. I stood, laughing. “For a while. I wouldn’t try to do it across the English Channel or anything.”
He smirked. “So, you’re vetting me as a potential boyfriend?”
That was a weird question. Why else would I have gone out with him in the first place? Even weirder, what was he doing with me if he wasn’t interested in being my boyfriend? “Of course I am. That’s what dating is about, right? You go on a date with someone to see if you like them enough to have a second date. Then you go out on the second and subse
quent dates to find out if you want to see them exclusively. And then, you start seeing them exclusively—”
“And they move in, you spend a few years in that type of domestic bliss, then you get married, grow apart, and finally divorce.” The words rolled out of him on a tide of bitterness that made my heart ache for him. He looked immediately remorseful. “I’m sorry, like I said, it’s—”
“Been a rough day,” I finished for him. Could I ever sympathize. After Brad had dumped me, I’d spent the next few weeks in a constant state of anti-romantic protest. I’d gone along on Sophie’s bachelorette weekend in Vegas, and it had been fun, but the whole time, I’d been silently resenting being around three people who were madly in love, two of which were in love with each other. “Believe me, after what I went through with Brad, I was ready to give up on dating and other people in general before Sophie set me up with you. But I don’t share your unhappy view of the relationship evolution chain.”
“You’ve been cured of that pessimism?” There was more disbelief than hope in his question.
“I was never really pessimistic to begin with.” I smiled, because I wanted badly to convince him, though no one had been able to convince me back then. “I believe that, someday, I’m going to find the person I’m meant to be with. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have gone out with you.”
“Fair enough,” he conceded. “For what it’s worth, I’m very glad you did.”
“I am, too.” And I was. I really was. Even without the numerology report to back it up, even without the fortune cookie that had me counting down the days until the end of the summer, I knew whatever this was, it wasn’t inconsequential.
I moved toward him, treading water to stay above the surface. “Isn’t this so much better than sitting home alone on our respective couches?”
“The view is definitely better.” When he said things like that, I started to wonder how firmly I could stick to my vow of chastity.
“I know you want me to think you’re talking about the windows, but I’m on to you,” I said, putting my toes down experimentally.
First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) Page 8