First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1)

by Abigail Barnette

  That was a dangerous line of thinking. It felt too much like a rebound. I pulled away and reached for my glass, finishing it so I could speak again. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess. I showed up here a mess, and now I’m drunk and a mess.”

  “If you think this is the only time anyone has gotten drunk on this sofa and cried hard, I have some news for you that will come as a bit of a shock,” he said, nudging me with his elbow. “Don’t feel sorry for coming here. I’m thrilled to death it was me you wanted.”

  “Yeah?” Being with someone who was so willing to be open with his feelings, feelings that most people would have tried to play it cool about, was nice but a little intimidating. Probably because it gave me the dangerous sense that I could be just as open and honest with him, and I didn’t know how far I should go down that road tonight. I inclined my head toward the bottle. “Can I have some more of whatever that is?”

  He considered. “How about a beer, instead? Just to slow down?”

  Oh. He thought I was too drunk. That was embarrassing. I gave him a thumbs up and said, “Liquor before beer, in the clear!”

  It was pretty obvious from his expression that he didn’t think I was in the clear, at all.

  I tried to be more sober when he came back. And way less depressing. “Is it weird to feel a little relieved about this, too?”

  “How so?” he asked.

  “Well, for the last few months that we were dating, Brad was really distant. Now I know why. But, at the time, I had this feeling…” I took a deep breath. Because even though I’d already acknowledged it, it was difficult to say the words out loud. “I had a feeling things were falling apart between us. And that maybe he was with me because he was waiting it out. Like, he wanted to be the winner.”

  Ian nodded thoughtfully.

  “It’s nice to have that confirmation. To know that I wasn’t crazy. I mean, it sucks, and it hurts, but it’s nice.” I shrugged. Maybe it would make it easier to move on, now that I knew it wasn’t my fault. Maybe Ian would make it easier to move on. “And I’m glad Brad broke up with me. Because…I got to meet you. You’ve already been way better to me than he ever was.”

  “Is it selfish of me to say that I’m glad the two of you broke up, as well?”

  My heart fluttered. If Ian could make me feel so special, and so valued, even through the pain and the whisky, then Brad hadn’t been the one.

  He couldn’t have been.

  “No, I think you made out like a bandit in the deal.” I leaned against Ian, and he let me. We fit so perfectly my chest hurt. It had been months since I’d lain this way with anyone. Even when Brad and I had still been together, he’d felt far away. Ian was present. In the room with me. His aura just clicked with mine, and I felt warm all over.

  That could have been the alcohol.

  Neither of us said anything. The thrum of his pulse under my ear fell into a slow, steady rhythm, hypnotizing me into a loop of thoughts that went, am I falling asleep? I think I’m falling asleep. Is he falling asleep? Is it okay if I fall asleep, too? that circled around and around until he was gently shaking me awake.

  “Penny? Open your eyes, Doll. We fell asleep.”

  He’d called me Doll. I wasn’t out of it enough that I didn’t recognize the thrill that sent through me every time I heard it. But it was the only word I’d caught, because sleep had made his voice rough and his accent ten times thicker. I said, “I can’t understand you when you mumble.”

  “Do you want me to take you home?” he asked, and I supposed that was my cue to leave.

  I didn’t want to go home. Everything felt right. Really, really right.

  “Can I stay here?”

  “Certainly. I don’t think the guest bed is made up, but I—”

  Seriously? This was the biggest signal in the handbook, and he wasn’t getting the hint? “Can I sleep with you? I could really use the snuggles.”

  I want to fuck you, I mentally shouted at him.

  “Fine. No funny business, though. I know your type,” he said, with his typical dorky humor.

  “Come on, before I fall asleep while I’m walking.” I yawned to cover up my nerves. I was going to go upstairs and have sex with Ian. He knew that, right? It was why he made that joke, I was sure of it.

  I was even more sure when he put his hand on the small of my back as we walked up. The floating staircase took less concentration than I thought it would while drunk.

  “You must be desperately tired, if you’re willing to brave these stairs,” he said as we neared the top.

  I laughed. “I was never afraid of the stairs.”

  “You lied about hating my brilliant stairs?” He pretended to be offended, gasping, “How dare you!”

  “At the time, I didn’t really know you,” I explained, as we walked into the darkened bedroom. “I thought it might have been a trick.”

  In the dark, I made out the shape of three tall windows that slanted into skylights. The city twinkled beyond them, and from its lights I made out the shape of Ian’s bed and the rumpled duvet on top of it. My throat went dry.

  “I hope I didn’t make you afraid or—”

  I stumbled a little and pressed my hand to his chest to steady myself. “If I’d been worried about that, I wouldn’t have come here in the first place. And I wouldn’t have come back. But I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t try some clumsy seduction technique.”

  “Hey. When I’m clumsily seducing you, you’ll know it,” he said, and stepped away to turn on a light. It was a metal sconce set against the wall above his built-in nightstand. I was dating a guy who could literally make a house. I’d never been able to pull off a decent house in The Sims.

  I tagged along after him, hoping constant bodily proximity would induce him to touch me. “I just really like you, and I didn’t want to give you the chance to disappoint me. I know that’s probably not the smartest relationship strategy.” When he didn’t answer, I changed the subject. I plucked the front of the sweater he’d loaned me. “This is a little hot. Do you have anything more night-shirt-ish?”

  Like a T-shirt I could put on and, whoops, get into bed without anything on underneath it? God, I was doing all the work here, and I was the drunk one.

  Ian went to his dresser and came up with a T-shirt. “I’m going to let you borrow this, but on one condition.”

  I squinted at him, to keep him in focus.

  “You can’t look sexier than I do when I’m wearing it,” he joked, and tossed it to me. By some miracle, I caught it and probably looked a lot more sober than I was, which would work in my favor. Ian seemed like the kind of guy who would feel bad about sleeping with a drunk girl, even if she was totally in her right mind about wanting it.

  I pointed to the door on the other side of the room. “Bathroom, then?”

  “Yeah, in there.” He went in ahead of me and gathered up contact solution and a case—I hadn’t realized he wore contacts, so clearly I needed to look into his eyes more often—and his toothbrush. Yikes, I probably needed one of those. I hadn’t thought the plan through.

  “I’ll use the one downstairs,” he said, and closed the door as he left, shutting me in the long room. The ceiling was sloped in there, as well, and three more windows slanted over my head. At the end of the room, on a raised platform, an avocado-shaped black bathtub stood in front of a wall covered in slate tiles. Another window, shorter to accommodate the step-up flooring, lined up for the perfect view during a long soak. Across from that window, behind the tub, was a glassed-front shower.

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror over the vanity, above the vessel sink that matched the tub. I did not look great. In fact, I looked a little worse than when I’d arrived, because now my eyes were red from drinking and crying. My face wasn’t just pale, it was sweaty. I looked like someone who—

  Yeah, I looked just like someone who was going to puke.

  Thankfully, I got to the toilet in time to heave up everything in my stomach in there, instead of in the sink. I
t was touch and go for a moment. I prayed with everything in me—which was evidently all just whisky, as I hadn’t eaten anything since before my disastrous run—that Ian wouldn’t overhear. I clung to the toilet bowl and laid my head on the seat, sweating and shivering and mentally reassuring myself that I could still pull off cute and sexy once I managed to get on my feet.

  Eventually, I did get back on my feet, enough to swish water around my mouth and strip out of my loaned clothes and get into his T-shirt. I slipped off my panties but had the presence of mind to rinse them out for the morning—I had to be practical as well as sexually assertive. I hung them on a towel bar and combed my fingers through my hair.

  Are you sure this is what you want to be doing? My conscience confronted me. It sounded a lot like Rosa. You might just be drunk and sad, right now. I was. I was drunk and sad, and my brain had a point. But I didn’t want to listen to my brain. I wanted to listen to the desperate landslide of hormones and anger that was burying me. You could always just wait.

  And I always just couldn’t. And I wasn’t going to.

  I stepped out of the bathroom to see Ian, in his boxers, pulling on a T-shirt. I almost jumped right back and slammed the door. Maybe it was because, besides the day at the pool, he’d always been fully clothed around me, even when we’d been fooling around, but I felt like I was in completely over my head. We were in his bedroom. I had barely any clothes on. And whether he knew it or not, I was just waiting for something to happen.

  He didn’t say anything. He just went to the bed and got under the blankets quickly, like he was calling shotgun.

  “So, that side, then?” I asked, laughing. “You don’t have to defend your territory.”

  “You say that, now. But I know women. I’ll wake up on the floor, with you sprawled out like a starfish in here,” he said, all grumbly and cute as I got in beside him.

  “This is a pretty big first for me.” I reached up to click off the light. “I’ve never slept over before.”

  “Well, I can see why not,” he said as I snuggled against his side, in the crook of his arm. “You look fucking hideous without makeup.”

  Rude! I knew it was a joke, but it didn’t do much for my confidence. “Here I am, breaking one of my cardinal relationship rules, and you’re being mean to me.”

  “Never.” He kissed my forehead and hugged me close. “I love you, and you know it.”

  All the brakes screeched. I was suddenly overcome with what could only be described as rigor mortis. “No… I didn’t know that.”

  The silence that followed was more brutal than the final slashing in a graphic horror movie. Then he said, “When I say ‘love’, I mean—”

  “You mean you love me.” I hoped the darkness hid my crazy wide smile.

  “Well, it’s out there.” The noise he made could have been a laugh or a cough, I wasn’t sure either way. “I would have preferred a more romantic venue to make such a pronouncement, but here we are.”

  “Here we are…in your bed…and you say you love me.” Under any other circumstances, I would have found it extremely sketchy, but Ian seemed to have surprised himself with the revelation as much as he’d surprised me.

  “No! No, no. That’s isn’t why.” There was a rustle of sheets as he moved, but I couldn’t see what he was doing. “I love you. I’d love you if I was driving you home right now. Or, maybe not as much, since I’m dead tired. But the point I’m trying to make is—”

  “Ian? I’m just fucking with you.” The rush of excitement I got from hearing that word from him finally couldn’t be contained, and I laughed.

  “Well, thank you for turning my declaration of love into a heart-stopping anxiety episode.”

  He loved me. This soon. Was that insane? Was it too fast? Were things careening out of control? Had we just doomed ourselves to a quick flare up and burn out?

  In the moment, I couldn’t really force myself to care. I just wanted to be swept away from all the other awful stuff I was feeling.

  I rolled onto my stomach to lean over him. “I’m glad you said it.”

  We met each other halfway in a kiss. The touch of his mouth sent darts of electric want through my body. This was it. Now or never. I slipped my hands under his shirt and raked my fingers through his chest hair, digging my nails in. I slid my knee between his legs and sat up, so he could feel that I was absolutely bare, and surprisingly wet. And he did feel it, because his chest hitched beneath my palms.

  But he grabbed my hips and groaned, “Wait, wait. No.”

  “What?” I rocked against his thigh. The heat of his skin sent pulses to my groin, and I clenched hard.

  “I can’t. Not like this.”

  His words penetrated the fog around my brain like a knife slicing through me. “You… You don’t want to do it?”

  “I do. Believe me, I do.” He rose up on his elbows. “But I won’t.”

  My heart squeezed in my chest. “But you said you loved me.”

  “I do. Ah, Doll, I would do just about anything for you. But having sex with you when you’re stoned out of your mind on too much whisky and emotionally rattled… That’s not how I want it to be.”

  I might have been stoned out of my mind on too much whisky, and yes, emotionally rattled, but there was still some piece of me that could recognize his rejection as a good thing. But it sure didn’t feel good in the moment. I wasn’t proud of myself.

  “I’m sure Brad said he loved you, too,” Ian went on. “And whoever came before him. You wouldn’t have been happy with yourself if you’d slept with them, and you won’t be pleased in the morning if you fuck me, now.”

  “I’m sorry.” I swung my leg over him and scooted to the edge of the bed. I should have put on my clothes, apologized, and went home. If I could find home, as drunk as I was.

  While I sat there, tears streaming down my face, trying to keep him from noticing the sobs I was holding back, he put his arms around me and pulled me back into bed to lie beside him. In that one gesture, in the strength of his arms around me, my pain and confusion melted into a peace that dulled the sting of the day.

  As I drifted into drunken exhaustion, I realized that I hadn’t said those three important words back to him. I slipped my hand beneath his shirt and pressed my palm over the beat of his heart, hoping it was enough, for now.

  * * * *

  I woke with a split second of where-am-I? panic. More accurately, oh-god-there’s-a-hole-in-the-ceiling panic. The skylights over Ian’s bed were disconcerting.

  My head hated me. The daylight hated me. I hated me.

  How could I have come on so strong, after pouring my heart out to him about Brad? How could I have… Well, I’d tried to use Ian, plain and simple. He must have hated me, too, because I was alone in his bed. I didn’t even know if he was in the apartment.

  Then I heard his footsteps in the short hall outside. I combed my fingers through my hair and held my hand in front of my mouth to smell my breath. There was no chance it was just my hand that reeked.

  Ian knocked softly on the half-open door. He knocked, in his own house, his own bedroom. What kind of person did that, if not someone who was way, way too good for me?

  “I’m awake,” I croaked, pushing myself up against the headboard for support.

  “Good morning.” He came in wearing sleep pants and a T-shirt, his hair wet from a shower, and carrying a glass of water. That was so unfair, when I looked like an extra on The Walking Dead.

  He sat on the edge of the bed beside me and handed me the glass. “I expect you’ll be needing this.”

  I squinted up at him. “Not to be ungrateful, but do you have any orange juice?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I think you know the answer to that already.”

  “Right.” The thought of drinking water nauseated me, but I knew I needed it. I just hoped I wouldn’t throw up in his bed. That would compound the embarrassment.

  “You’ll need these, as well.” He pulled a small bottle of ibuprofen from his pan
ts pocket.

  He was being so nice to me I almost burst into tears. I didn’t trust my voice, so I just smiled with closed lips and nodded.

  “Oh, and one more thing…” He reached into his pocket ,again.

  I didn’t fully understand what he handed me, even as I set the water on the bedside table and my fingers closed around the slip of paper. Which was weird, because I’d seen enough fortune cookie fortunes in my life. I glanced up at him as I unfolded it. My hands started shaking when I read the words.

  The love of your live will step into your path this summer.

  My head jerked up, and my brain throbbed from the movement. “You said you didn’t save this.”

  “I lied.” There wasn’t a hint of remorse in his admission. His mouth bent in a small smile. “Happy Labor Day.”

  Labor Day. The official last day of summer. Well, not official, that was around the twenty-first of September. But I wasn’t about to be Pedantic Penny over something like this.

  “I…” Crying hurt. Probably because I didn’t have a single drop of moisture left in my body. But that didn’t stop my chest from heaving and my shoulders from sagging.

  “Hey, hey.” Ian put his arms around me. “What’s that for?”

  “Because I ruined everything.” I’d gotten drunk and tried to use him to make myself feel better over stupid Brad. Or maybe I’d wanted to sleep with Ian because I was afraid he would walk away? Maybe both.

  Either way, I’d messed up, when things had been going so well.

  “By trying to have sex with me? I wasn’t rejecting you, Doll, I—”

  “I know, I know.” I pulled back and wiped my eyes. “I wouldn’t have wanted to fuck me, either.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched, ruining his sympathetic expression. “Believe me, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to fuck you.”

  “But I was trying to use you to make myself feel better about some other guy. It was so awful of me.” I covered my faced and rubbed my forehead, both to hide my stupidity and to try to ease the pounding in my head. Failed on both counts.