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

by Abigail Barnette

  “Are we okay, now?” His voice was painfully tight and hopeful.

  Could I be a bigger asshole? I turned to him. “We’re okay. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t trust you. But we’re okay, as long as you can forgive me.”

  “I’ve forgiven people for worse.” He leaned over the console to kiss me. The moment our lips met, it felt as though all the awfulness and tension of the fight simply melted away. Everything felt right, if not exactly as right as it would in an hour or two.

  “All right,” he said when he sat back. “I haven’t been home yet, and I have to feed Ambrose. Do you want to come stay the night?”

  “Ah. You know…” Oh, I wanted to. I really wanted to. But I’d already kind of crashed his evening plans, and I didn’t want him to think I was hanging pathetically on so he couldn’t hook up with his side piece later. I want him to believe that I was confident and unthreatened, now that we’d resolved our issue. As hard as it would be to turn him down… “I don’t want you to think you have to—”

  He put his hand on my arm. “Penny. Come home with me. Neither of us wants to be alone tonight.”

  “Sure.” I had no willpower. Or maybe he was just irresistible.

  We stopped by my apartment so I could get my stuff—was it pathetic that I already had kind of a bug-out bag ready to go in these situations?—then went back to his place. That awful cat was waiting for us, like a mom catching her teenager home after curfew. Ian fed it and had a slightly disturbing one-sided conversation with it as he did. Maybe it was a good thing I was spending so many nights over.

  It was rare that Ian and I didn’t have sex on a night together. I think we were just both too tired to even think about it. And even though make-up sex was supposed to be awesome, I just wanted make-up cuddling. I needed to touch his skin and get peacefully connected.

  “I wish we hadn’t fought,” I mumbled against his shoulder as I lay snuggled at his side.

  “It was inevitable. And it was our first. We should celebrate.” Ian yawned. I felt guilty staying over during the week, because he was always so tired.

  “Well, I’ll pop the champagne.” I closed my eyes, resolved to stop talking and get to sleep. Then, it occurred to me that I’d overlooked a pretty big detail in the middle of all our fighting. I sat up, blurting, “Oh my gosh! Ian, I’m such an asshole, I didn’t even ask you about the project!”

  He startled, his whole body going tense, then reluctantly relaxing again. “It’s the Bahamas project I mentioned before. You could stop someone’s heart doing that, you know?”

  I ignored his dire prophecy. “The one you would have to go away for?” I chewed my lower lip. “Are you going to take it?”

  “It looks as though I’ll have to. It’s…going to be a lot of money.” He winced slightly as he said it, like money was a bad thing. Or that I would think it was.

  Had he even met me? I’d researched his probable salary before our second date. I’d been raised to worship the god of money as fervently as he’d been raised to worship Jesus.

  “So? That’s good, right? You’ll get a lot of money for your firm?” The sheets slipped down. His eyes fell immediately to my tits. It was like they had some witchcraft power over him. I left them uncovered, just to take advantage of that.

  “Yes. And I would take home a pretty nice bonus, as well.” He paused, and something in his body language, or maybe it was the tone of his voice, made my stomach pole vault over my heart. “Enough that I would be…comfortable settling down. Putting money back for a child’s college fund. Or two.”

  We had discussed our desire to have kids within the next couple of years. But now, that seemed so close. The excitement overwhelmed me. “Two is good.”

  “Yeah. How much do…” He stopped, frowning and making a sound that seemed like it could be associated with acid reflux. “Do you know how much weddings run these days?”

  “Well, I mean, I guess it depends on where you’re having it. In the Bahamas or…” I rocked my legs side to side in a nervous bounce. Was he proposing? Maybe not officially, but we were planning our future. It was…incredible.

  “I suppose we would have to take that into account at the time.” He leaned up, and I moved in for a kiss, smiling against his lips. We interrupted ourselves again and again with our goofy grins. Finally, he gave up, breaking away to say, “I think we should be clear, though, on how long a separation this would be.”

  I made a “tch” and sat up. “I was really hoping we wouldn’t have to talk about that, but you’re right. We need to be responsible.”

  “It’s going to be over a year.”

  My heart plummeted. “Over a year? When would you leave?”

  “July. And I’ll likely stay there until they break ground in 2017.”

  I didn’t trust my voice to speak, so I didn’t.

  “I know. I can’t bear the thought of it, myself. But as we said before, you could always come visit.”

  Visit. Not come with him.

  By July, we would have been together for almost a year, and he wouldn’t want me to come along?

  “Yeah.” I chalked up the sadness I felt to how tired I was, and the fact that I’d already put myself through an emotional wringer already tonight. I forced a smile and said, “Pretty convenient honeymoon spot.”

  “It could be,” he agreed, but my façade wasn’t as good as I’d thought it was. “Ah, what’s the matter, Doll?”

  You’re going away for over a year, and you don’t want to take me. We’d only been going out for a few months. It was ridiculous to expect him to move me to another country with him. Maybe he couldn’t. Although, he’d just said he was going to make a lot of money, and I had some meager savings. If he was fine talking about marriage and children but not fine with the idea of living with me when he was fine with being away from me…

  “I’m just… really going to miss you.” I settled back in beside him, silently willing him to offer to take me along.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he kissed the top of my head and pulled me close. “I’m going to miss you, too. Believe me, if anything could tempt me away from this job, it would be you.”

  But I wasn’t enough. And I couldn’t get that out of my head, even when the alarm sounded in the morning.

  * * * *

  The grossness of my fight with Ian seemed to evaporate overnight, though I could tell he still felt terrible about it when he dropped me off at work.

  “Oh, shit,” I said as we pulled up. Sophie was already walking toward the building.

  “I made you late again,” Ian said grimly. “Do you want me to come in? Charm her? Beg forgiveness?”

  “No, please do not ‘charm’ my boss. I think you’ve done enough of that.” I rolled my eyes. Maybe I shouldn't say stuff like that, after our fight last night. But it was still weird knowing my boss had fucked my boyfriend.

  I gave Ian a kiss that was way, way briefer than I would have liked and jumped out of the car. I managed to sprint to the door just as Sophie reached it, and I opened it for her.

  “You’re still late,” she said with a knowing smile.

  “I’m sorry.” I’d been saying that a lot lately. “Ian and I got into this huge fight last night, and we—”

  “Stayed up all night making up?” she finished for me as we crossed the lobby for the stairs.

  “Not exactly. But we did make up.” I followed her up the stairs.

  “I’ll level with you,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m late, too. I’ll cover for you, if you promise to play along.”

  “Deal.”

  We entered the office and nodded to the receptionist, a slender white girl named Bethany, with dark hair and a bad case of resting bitch face. But she was really, really nice. She gave us a big smile and a chipper “Good morning!” when we came in.

  “You saw us earlier this morning, remember?” Sophie said with a pointed look.

  Bethany nodded in understanding, making a silent “Oh” with her mouth
.

  When we got into the main office, Deja was leaning over a desk, talking to Matt, one of the graphic designers. Her dark hair was half-shaved, and the angular bob on the other side covered her face. I thought we might sneak past her undetected, but she looked up at Sophie and I and frowned. “Are you both late now? Is this catching?”

  “I wish. The card machine was down at Fry’s, so Penny had to come rescue me with petty cash.” Sophie swung her purse off her shoulder and handed it to me without looking. “I’ll pay it back.”

  “I will never understand how you’re a billionaire and you never have cash on you,” Deja said, totally buying the fib. Sophie winked at me as she walked past.

  The rest of the day went pretty smoothly, considering it started out with a lie. It was around three when my cell rang. It was Ian, which was strange; he tried to avoid taking or making personal calls during the work day. I answered with a “Hello?”

  “You’re American.”

  “You noticed,” I said, adjusting my phone on my shoulder. They should make cell phones thicker, so holding them like that didn’t feel so awkward. “Hi, Ian.”

  “Hello, Doll,” he said with a chuckle. “Do you know who else is American?”

  “You are, even though you rarely admit it.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure Sophie and Deja were both deep in their discussion of the next issue’s layout.

  “How dare you. I was going to say, my sister’s husband is American. And since I assume you’re not going to spend Thanksgiving with your lovely parents—”

  I snorted.

  “—maybe you’d like to come to Thanksgiving dinner at her house, with me?”

  Spend American Thanksgiving with Scottish Catholics? My WASP parents and their Mayflower pride would recoil in horror. “I’d love to. But…”

  “But?”

  I sighed. “Your sister doesn’t want to meet me. That was kind of obvious when she ran away to D.C. to avoid me.”

  “She didn’t run away. And even if she did, this time, she couldn’t. Because I know where she lives, and that woman would never abandon a turkey.” He tried for a laugh. “Look, I don’t want to pressure you—”

  “No, it’s fine.” I pressed my fingertips to my forehead. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m being a bitch about this.”

  “It because you’re nervous You know that it’s important to me that the two of you get along. But I swear, Penny, I am not going to kick you out of my life if you’re not my sister’s favorite person.”

  I ignored the fact that he hadn’t argued with my use of the word “bitch”. “Why do you assume it’s going to go down that way, instead of the other way around?

  He graciously overlooked my snippiness. “Because I know my sister, and I know that of the two of you, you’re the one who’s going into this wanting to get along.”

  “And your sister, she’s not going to want to get along?” Nothing seemed more appealing to me than spending Thanksgiving with someone who’d decided to hate me before she’d even met me. At least my parents had reasons to dislike me, even if they were unfair.

  “She’s going to be cautious. I won’t mince words about that,” Ian replied.

  “That sounds kind of mince-y to me.” It still sounded like he was prepared to go into battle over me.

  “I believe that my sister will like you. And she’ll want to like you, as well. But she’ll stay guarded. When she sees how much I love you, and how important you are to me, she’ll back off.” He didn’t sound very sure of himself.

  “If I don’t get along…” My throat went dry, and I had to start over. “If I don’t get along with your family, our relationship isn’t doomed?”

  “Did I get along with your parents?” he countered. “You’ll get along just fine. If you don’t, we’ll live with it. But Annie doesn’t decide my personal relationships for me.”

  This was important to Ian. That much was obvious. And I did want to see what kind of family he came from. I’d only met his nephew, and I didn’t know what to make of him. If a swearing, snarky priest was any indication of the kind of people Ian came from, it was almost worth going, just for curiosity’s sake.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Is there anything I should bring?”

  “No, don’t. Annie will think you doubted that she could handle all the food, and she’ll take it as an insult. I’ll get a really nice wine and we can bring that,” he said.

  Great. His sister was apparently the type of person who took even simple gestures of kindness as slights. That would be fun to navigate.

  I decided to look on the bright side. “We?” I giggled at the word, because just saying it filled me with sparkly excitement. “I like that sound of showing up places as a couple and only needing to bring one dish to pass.”

  “That’s one of the benefits of serious, long-term relationships. That and health insurance.”

  “Do you need my health insurance?” He probably had that amazing no-copay kind that successful adults seemed to have.

  “It’s probably better than mine,” he grumbled. “Well, we can compare our plans later. But you’ll go with me on Thursday?”

  “Yes,” I said, and my heart squeezed. “I’ll go anywhere, as long as it’s with you.”

  Anywhere. Like a small island country, for example.

  “Noted. Do you want to stay at my place on Wednesday night?”

  Noted? What’s that supposed to mean? I was torn between hope that it meant he would ask me to move with him and despair that he might be just dismissing me, hoping I would ignore it.

  “No,” I declined his invitation. “It’s the biggest bar night of the year. I’m going out with a couple of friends. But I can meet you at your place on Thursday.”

  One night away from Ian wouldn’t kill me, even if our time together was precious, with him moving away. I needed to go out with my girls, and Kelly Sullivan knew the owner of a great place in the village.

  “Fair enough. I’ll find out what time we should be there, and I’ll let you know tonight.”

  We said “I love you” and hung up. I cast another guilty glance at Sophie’s office and opened up my pictures on my phone. I found a selfie Ian and I had taken in a movie theatre while we’d been waiting for the previews to start. God, he was so handsome. Even the lines by his eyes when he smiled and the silver in his hair. I thought about not seeing that face for eighteen months. Not curling up beside him on the couch or smelling him on my pillow after he left in the morning.

  A lot could happen in eighteen months. He could meet someone else, someone prettier and more interesting. Someone his own age, who didn’t make him feel old whenever she talked about her interests and her upbringing. Someone who wouldn’t sit at home and pine for him, because she was more independent than I was.

  That fear was the worst one. What if I did wait for Ian, and the waiting made me look needy or clingy or desperate? How long would it take for “I miss you” to sound like an all-inclusive guilt trip?

  And what if, when he came back, things weren’t the same? If in the intervening time, we both changed too much, and we didn’t fit together like we did before?

  He had to have his reasons for not wanting me to come with him. Maybe he did want me to come with him, but he thought I couldn’t leave my life behind. And maybe he just didn’t want me to come with him, because he didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about him.

  I couldn’t ask him. I didn’t want to hear the wrong answer.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In hindsight, I should have stayed at Ian’s apartment. The city was packed with people out for the parade. Getting a taxi was impossible, and the subway was packed. I was twenty minutes late and super apologetic as I rang the buzzer.

  “I’m here!” I shouted through the intercom. “I’m sorry!”

  “Meet me inside,” Ian replied, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. I went through the doors and waited in the building lobby. Ian was downstairs within minutes, and wh
en he saw me, he smiled hugely. So he couldn’t have been that angry with me.

  “You look beautiful!” he said, gesturing at my dress.

  “Thanks.” I’d had no idea how to dress to meet his sister. After what he’d said about not bringing any food in case I insulted her, I’d worried that dressing too informally would seem like I didn’t care about impressing her, and that dressing too formally would seem like I was trying too hard. I’d settled on a brown plaid dress cut in a retro style, with a wide yellow sash around the waist. It was something I would wear to work, occasionally, though I hated the idea of going to a holiday “business casual”.

  Ian looked pretty damn great, himself. He’d ditched his funeral director Sunday clothes for a hunter green sweater and a pair of dark gray corduroy slacks. But then, I always thought he looked great, even in his undertaker gear.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” I started, and he shook his head.

  “It’s no big deal. Annie knows what a mess the city is on parade day. She’ll just be thrilled that you weren’t my overnight guest.”

  My already queasy stomach went queasier. “She has a problem with you having sex?”

  “Only extramarital,” he said, and alarm bells went off like crazy in my head. Why had he chosen that word? And why would he make that joke when we’d recently had a big fight about me suspecting him of cheating?

  “Okay, so, what level of physical contact am I allowed to have with you?” I asked, brushing my bad feelings aside as we walked to the car. “I mean, obviously I won’t maul you in front of your family, but if your sister is so weird about you and sex, is she going to expect me to leave room for Jesus if I sit next to you?”

  “Leaving room for Jesus only applies to dancing,” he said, opening the car door for me.

  I rolled my eyes and waited for him to walk around the car and slide into the driver’s seat. While he buckled his seatbelt, I tried again. “You know, I want to be on my best behavior here and make a good impression.”

  “Just be yourself. You’re not on trial,” he said, and I knew it was supposed to be reassuring, but somehow it only made me more nervous.