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

by Abigail Barnette

  First Time

  (Ian’s Story)

  Abigail Barnette

  FIRST TIME (IAN’S STORY)

  Abigail Barnette

  Copyright 2015 Abigail Barnette

  All rights reserved.

  Chapter One

  I don’t know who invented blind dates. I do know that whoever it was, he was a miserable bastard who deserved some horrific, medieval execution. Ripped asunder by horses. Smashed into little bits by a pile of heavy stones. Boiled in oil.

  Dating, in general, was a terrifying concept. I’d never been any good at it. I hadn’t gone on my first official date until college. It had ended in front of her dormitory, with her saying, “Well, this didn’t work out, did it?”

  After eight years of trying to push a consistently failing relationship up the steep side of a mountain, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to try again. But the woman I was expecting to meet was “perfect for me,” and I would “definitely love her.”

  No pressure there.

  “She’ll love you,” Sophie, my friend Neil’s wife, had insisted. “She wants all the same stuff you do.”

  “And what do I want?” I’d asked her, thinking to delay the inevitable moment when I would give in and agree to the damn fix-up.

  But Sophie. Fucking Sophie. She’d said, “She wants a family. And you do, too.”

  I wish I’d never told her that.

  It was true, though. When I’d married Gena, I’d assumed we would have children. She’d said she wanted children. But, as the years had gone by, and we’d kept putting it off, it had become clear to me that children were likely not in the cards for us. At first, I’d been satisfied just to have her. I hadn’t wanted to chase her off with unreasonable demands. Maybe that had been our problem. I’d been so wrapped up in trying to keep her happy, I hadn’t bothered to make myself happy. And, when I’d finally tried to, everything had fallen apart.

  I’d been forty-five when I’d met her, and I’d feared my chance to be a dad had passed me by. As it turned out, that was what she’d been banking on, despite her protests to the contrary. Now that she was gone, I found myself missing something I’d never had in the first place.

  Having a child at fifty-three didn’t seem fair, either to the kid or to whatever woman I managed to procreate with. I’d never pictured myself as an old dad. I’d wanted to be the guy throwing the baseball with my son in the backyard or threatening my teenage daughter’s dates with certain death. Even if a child of mine were born tonight, I’d be too fucking old and way too fucking clueless to be a good parent.

  Now, here I was, sitting in a stuck-up restaurant, in my second uncomfortable suit and strangling necktie of the day, wondering whether or not I should have kids with a woman I hadn’t even met, yet. I could have been at home drinking some beers and jerking off. Why bother deviating from my normal Friday routine?

  You’ve done this to yourself. But what the hell was I supposed to have done when Sophie called me? She’d been so transparently wheedling on the phone. Me meeting her friend was obviously important to her. But I hadn’t gone on a date since before I’d started going out with Gena, and even then, we’d never gone on a proper one. It had been more of a “hook-up” as the kids would say. We’d met at a party and gone back to my place; she never went home.

  I checked my watch. My date was five minutes late. That’s not too late, is it? God, if she stood me up, that would be humiliation in the extreme. I’d already told the maître d’ I was meeting someone, so I wouldn’t be able to pretend I meant to come here alone.

  And there was the smarmy bastard, now, oiling his way across the dining room like a Monty Python version of a restaurant host. He’d probably come to ask if I were planning to hold the table. I would hold it all damn night, just to spite him.

  That’s when I saw her.

  She was like a curvy, sequined, Coke-bottle mermaid walking around on legs. Her green dress flashed like a fishing lure. Her hair hung around her shoulders in long golden curls. She looked like a country music star on the way to the CMAs. It surely wasn’t anything I would hold against her.

  The fact that she looked like she might be a fucking teenager? Now, that could be a problem.

  Sophie and I would have words.

  “Mr. Pratchett? Your guest has arrived.”

  The wee fairy girl nearly plowed into the maître d’, who took an alarmed step forward. He opened his mouth, likely about to deliver some withering remark. I hadn’t properly introduced myself to this girl, but I knew I didn’t want her to wither. She exuded an intoxicating sort of earnest vulnerability that made me feel shockingly protective.

  I’d never felt like I had to protect a woman in my entire life. And she could probably take care of herself, which made me feel like a caveman for even thinking it.

  The best defense is a good offense, so I stood and took a step away from the table. The maître d’s only choice was to move aside and be ignored.

  “Penelope?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what answer I was hoping for. On one side of the coin, she was ridiculously attractive. On the other, I felt like I should check her driver’s license.

  My impression didn’t change much when she corrected me. “Penny.”

  “Ian.”

  And then, I shook her hand. I shook it like she was on a fucking job interview. It had to be some kind of world record for crashing and burning at the beginning of a blind date.

  The maître d’ made a move for her chair and pulled it back. Shit, was that something I should have done? Were men still expected to do that? If it was, I wasn’t going to let this prick make me look bad. I shooed him out of the way as Penny sat. “Let me. I’m trying to impress the lady.”

  I thought I noticed a little smile on her face as I helped her adjust her chair. It was more likely she was laughing at me and how horribly this date was already going. Though I didn’t often enjoy being the butt of life’s jokes, the evening seemed absurd to me, and a failure already. With the pressure off, I couldn’t help but smile, too.

  She put her hand over her mouth, as though she could disguise her amusement at our situation. “What are you looking at?”

  “You.” I chuckled and felt myself finally relax. If I’d already made a poor impression, there was nothing I could do about it, now. That left me free to be as honest as I wanted to be. “You’re… Well, I wasn’t expecting you.”

  Something uncertain flickered behind her eyes, but it was gone in an instant. Whatever it had been, her expression didn’t seem as warm as before, though her smile was no less beautiful. “Oh? What about me is so unexpected?”

  Honesty was one thing. Rudeness was another. I’d strayed too close to that boundary, and now, I felt myself drifting across it. “Well, maybe I should have assumed, because you’re Sophie’s friend…” I cleared my throat and tried to adopt a comfortable, neutral posture to combat my awkwardness. “But I didn’t expect you to be so young.”

  “I assumed Sophie had told you that our ages were…way different. She told me.” Penny made a face, as though she were affronted for both of us.

  That made perfect sense to me. “She probably figured you needed more preparation.” I moved my hand to pinch the bridge of my nose but diverted just in time to cover up my annoyance. Maybe Sophie thought any middle-aged man would be thrilled to find himself on a date with someone like Penny, but I couldn’t think of a thing we could possibly have in common.

  “H-how so?” Penny asked.

  I leaned forward, hoping my massive embarrassment wasn’t overheard by the couple at the next table. “Imagine if you came in here, expecting some young, handsome guy, and h
ere was a slightly fat, gray-haired old man. The fact that you showed up at all is reassuring.”

  “Wait a minute, are you comparing me to a young, handsome guy? That’s kind of a weird compliment, but I’ll take it.”

  “When you put it that way, it does sound like a strange way of flattering you.” Christ, this first impression couldn’t have been a bigger disaster if one of us died.

  It was too soon. What the hell was I doing out on a date with someone when the ink on my divorce papers had barely dried? Gena and I weren’t getting back together; the chances of a reconciliation had evaporated. Maybe there was, as my friend Neil had advised me, no time like the present. But my nephew, Danny, had warned me that getting over a divorce took two months for every year of the relationship.

  What the fuck did he know? He was a Roman Catholic priest; it wasn’t like he’d ever been divorced.

  Besides, at that rate, I’d be dead before I could consider dating again. Gena had moved out in March. Nothing was really stopping me from meeting a woman and having a good time. Nothing except my sudden aloofness with women, apparently.

  Penny’s expression was kind as she added, “But you are not fat.”

  “You haven’t seen what’s under here.” I gestured to my torso, actively campaigning against myself and powerless to stop. “This is all a gory wreck, courtesy of the ravages of age.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Her eyes sparkled. God help me, but they sparkled. And her laugh turned my knees to jelly, so it was a good thing we were sitting.

  Damn it, man, pull yourself together. I’d googled “dating advice for men” throughout the afternoon, and while it hadn’t mentioned, don’t call yourself fat or refer to your body as “gory,” I felt perhaps it was something that went without saying.

  The sommelier approached with the wine list and began rattling off suggestions to consider while selecting our meals. I didn’t hear them over my concern at the look of fear on Penny’s face. Then, I recognized it. The panic that comes with realizing you’re out of your depth in a situation.

  Her eyes flicked to mine then she looked away sheepishly. “Oh. Um. You pick?”

  “We probably don’t want to order the wine until we’ve decided what we want from the menu. These are just suggestions to keep in mind.” Did that sound patronizing? I didn’t want to make it seem that way. I took the wine list from the sommelier and turned my attention back to Penny. “Pardon my curious expression. I was just trying to figure out if you were of legal drinking age.”

  From the angry red color that blazed in her cheeks, I suspected she hadn’t appreciated my witty remark. “Yes, I’m old enough. I’m twenty-two.”

  Oh good God, I’m going to Hell. This girl shouldn’t have been here with me, having some stuffy, boring dinner date. She should have been out…bowling. Or whatever unhip activity young people did ironically. Kayaking?

  Against my better judgment, I said, “That is…young.” I may have even whistled like a bomb dropping.

  You should get up and walk away, I warned myself. She looks amazing in that dress. She probably looks amazing underneath it, too. But this is stage one of the midlife crisis you swore you were never going to have.

  Like the one I’d assumed Neil was having when he’d been banging his much younger girlfriend in the bathroom at his fiftieth birthday party. Now, sitting across the table from Tinkerbelle’s sexier body double, I was really starting to see the appeal in the cliché.

  But it probably didn’t matter, now. She looked so annoyed with me, I doubted we’d make it all the way to dessert, let alone back to my place.

  “Look, I’ll understand if you’re not cool with the age gap. I’m not going to be offended,” she assured me.

  “Oh, neither will I, if you decide it’s mad to be on a date with a man who’s old enough to be your father.” Stop pointing that out. Fucking hell, what’s wrong with you? I summoned up as much charm as I could—and I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly charming in the first place, so I was already starting at a negative—and tried again. “But I came to meet a woman with whom my friend thought I would ‘work well’.” Why she thought that was beyond me. I had literally nothing to offer this woman. But a part of me wanted badly to ignore that. “I think it would be short-sighted of me to not at least get to know a little about you.”

  There might have been a touch of a smile on her mouth. Or I could have been imagining it. Her eyes met mine—I’d never particularly fancied brown eyes before, but she was changing my mind—as she said, “And I…would like to get to know you, too.”

  “Excellent.” I tried to restrain myself from coming off too eager; that was one of the dating tips I’d read. “Although, at the moment, I’d like to get to know the menu. They brought them while I was waiting. I think they were hinting I should do something or surrender the table.”

  She winced. “Sorry I was late.”

  “No, no, don’t worry about it. It’s New York, for Christ’s sake, everybody is late going somewhere.” I looked down at the menu. The text on the page was too small for as fucking dark as it was in the restaurant.

  Ah, who was I kidding? It could have been printed in actual neon tubes and it wouldn’t have held my attention the way she did. I watched her eyes as they flicked over the items on the page. She seemed even more nervous, now, and the realization as to why hit me full-on with my own stupidity. No matter how generous Sophie was, there was no way Penny was making enough money to drop her cash on this meal. Not without doing some massive financial restructuring.

  I tapped the top of her menu with one finger. She met my eyes with the guilty gaze of a teenager trying to pass off a fake ID.

  That’s a fucking disgusting comparison to make, I scolded myself. “I hate to sound old fashioned, but when it comes to some things, I am. Since I picked this restaurant, dinner is on me.”

  “Well, thanks,” she said, and quickly looked down again. She probably thought I’d said that to initiate some complicated social negotiation that would lead to sex, but this woman was so far out of my league, I had no illusions of that ever happening.

  I tapped her menu again. Her gaze met mine, and I added, “Just so you know, that’s not me angling for sex.”

  Ian Pratchett. You fucking idiot.

  “I didn’t think it w-was,” she near-whispered. Her face went pink all over. “That was mortifying.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I heard it as it was coming out, and I couldn’t stop it.” I cursed under my breath. “I haven’t done this in a long, long time, and I just didn’t want you to get the wrong impression. I tried to look all of this up on the internet, and—”

  “You researched how to date on the internet?” Her lips pressed together as she tried not to laugh at me.

  “I did,” I admitted. Might as well get all that honesty out in the open. “I’m not sure how great the advice was…”

  “Tell me some of it. I can coach you.” She laid her menu aside and folded her arms on the tabletop. “I’m excellent at dating. I do it all the time. Sometimes, even twice with the same guy.”

  “Then, you sound like quite the expert.” I scanned the menu one last time and made my decision. “All right. Well, the first suggestion was ‘don’t talk about your exes’.”

  “That’s definitely good advice. Don’t talk about that until… Well, I don’t know when. But I don’t want to hear about it.” She started to laugh, and her expression fell. “Oh my God, that sounded so rude. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about—” I began, but the waiter had snuck up behind me.

  “Have you made your selections, then?” he asked, looking eagerly between us. I suspected we might be the last hurdle to clear before he could sneak a quick smoke break; as a recent former smoker myself, I recognized the anxiety radiating from him.

  I gestured to Penny. “If the lady is ready.”

  “Oh, you go first,” she insisted, biting her lower lip and never raising her eyes from her menu. Her bottom l
ip was full, and her lipstick shimmered; it would have been lovely to draw her expression, but there was no way I’d ever be able to capture the physical ache that simple, unconscious gesture made me feel.

  If you were twenty years younger, mate.

  “Sir?” the waiter prompted, and I looked away from Penny.

  The bastard was onto me and my lecherous ways. I could feel the judgment radiating from him, so I didn’t look him in the eye. “I’ll have the warm octopus eschabeche, I think.”

  A strangled little “eep” burst from Penny’s throat.

  I leaned forward. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No, it’s nothing.” She shook her head and forced a smile that stalled a few times before it really got going. “I just really, um. I really like octopods.”

  So, that’s what the plural of that is. I couldn’t remember ever meeting someone who loved octopods so passionately. “Really?”

  She nodded. “I do this donation thing to conserve the habitat of the giant Pacific octopus. Enteroctopus dofleini? But I love all of them. I even have a tattoo of one.”

  I had to squeeze my fist so hard I could have crushed a diamond to stop myself from asking where it was. It seemed rude, and I didn’t need to know since I was never going to see it, anyway.

  “Then, I revise my selection…” I considered. “And I will have the lobster pappardelle, instead.”

  “And for you, ma’am?” the waiter asked.

  Penny handed him her menu like we were in a greasy spoon. “The frog legs, please.”

  “Very good. Do we have a wine selection?”

  “What goes with frog legs?” It was a legitimate question, but I got the impression she thought I was teasing her. Her expression was neutrally pleasant, but I could see the annoyance under it. Here I was, a jerk who’d already planned to eat her favorite animal, and now, I was poking fun at her dinner selection.

  This wasn’t going well.

  “Could you give us a moment?” I asked the waiter, and he nodded, drifting away with just a hint of annoyance at me. It seemed to be going around.