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

by Abigail Barnette

  I wanted to laugh or make my own quip back. I would have settled for just reacting, at all. But I was still stunned that he’d changed his order for me. I tried to imagine Brad ever doing anything like that. He would have probably just made a face and told me to get over it.

  That thought had to leave immediately. I wasn’t going to compare this perfectly nice guy to Brad. It wasn’t fair to compare anyone to your ex on a first date. And in this case, the comparison would have been extra tactless, because Ian…

  Ian was starting to seem better and better.

  But as he looked at me, his expression fell. He asked the waiter, “Could you give us a moment?” and the guy looked ready to stab both of us.

  Oh great. Just when I’d relaxed and realized this guy actually, astoundingly, had potential, he was ready to cut out. I could sense it. I tried to hide my disappointment as he leaned in and motioned for me to do the same.

  “This is, quite literally, the worst date I have ever been on,” he began, and the butterflies in my stomach dropped dead. But he continued, “And I think you’re in the same boat with me. Do you want to start over? Somewhere that we’re not so pressured to be on our best behavior, and actually be ourselves?”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have felt the enormous relief I felt at his offer. Especially when I’d been trying to talk myself out of meeting him less than an hour ago. But Sophie had told me I would like him, and he would like me.

  I was going to find out what she meant.

  Chapter Two

  A change of venue was exactly what we’d needed. I’d suggested a restaurant near my apartment, not because I thought I’d be taking him home or anything, but because I always got the best guidance from their fortune cookies.

  With the way the date was going, I could use all the help I could get. Ian was the trifecta of confusion for me. My heart? Really, really liked him and wanted to get to know him better. My brain? Thought it was a crazy idea and had no problem listing off all the reasons why it was crazy, from our ages to the fact that he would willingly eat an octopus. And my body…

  Okay, being a virgin? Doesn’t mean I’m not interested in sex. And it definitely doesn’t mean I have some iron willpower. The only thing that held me back so far was my stupid family superstition. Every woman in my family had found their true love, and it had always been the man she’d first slept with. Which was great and all, if they stayed together. But my great aunt Aggie had fallen hard for her first, and he’d married someone else. She’d been miserable for the rest of her life. My cousin Ashley had given it up to her high school boyfriend, and while she fully believed that he was her true love, the timing must have been crazy off, because they broke up and she immediately got pregnant with some loser football player’s baby. So while I’d been tempted before—and oh man, had I been tempted—it wasn’t worth it to risk my future happiness.

  That said I’d almost jumped into Ian’s lap in the cab. When he talked, he talked with his hands, and I’d somehow gone from innocently appreciating their sexiness to actively imagining them on me. Then I’d thought about how weird it was that I’d even think of him that way when he was so much older than me, which had led down the very dangerous path of reasoning that wisdom comes with experience, and maybe the whole superstition thing had more to do with coincidence than reality.

  When we got our food, I ordered guaranteed breath killers: kung pao chicken with extra spice and pork egg rolls stuffed with lots of smelly cabbage. There was no way we were doing anything tonight.

  Getting out of that stuffy restaurant had been a great idea. Now that we were alone, sitting on a bench in the deserted little park down the street from my apartment, we could really get to know each other. And maybe I was just a tad overeager, because as I paused in my recounting of my wisdom teeth extraction, he asked, “Wait…weren’t we talking about Shakespeare in the park, a moment ago?”

  I subdued a groan. “I talk too much. Sorry.”

  “No,” he was quick to reassure me. “You talk just enough. Any more than this and you’d be overwhelming. But you’re at a good level right here.”

  My frozen expression thawed with my relief.

  He moved for his Styrofoam cup as he said, “Unfortunately, I know the name of the cat you left behind to go to college, and I know that cherry is your favorite flavor of cough syrup. But I think we skipped over some important information.”

  Ugh. How could I be this tragically awkward?

  He went on, “Tell me about your family.”

  This was one of my least favorite parts of getting to know someone new. They asked about my family, I told them, and they would say things that sounded innocent but felt prying and personal. “Wow, it must have been lonely, being an only child,” or “I bet you were really spoiled.” The truth was, I’d been incredibly spoiled and unlikeable until I’d arrived at NYU and gotten the world’s biggest you’re-not-special-at-all slap in the face. Yes, my parents had indulged my every whim, but damn straight I’d been lonely. My father had worked all the time, and my mother had been so involved in her own career and various community activities that I’d spent a lot of days and nights with a babysitter. Of course I’d been lonely and spoiled, but it was humiliating to explain that to my best friends. Telling a stranger on a date? No, thank you.

  “Ugh. Okay, please don’t tell me this sounds lonely, but I’m an only child, and my parents are not close to their families, so it was kind of just the three of us.”

  He blinked and shrugged. “I don’t think that sounds all that lonely. Honestly, around the time my last little brother was born, I would have been happy to live on my own in a cave somewhere.”

  My hair was coming dangerously close to getting into my food. I flipped it over my shoulder and hoped the motion didn’t look as jerky as it felt. I’d never been able to pull off the smooth, graceful thing with my hair. “Why? What’s your family like?”

  “I’m the fourth of nine children—” he began, and I tried not to cut him off, but that was beyond out-of-the-ordinary. I’d never met anyone with so many brothers and sisters.

  “Nine?” I almost spit half-chewed kung pao everywhere. I couldn’t imagine growing up with eight siblings. I’d always wanted at least one, but nine was beyond excessive.

  “Four boys, five girls.” He seemed amused by my reaction.

  I swallowed with a little difficulty and grabbed for my drink. “Wow. And do they all live in… You’re from Scotland, right?”

  “Yes. I am originally from Scotland.” He nodded along as he answered. “And yes, all but one of my siblings still live there.”

  “So, how long have you lived here? The country. Not New York.” I didn’t mean to interrogate him, but he was way more interesting than I was. If I kept asking questions, he might not figure that out.

  “Oh, about…” he paused, his brow furrowing as he silently counted it up, “twenty…seven? Yeah, twenty-seven years now.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know they’d let you stay that long.” I put my drink down. “So, you were here before I was born.”

  Why did I have to go and say something like that? Right when we were getting comfortable?

  It didn’t seem to bother him. “Well, they don’t really have much of a choice about letting me in. My dad is American.”

  “You’ve got dual citizenship? I’ve never met anybody who had that before!” I had no idea why that seemed so cool to me. Probably because I’d literally never been out of the country.

  He grinned at me. “Well, I’m glad to be your first. I hope it was amazing.”

  I froze. Just for a second, but enough that he must have noticed, because we both stared at each other with this deer-in-headlights look.

  He couldn’t have possibly known where my mind went, or why, when he said that; I’d expressly asked Sophie not to mention the virgin thing, and I trusted that she hadn’t. So…that could be a sign.

  I filed the coincidence away, in case more came up later.

  “What abo
ut you?” he asked. “Where are you from?”

  “Pennsylvania. Harrisburg. Very upper-middle and boring.” Nothing like New York. I wished I’d been born and raised in the city, like a “real” New Yorker. “But then, I moved here, gosh, almost five years ago, and it completely changed me.”

  There was that smile, again, that adorable smile that had made me immediately like him.

  Well, sort of immediately. I just hadn’t known it at the time.

  “You grew a second head?” he joked. “Or you shed the superfluous head you already had?”

  “Thank god. That second one was totally ugly.” When he teased me, it didn’t feel like something I had to be defensive about. When Brad had done it, it had always felt like a put-down. “I just meant I went from having a personality that had been written for me by all the people around me, to coming to this place where I was a blank slate. I didn’t have to fit in with my clique back home anymore—we were so The Plastics—”

  He made a confused face. “Plastics?”

  Oh, yeah. He hadn’t been in middle school when that movie came out. “Yeah, from Mean Girls? It’s a movie. Anyway, I felt like I had to fit in with them, I had to get perfect grades, make my parents happy. Now, I’m here, and I get to be whoever I want.” I couldn’t keep a straight face; I knew how silly and idealistic that sounded. “And, someday, I’ll figure out who that person is.”

  He tilted his head and shook it sadly. “I hate to break it to you, but no, you won’t. Look at me. I’m fifty-three years old, newly divorced, absolutely none of my life goals accomplished, and I’m out on a blind date.”

  “I’m on a blind date, too,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, you’re on a blind date, but you’re on a blind date thinking you might meet someone new and exciting you can really connect with. I’m just terrified that you’re going to start laughing at me.”

  I did start laughing, but not because I thought he was pathetic. It was because he somehow managed to be confident and vulnerable at the same time. I felt like I was actually getting to know him, in a way that was more honest than first dates usually felt to me.

  “See, we’re there already,” he joked.

  “Gosh, is that what I have to look forward to at fifty-three?” My laughter faded into contemplation. I studied him a moment, then turned back to my food. “You know, I like you a lot better here than in some stuffy restaurant,” I said, my heart beating in my throat the whole time. I didn’t just like him better. I liked him. Enough that it bummed me out to think this might just be a one-time date due to the age thing.

  He cleared his throat. “I find you just unbearable, with your beautiful face and your infectious laughter. I haven’t had a fun night like this for a while, and I just hate it.”

  I looked down, too embarrassed and flattered by his comment. I had to change the subject, or he’d see how giddy I was from his compliments, but my brain went totally blank. I tried to remember any other pre-game intel I’d gotten and thankfully remembered a bit. “Sophie told me you’re an artist?”

  “Ugh.”

  Okay. Ugh. Not great. Thanks, Sophie.

  “Am I not supposed to ask?”

  He grimaced uncomfortably. “You can ask.”

  Since he’d given me the go ahead, and I was curious enough to ignore the part where he’d only reluctantly given me permission, I looked back to my food and asked, “What do you do? Painting, sculpture—”

  “Drawing,” he interjected. “Portraiture, mostly. Figure drawing.”

  “So, people.” Nope. I was not going to imagine posing for him. That was too Titanic a road to go down when I was already seriously attracted to him. “Are you any good?”

  “Now, how am I supposed to answer that?” For a second, he sounded like he might be angry with me, and it shocked me. As he went on, it was clear that he was teasing me, again. “Am I any good? If I tell you, ‘yeah, I’m fuckin’ great,’ I sound like I’m bragging. If I say, ‘No, I’m shite,’ it’s like I’m fishing for compliments. Either way, I come off a fucking prick.”

  I couldn’t help my startled burst of giggles. I covered my face with one hand. “That is the most swearing I’ve ever heard on a first date.”

  “This is me on my best behavior. I may as well own up to it, now,” he said, like he truly didn’t give a, well, a fuck what I might think. It was nice to not get treated “like a lady”.

  I put my food down. I’d only been picking at it, anyway, and not to impress him. I was just too excited to eat. The date had seemed doomed before it even began, but now I saw all kinds of possibilities ahead of us. Possibilities I was even willing to open up a teeny can of hope for.

  But it was way too early to get any farther than “gosh, I hope he calls me after this”. One of my biggest problems was creating expectations and setting myself up for disappointment.

  I reached into the paper bag our takeout came in, feeling for the fortune cookies. “Okay. We have to find out what our future holds.”

  “Or our lucky numbers and how to say ‘pork’ in Chinese,” he said dryly. The wrapper crinkled in his hand as he opened it.

  “I’ll have you know, I take these things very seriously.” Like horoscopes and numerology and tarot cards, I did not say, because I didn’t want him to think I was some granola-fed new-age indigo child. I was just a little superstitious, but most people couldn’t tell the difference between the two.

  “What, fortune cookies?” He sounded surprised, and a little wary.

  “A fortune cookie is the reason I walked into that restaurant tonight.” I cracked mine apart and fished the paper out. “Aren’t you glad I did?”

  “I am. Maybe I’ll start putting more stock into these, then.”

  “Mine says, ‘Humor usually works at the moment of awkwardness.’” Wow, that summed up, basically, our entire date. That one was going into the jar. It was definitely a sign.

  He hadn’t said anything, yet, and there couldn’t have been that much to read. “What does yours say?” I prompted.

  “Nothing, it’s stupid.” He crumpled it in his hand. “And it’s got a typo.”

  “A lot of them have typos.” I reached for the paper, and he jerked it away. My forward momentum didn’t stop, and I caught myself with a hand on his knee.

  Hmmm. Innocent, accidental physical contact, and he hadn’t recoiled? Under the guise of trying to grab the printed fortune, I leaned across him.

  He moved his arm out of my reach. “No! I don’t want you to see my lucky numbers and steal the lottery winnings that are rightfully mine.”

  The side of my boob pressed against his chest, and it was enough of a distraction that he dropped the paper. I caught it and sat back, trying to disguise my rapid breathing. Whether it had been playful or not, being that close to Ian was a surprising turn-on.

  I looked down at the red print on the scrap of paper in my hand. The love of your live will step into your path this summer. Well, there was the typo. But holy shit, what kind of fortune was that to get on a first date?

  Not to mention the fact that that his first lucky number was an eight, and in numerology, my lifepath number was eight.

  It was a sign.

  Oh my god, it was a total sign.

  I had to keep it cool, but the laugh I faked came out like a pig snort, and I sounded so ditzy when I said, “Well, I hope she hurries up. It’s already August twenty-first.”

  When I looked at him, I couldn’t keep fake-laughing. I couldn’t say or do anything, at all, because I’d never received such clear messages from the universe before, and now even I thought I was reading too much into things.

  So, maybe Ian wasn’t destined to be the love of my life. That seemed like a long shot on a first date. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t hope for a chance to find out.

  We were sitting there, just staring at each other, when the police officer came up the pathway.

  “Uh-oh.” I knew the park was supposed to be closed after sunset. There was a sig
n at the gate and everything. We’d broken the law. On our first date. This was going to be a disaster.

  “NYPD,” the officer identified himself. “Are you two aware that this park is closed from sundown to seven a.m.?”

  “No, I can’t say as I noticed,” Ian said, not even slightly intimidated. And there really wasn’t any reason he should have been; as a white, middle-aged taxpayer, he was pretty much safe from the police. I’d learned a lot about that subject from my roommate.

  “Terribly sorry. We’ll go.” Ian stood and tried to shake the officer’s hand, but the cop wasn’t having it.

  In fact, the officer looked suspiciously between the two of us. Did he think we were in the middle of a heist or something? “Miss, how old are you?”

  Did he think I was drinking out here? Trespassing, yes, but public intoxication? Absolutely not. “I’m twenty-two. Do you want to see my ID?”

  “No, ma’am.” The cop wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at Ian, like he was trying to figure out something bad he knew we’d been up to. “Are we on a date here?”

  “Yeah, a blind date.” What kind of a question was that for a police officer to ask? But if he was so interested in personal details, I could give them. “We were set up by a mutual friend.”

  “A friend? You mind telling me what kind of friend?”

  “A work friend.” I tried to smile at him and use my feminine charm the way I assumed would be effective with a policeman.

  And then I totally understood what he was getting at. Penny, you idiot.

  I had to fix this. I stood and waved my hands, trying to wipe away the entire notion he’d gotten into his brain. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I am not a prostitute. Not that there’s anything wrong with sex work. I mean, besides the illegality of it. I don’t know why it’s illegal, I mean, if it’s ethical and nobody is getting hurt—”

  Shut up, Penny! Shut up now!

  “I’m sorry. I’ll stop talking, sir.” But I didn’t stop talking. I didn’t stop at all. “Officer. Is that impolite to call you sir? I’ve never talked to a police officer before in a disciplinary…Am I getting arrested?”