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

by Abigail Barnette

  True to his word, he didn’t let me drown. He took my hand and pulled me closer to him. Which was just fine by me, because I wanted to touch him. I’d wanted to in the car on the way over. I’d almost taken his hand as we’d walked through the lobby. I just wanted to be nearer to him than casual distance all the time. I slid my hand up his arm to rest on his shoulder. He didn’t have Brad’s twelve-hours-a-week-at-the-gym arms, but he wasn’t as out of shape as he claimed.

  I couldn’t keep my cool. I started giggling. I needed a way to cover for myself. “When I first started coming here, I was afraid it was actually a part of the UN.”

  His hands skimmed down my sides, settling around my waist. It was the most contact we’d had so far. His long fingers pushed into my skin just slightly, just enough to hold me and let me know he was there, and he turned us in a circle, like a very slow dance.

  “I have to admit I had a moment where I thought that, myself.”

  Wait, what did he think? My short-term memory had fizzled out at the touch of his hands. Oh, the UN. Right. “Well, we’re safe. I promise. The worst they can do is kick us out.” I put my arms around his neck to hang on and lean back, my legs floating up at his side. “But my plan is that we pretend you’re a delegate staying here.”

  “Do I get to pick which country?” he asked.

  “Hmm. The obvious choice, and the one you’d be more likely to pull off, would be Scotland. Sorry.”

  “Scotland doesn’t have a delegate in the UN. We’re just lumped into the United Kingdom.”

  I almost defended my joke with a long, rambling explanation about how I’d been in a model UN club in high school and I already knew that, but how seriously geeky could I be without ruining the mood entirely? I was already all over him, apparently to no avail because he hadn’t made a move. I doubt he would be turned on hearing about how I’d been Brazil once. Instead, I swam a lazy circle around him. “Well, I’m giving you a seat. You’re the delegate from Scotland now.”

  I pulled him farther into the deep end, so I’d have more of an excuse to cling to him. “And how does the delegate from Scotland feel about the delegate from the United States, at the moment?”

  “The delegate from Scotland likes the delegate from the United States very much,” he said. It wasn’t exactly the declaration of passion I was looking for.

  I once again wrapped my arms around his neck, sending totally obvious kiss me vibes. It was nice to be face-to-face with him, but I was starting to worry my flirt was broken. I would have to be direct. “The delegate from the United States calls for a resolution to address the fact that Scotland hasn’t kissed her, yet, even though the United States is sending out all sorts of signals.”

  “Are you?” He sounded genuinely shocked.

  So, obviously, I hadn’t been doing my job. I rolled my eyes at myself. “Yeah, with all my sexy United Nations talk.”

  Since vibes weren’t working, I turned to physical cues. I pulled him down with my hands at his neck and pressed my mouth to his. He got the clue, then.

  I’d never thought of kissing as counting for physical intimacy. To me, physical intimacy was when you got down to the serious stuff. And not just intercourse; I’d loved snugging with Brad after I’d gotten him off. Laying against his shoulder, smelling the mix of cheap detergent and cheaper deodorant that clung to his T-shirts, I’d never wanted to be anywhere else.

  But kissing Ian? I felt the same thing, multiplied by ten. Our tongues stroking against each other, the way his body felt pressed against mine was so intense, he might as well have been touching me everywhere. My nipples were so hard it hurt, and I knew he could feel them.

  I used him for leverage to pull myself up tighter against him, and his arms wrapped around my waist. God, we even fit together right. And we’d never tried to fit together before.

  The giddy crush of energy behind my ribs became too much pressure, and I pulled back. I had to, or I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Our eyes locked, and adrenaline coursed through me; I could probably use it to lift a car or run a marathon. Instead, I used it to kiss him again and got caught up in the moment. My legs hooked around his hips, and my pelvis bumped against him.

  It may have been shortsighted of me to start kissing him when we were both half-naked. His erection was both impressive and obvious.

  I jerked away, untangling myself with a gasp. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, that was really—” Awesome. “—forward of me.”

  Ugh, how would I have felt if he’d gotten all gropey with me, without asking permission? And in the genital area? I was such a sex offender.

  He looked away and scratched his neck, the way he did when he was uncomfortable, and I felt so bad. “No, it’s fine. A bit embarrassing is all. A good, solid school book would be very helpful right now.”

  I laughed, because I was nervous, and I covered my face because I was completely mortified. “Okay, I think the water is acting as an aphrodisiac. We may need to get out.” And probably never see each other again because I jumped you.

  “Agreed,” he said, and my heart twisted. “Although, I hate to cut our adventure short. Why don’t you come to my place and have dinner?”

  Because my years of celibacy will snuff out like a candle in a closed jar. I raised an eyebrow and stalled with a joke. “Let me guess, you’re going to cook dinner to lull me into a false sense of security, then bam, five years from now we’re married and you’ve never cooked since.”

  “No, I’ll be upfront about that right now. Marriage or not, I don’t cook. But I’ll have something delivered.”

  He hadn’t freaked out about the marriage thing. That was awesome. It was so immature and stupid the way guys would act terrified of marriage, even when it was mentioned in passing. As a divorcee, wasn’t Ian supposed to be even more wary? I added the fact he was so chill about it to my list of things I liked about him.

  I wasn’t sure going to his place was a good idea. I didn’t think he was a serial killer or a rapist or anything, despite Rosa’s constant warnings that dating was the number one killer of women aged eighteen to sixty-five. But considering how little control I had over myself when we were together, it still might not be the greatest idea.

  My body was a hundred percent sure I should be giving it up to Ian, like yesterday, but I resolved I wouldn’t even think of the idea until after Labor Day. If I was the love of his life, like the fortune cookie said, and if we were as compatible as our numbers suggested, then we would have plenty of time to get to the physical fun, right? I didn’t want to be yet another cautionary tale in my maternal lineage.

  I could control myself, I decided. And so far, Ian had proven cautious about respecting my boundaries.

  He also lived in a clock. How could I pass the opportunity up?

  I agreed after my moment of consideration. “Okay. I’m really curious to see what the inside of that clock tower looks like.”

  “Oh, it’s all gears and pulleys.” He had such a great smile. “You’ll have to be very careful about where you put your shoes, or they’ll rotate off and you’ll never see them, again.”

  I was pretty sure he was kidding. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “I’m going to go get changed.”

  When I got out of the pool, I had the worst wedgie in the world. There was no chance I could pretend to not notice it. I adjusted as much as I could without actually picking my butt and hurried off to the locker rooms.

  If he still wanted to have dinner with me after he saw that, he was a keeper.

  In the locker room, I did a quick rinse off, combed my hair, and threw on my clothes. Rosa and I had this deal that if we’re going out with someone we don’t know well, we text each other our whereabouts and what time we plan on returning. I’d broken our agreement by coming to the pool with Ian without thinking about it, and I wasn’t going to do it a second time. The problem was, Rosa would probably try to convince me not to go to Ian’s place, because Rosa is sensible and knew I wouldn’t want to make a stupid choice base
d on hormones and a dangerous amount of privacy.

  Slouched on the bench, I held my phone in front of me and took a deep breath. I typed in, Having dinner at Ian’s house.

  She responded immediately, ho don’t do it.

  I’m not going to do it. Just dinner.

  A beat later, she replied, again, ho don’t do it. And this time, she put a thumbs down emoticon.

  Okay, I had checked in to let her know my plan. But she wasn’t my mother, so I threw my phone in my purse and went to the sink. I’d braided my wet hair, and it fell over my shoulder as I leaned down to splash cold water on my suddenly hot face. When I came up, I met my gaze in the mirror. With my very best determined expression, I said, “Ho. Do it.”

  * * * *

  On the drive to Ian’s apartment, it was clear we were both super nervous. First, he apologized for his apartment not being “very tidy” and kept noncommittally singing along with songs on the radio before he realized what he was doing and stopped himself. But once we were there, in the building, in the elevator, he seemed to relax, and so did I.

  “I’m so excited right now.” I bounced on the balls of my feet, despite my strict no-jumping-in-elevators policy. I knew it probably wouldn’t really send the elevator crashing down, but I never liked to tempt fate.

  Speaking of fate, Ian was very tempting. Whatever had brought him down during the day, there was no trace of it, now.

  I added, “You have no idea how often I’ve looked at this place and fantasized about what it might be like inside.”

  “I hope the fantasy lives up to the reality, but you have to remember, a very single, very depressed man has been living here.”

  “My mom used to tell people, ‘I’m here to see you, not your house,’ but then she would bitch about their housekeeping for the entire ride home.” I rolled my eyes at the memory. It had seemed like such a hateful thing to do. Especially when I’d seen genuine relief in the expressions of the people she’d said it to. “I promise I won’t do that to you. As much as I want to see the inside of your apartment, I really am here to see you.”

  I hoped he would be kind enough to ignore the fact that my purse sounded like I was smuggling a nest of bees in it. Rosa was having an unholy conniption in our text.

  I was already impressed that Ian had an elevator up to his apartment. Not his floor, his apartment. He had to put a key in it and everything. When the doors opened and we stepped into the place…

  The room was one big square, broken only by pillars and the raised platform in the center, where we’d entered. The centerpiece of the elevated area that we’d entered onto was another, smaller elevator for the upper floors of the apartment. Some really nerve-wracking floating stairs headed up there, too, arranged in dizzying flights of precisely cut golden wood around the glass elevator shaft.

  “Oh my god,” I said, hardly believing I was in a place like this, let alone standing with the person who’d dreamed it all up. “You made this.”

  “I designed it,” he corrected me. “Many people who are far more skilled than I am built it.”

  I approached the living room window, one of the four huge clock faces Ian had described to me on the drive over. From where I stood in front of one, I could see all the others, albeit one of them had to be viewed through the obstruction of the glass elevator shaft. “And they really work?”

  “They do. There is a very nice service technician by the name of Andrew who comes by every now and then to inspect the machinery and make sure it’s all running properly. There’s a room where all of the clock-related equipment is. I don’t go into it.”

  I assumed the clock face and hands were on the outside of the glass, but it was so clean it was hard to tell. For someone who thought he wasn’t very tidy, the place looked like a showroom.

  Well, except for the pair of jeans over the back of the couch. In the reflection on the glass, I saw Ian hastily shove the garment under the white throw beside it.

  The view of Manhattan was as glamorous as if it had come out of a movie. The sun was beginning a late-afternoon descent, taking its time and casting warm golden shadows over the bridges and building faces.

  And all I wanted to look at was Ian.

  Being with him was easy. All of my senses seemed more alive when we were together. It was like I became some better version of myself, or maybe just the true version of myself. I was certainly at my most authentic when I was with him, because I felt like I had nothing to lose. Whatever happened between us wouldn’t hurt me; disappoint me, maybe cause me some pain, but it wouldn’t harm me. There was no sense that we were playing a game or that I should be on the defensive. We felt real together, in a way I’d never felt with anyone else.

  There were only eight more days until Labor Day.

  I turned away from the window. To my left was the longest galley kitchen I’d ever seen, and far wider than the one in my apartment, that was for sure. No walls distinguished it from the dining room beside it, but the placement of the counters and cabinets and the modern, stainless steel hood for the stove—which looked odd all by itself and not installed against a wall and some cupboards—clearly delineated it was its own separate space.

  As did the placement of the couch in the living room area. A very modern, very wide circular coffee table in white enamel sat in the center of that, a pleasant contrast with the sharp angles of the room.

  “Your decorator really knew what they were doing.” I walked around the couch toward him, trailing my fingers along the gray upholstery on the back as I did.

  He looked down, his expression darkly humorous. “My— Gena. My ex-wife, Gena, excuse me. She did all of this.”

  He’d been about to say, my wife, I was sure of it. There was a flash of jealousy on my part, but I reeled it back in. He’d probably been married for a long time. I’d known him for two weeks. I didn’t really get to be jealous in this situation.

  “Did she?” I asked, keeping a neutral expression. “Well, it looks fantastic.”

  “She’s talented. Unfocused, but talented. And I’m not saying that to be bitter, I—” He stopped himself, and I was so glad. I did not want to listen to the guy I was having hopeful dating feelings about describe his ex-wife. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I have to confess something.”

  He’s not really divorced. He’s a widower. He’s a widower, and he’s going to start crying.

  “You’re the first woman I’ve had over here, since Gena. Besides her and our female friends at parties and the like. You’re actually the first date who’s come here.” The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened with his pained expression. “I hope I’m not out of line telling you that.”

  “No, I don’t think that’s out of line,” I assured him. It wasn’t necessarily my first choice of conversational topic, but I could roll with it. “Thanks for telling me, instead of being weird all night about it.”

  He stepped up close to me and reached to tuck an escaped curl behind my ear. “I didn’t see the point in being weird. Honesty worked well enough yesterday.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’m glad I’m here.”

  He cupped my cheek and leaned down to kiss me at the corner of my mouth, and my knees went weak. I was practically swaying from that brief contact when he straightened, put his hands in his pockets, and said, “So. Dinner.”

  Right. Dinner. That was what we were here for.

  He nodded toward the kitchen. “That’s where I keep the delivery menus.”

  I followed him, looking up at the ceiling two floors above our heads. “In the refrigerator?”

  “You’re going to laugh at me, but I do keep them in the cupboard.” He walked around the counter and opened a door.

  Ian wasn’t kidding when he’d said he didn’t have any food in the house. There was a jar of peanut butter, an eighth of a box of macaroni, and a bag of pitted dates. The dates had dust on them.

  “Ian…” I didn’t want to be rude. I really didn’t. But this alarmed me. �
�What have you been eating?”

  “Delivery, mostly,” he admitted sheepishly. “And peanut butter.”

  I looked around the bare counters. “Do you even have any bread?”

  “Not as such.” He looked guiltily at the floor.

  “God, I hope you are using a spoon and not your hand.” There. I said it. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d wanted to.

  “Well, of course I’m using a spoon,” he said, sounding mildly offended. He pulled a drawer handle, and trash and recycling bins rolled out. One was full of beer bottles, the other was fairly empty but for a clump of peanut butter streaked plastic spoons at the bottom.

  He was so unashamedly pathetic that I couldn’t hold in my laughter. “You’re a mess.”

  He laughed with me. “Ah, you were going to find out soon, anyway.”

  “You’re right. So, thanks for once again not being weird.”

  “You’re weird enough for the both of us.”

  We looked through the delivery menus and decided on Italian. While we waited for the order to arrive, Ian showed me around the rest of the apartment. We went up to the second floor, to his studio. It had some amazing square windows that perfectly illuminated the space around the large drafting table. There were some can lights in the ceiling, but I would have expected something more than the adjustable lamp clipped to his desk.

  “Why don’t you have lights up there, if this is where your table is?” I asked, examining the ceiling before turning my attention to the drawing in progress. I gestured to it. “Can I look?”

  “Sure,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. “And the reason I don’t have lights directly above my desk is because they would be coming right at the back of my head. It’s hard to draw in your own shadow.”

  “Oh. I wouldn’t have thought of that.” The picture he was working on was a sketch of a young man. Though it was clearly unfinished, I felt as though I were looking at a photograph of a person who looked similar to, but not exactly like, Ian. “Is this a relative?”