First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) (10 page)

“
Cut it short?” I laughed.
“Ian. We’ve been hanging out since two this afternoon. I’m pretty
sure we broke a dating rule here.”

“
Some rules are made to be
broken.” It was such a cliché thing to say, but coming from him, it
sounded kind of dangerous and flirty. He turned off the car—I was
surprised it wasn’t out of gas by now from running the air
conditioner—and gestured to the building. “Come on. I’ll walk you
to your door.”

My door was a whole sidewalk width away, but
I let him walk me, anyway, because I was pretty sure I was getting
a kiss goodnight. In fact, I’d been anticipating it ever since that
fantastic kiss in the park. But between then and now, nothing. He
hadn’t even tried to hold my hand or put his arm around me. I
decided it was because he respected my request that we take it
slow, and that it wasn’t a comment on my desirability.

I reached into my purse for my keys,
distracted. We might be taking it slow, but emotionally, I was
already way too into him. Which was so stupid. I knew it was
stupid, especially given our situation. Thirty years was one hell
of an age gap to have to overcome.

“
You look very grim,” he
said, and though his tone sounded light, there was a nervousness
under his words. I thought I was an open book when it came to
emotions, and obviously I was, if he’d picked up on my split second
of doubt. But he was just as transparent.

“
I was just thinking about
how much fun we had today.” I stopped myself on the edge of
revealing too much.

He frowned. “If that was meant to be
reassuring…”

“
No,” I answered quickly,
then winced. “I mean, I had a really good time, and—” what the
hell— “I hope we keep having fun. I want to know how this story
ends.”

Because I’m falling for you,
and I’m afraid I’m Cinderella at quarter to midnight.
I didn’t want the spell to break. I would be
heartbroken; not forever, but even a day or a week would suck. I’d
let myself get in way over my head.

He put his hands in his pockets, hunching his
shoulders, and looked away. Looking away seemed to be a signal that
he was about to say something significant, and it frightened him.
That’s when he made eye contact with me, again, and I almost
dissolved like cotton candy as he said, “Maybe it’s better to hope
that it doesn’t.”

He leaned one arm against the building, above
my head. I’d forgotten our height difference; beside him, I felt
tiny but not threatened. The intent in his expression was clear. I
rolled my tongue over my bottom lip as he leaned down, and I tilted
my face up.

“
This is ill-advised, at the
very least,” he said, his mouth just millimeters from
mine.

“
Yeah, I’m way too young for
you.” But my hands came up between us to rest on his chest, and
then we were kissing, my fingers curling in his shirt to pull him
closer as the brick wall met my back. His free arm curved around my
waist, and our feet tangled. I was pinned. I liked it.

A car door slammed somewhere down the street,
and Ian looked up, panting.

“
Nobody’s going to see. And
if they do, they won’t care,” I said, pleading.

He lowered his head again, the arm on the
wall coming down to join the other around my waist. It was a good
thing, too. I was breathless and weak-kneed as his tongue swept
over mine, and every inch of my skin buzzed, from collarbone to
kitty. My ability to stand was imperiled.

Someone, someone very near us, dropped their
keys on the sidewalk.

It was my turn to break off our kiss.
“Rosa!”

“
I’m sorry, I was trying to
sneak past.” She narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked Ian over.
Then to me, she said, “Carry on.”

The door closed behind her, and Ian stepped
back, laughing as he scratched the back of his neck. “Remember
those signs from God you were talking about?”

“
Yeah, he is clearly
reminding you that you have church in the morning. That’s my
roommate. You’ll have to meet her sometime when you haven’t just
been feeling me up in front of her.”

“
I was not feeling
you—”

“
I’m fucking with you, Ian.”
I stood on my tiptoes, brushing my lips against his. “Just one
more?”

He groaned. Not loudly, just enough that I
felt it rumble through his chest as I opened my mouth. The kiss was
far too brief.

“
I’ll call you tomorrow. If
that’s not too soon,” he said softly, stroking the backs of his
fingers down my jaw.

He could leave right now and call me in
twenty minutes, and it wouldn’t be too soon. “Not too soon at
all.”

“
All right. I’ll talk to you
tomorrow, then.” He kissed me again, just a quick peck, and headed
to his car.

A strange, crushing feeling swelled in my
chest as I unlocked the door, like I missed him already.

You’re not being sensible, Penny. You’re
going to be let down, and it will be nobody’s fault but your
own.

When I got a chance to figure out our
numbers, I would have a clearer picture of what was happening
between us, and exactly how much I could count on us being a good
match. Which reminded me…

“
Wait! What’s your middle
name?” I called after him, not caring how weird the question
probably sounded.

He stopped with the car door half opened and
turned to me with a bemused expression. “David. Why?”

“
Designing our wedding
invitations,” I said, laughing.

He grinned and slid into the driver’s seat.
“You’re a frightening woman.”

I went inside and waited behind the door
until I heard his car start and drive away.

“
What the fuck was that?”
Rosa demanded when I came upstairs.

I shrugged. “That was Ian.”

“
Yeah, and that was Ian’s
throat you had your tongue down on your second date.” She went to
the kitchen, pausing in her scolding as she went about the loud,
rattly business of filling the teakettle and setting it on the
stove.

When the tea came out, I knew it was therapy
time.

“
It’s not that big a deal.”
It was a big deal, though. I’d been on two dates with Ian, and I
was already falling for him. That was something I never let myself
do. “Ugh, you’re right. This isn’t me. I’m careful—”

“
Some would say
over-cautious,” Rosa interrupted.

I gave her a what-the-hell face. “Is this the
conversation where you’re telling me to slow down or speed up?
Because—”

“
I’m just worried that this
guy is a rebound for you.” She gave me a pitying grimace. “And I’m
worried that because he’s a rebound, things are going to get too
intense, too fast. When that happens… Are you going to be okay,
honey?”

“
First of all, things
are
too intense, too fast.
And yeah, that’s on my mind. But this doesn’t feel like a rebound.
It feels like…destiny.” Okay, even
I
thought that sounded overly syrupy.

“
Please don’t get mad at me,
but I have to ask. This guy is…middle-aged,” she began, and I knew
“old” had formed in her brain first. “What kind of future are you
imagining here? A year or two of hanging out and fooling around?
Something more permanent?”

“
We’ve both got basically
the same five-year plan.” Why did I feel so defensive? “He wants to
have kids within the next couple of years—”

“
Whoa, whoa!” Rosa shook her
head in emphatic denial. “You did not talk about kids
already.”

“
We did, but it was under a
totally benign set of circumstances. He got all this really bad
dating advice from the internet, so we did the opposite, just to
get it out of the way.” That was reasonable, wasn’t it? “And Rosa,
he’s so nice. He doesn’t correct me constantly or cringe like I’m
embarrassing him. Even when I did sort of embarrass him
today.”

I wished I hadn’t snapped at those women in
the park. At least, I wished I hadn’t let their babies take
collateral damage.

“
And all of that is nice and
sweet, but your five-year plan? At the end of that, you’re going to
be twenty-eight. And he’s going to be almost sixty.” Her words were
an ice-cold bucket of reality splashing in my face.

My heart sank. “I know. But I can’t help it.
I really like this guy, Rosa.”

She nodded in sympathy. “And there are a lot
of other guys out there. Guys you can spend the rest of your life
with, instead of the rest of their lives. Somebody you can grow old
with—”

“
Instead of them growing old
without me, I get it.” When she laid it out like that, it sounded a
lot less exciting, and lot more bleak.

But I wanted him. I wanted to talk to him and
have breakfast with him and learn what television shows he liked. I
wanted to hear him call me “Doll” in a sleepy voice and hate the
same grocery store cashier as me. I wanted to pick out paint
samples and watch him clean gutters; not on a clock tower,
obviously, but that wasn’t the point. I just wanted, and wanting
sucks.

“
I’ll run the numbers, see
what they have to say,” I said weakly.

“
Mmhm.” She went to the
stove and groaned. “It would have helped if I’d turned the damn
burner on.”

I laughed, but she brought me back to serious
town with a pointed look. “Numerology? Astrology? Those things are
probably not what you need to make a decision this big. I know, you
live by them. But maybe it’s time to just sit down and make a cold,
logical decision.”

My gaze flicked to her phone on counter. The
lock screen said it was one-thirty.

Trying not to freak out about the fact that
Ian and I had spent almost twelve hours together, I raised an
eyebrow at Rosa and turned our conversation sharply around. “So.
Who were you out with tonight?”

She folded her arms over her chest, her
change of demeanor suspiciously quick. “Of course, you know that,
as your friend, I support you in all of your choices.”

Now it was my turn to make an incredulous
noise. “You were with Amanda.”

She turned around and got down teacups,
though the water couldn’t possibly have boiled yet.

“
You’re lecturing me about
bad relationship choices, and you were out with your ex?” My eyes
widened. “You did woo-hoo.”

“
You have got to stop
playing
The Sims
,”
she said wryly, as if she could change the subject so
easily.

“
Are you getting back
together? Is it revenge sex? What’s happening?” I loved gossip,
especially if I was the one discovering it. Not that I ever
gossiped about Rosa. If I did, she would hold a pillow over my head
in my sleep. It was an agreed upon term of our
friendship.

“
Don’t you have some bones
to cast?” she asked, and I knew I wasn’t going to get any juicy
love life details out of her tonight. I’d have to wait about a
week, until they were hot and heavy again. Rosa and Amanda were
like some wonderful soap opera; they got together and broke up more
than Victor and Nikki on
The Young and The
Restless
.

I sighed. “Yeah. I’m going to go put his
numbers in. See what comes up.”

“
Good luck. I’ll let you
know when the water boils,” she promised.

My tiny bedroom was just as I’d left it,
perfectly rumpled like a comfortable nest. I slid my laptop out
from beneath the bed and opened it, then pulled up the bookmarked
numerology site I swore by. At the prompt, I entered, “Ian David
Pratchett,” and his birthday, after a little quick math to deduce
the year. Then I plugged in my details and clicked the “calculate”
button.

His number came up first. It was a
twenty-two. I already knew I was an eight. I watched as the rest of
the page loaded, trying to remember the few basic rules I’d learned
from the numerology book collecting dust on my nightstand.

“
Lifepath numbers twenty-two
and eight are naturally compatible lovers, especially when working
toward a shared goal.” I murmured as I read aloud. “Mutual respect
and spiritual harmony can flourish quickly and form lasting bonds.
Eight should be mindful of twenty-two’s cautious nature, while
twenty-two must learn to compromise. If both partners are willing
to work together, this couple may expect to spend many happy years
together.”

It didn’t get much more positive than
that.

I’d tucked Ian’s drawing into my purse,
folding it over carefully, though I’d hated to crease it even once.
I opened it and smoothed it out gently on my bed. The drawing
wasn’t sweet just because he’d made me look pretty, but because
he’d picked up on emotions that I’d thought only I could see. He’d
seen my hope and my fear of rejection, and he’d drawn it in my eyes
as plainly as if he’d taken a photograph of my loneliness.

But maybe Rosa was right. She was certainly
more objective than I was. And it was true; if things moved at the
pace I wanted them to move at, Ian would still be in his
mid-fifties before we even started seriously thinking about a
family.

In desperation, I opened my nightstand drawer
and dug through it, knocking my vibrator aside to find the smooth
plastic shell of the magic eight ball in the back of the drawer. I
pulled it out and flopped back on my bed, shaking it.

“
Okay. Do I keep seeing
Ian?” That was the question, whether I wanted to admit it or
not.

I turned the black globe
over, and the die inside floated to the window.
REPLY HAZY TRY AGAIN.