First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) (11 page)

I dropped it to the bed beside me. “No shit,
Magic Eight Ball.”

* * * *

My phone rang at four. I
knew there was a strong possibility it would be Ian, but my heart
skipped a little when I pulled my phone out of my hoodie pocket and
saw his name on the screen. Not wanting to sit up to turn off the
television, I waved my arm futilely across the coffee table until I
knocked the remote down. Scrabbling for it one-handed, I answered
with “Is it too early to give you your own ringtone?” in lieu of a
“hello”.

There was a brief pause. “Were we having a
conversation I don’t remember being in the middle of?”

“
Seriously?” Did he not
realize he did the exact same thing on every call? I hit the mute
button on the remote and snuggled back down into the couch. “You do
that to me all the time.”

“
Me? No, I don’t.” He
sounded truly perplexed. “My sister has a habit of doing that, but
I don’t think I do.”

He was such a dork I had to laugh at him.
“Trust me, you do. I can’t believe no one has ever mentioned
it.”

“
They probably thought it
was cool and charming. You just don’t appreciate it.” Something in
his tone changed, and it threw those first few sentences into an
odd light. It seemed like he’d relaxed, though I hadn’t noticed any
tension to begin with.

“
Hey, are you okay? You
sounded kind of…different,” I said, for lack of a better
word.

He sighed a tired, rough sound. “It’s been a
hell of a day already. And it’s really good to hear your
voice.”

Something in my chest squeezed up in that
weird feeling that’s almost totally emotion and not a physical
reaction. “It’s good to hear yours, too.” I paused. “What are you
doing right now?”

“
Driving home,” he said,
that weariness creeping back into his voice. “Where I will probably
drink a few beers and nap on the sofa.”

It wouldn’t have sounded so
lonely if
he
hadn’t
sounded so lonely. Even though I’d planned to spend my afternoon
much in the same way—I’d been putting off peeing because the couch
was so comfy—now, all I wanted was to cheer him up. I looked down
at my scrubby clothes. At least I’d taken a shower after my run.
Twisting the end of the string from my hood between two fingers, I
asked, “Hey. Do you have a pair of swim trunks?”

“
I do… Why?” His suspicion
made me giggle.

“
Go home, get them, and meet
me at my place. We’re going to have an adventure.” I sat up and
brushed the crumbs from my lunch off my shirt.

“
And this adventure entails
water?”

I smiled to myself. “Yes. It entails water.
And taking your shirt off in front of me, so no talking about ‘gory
wrecks’. Because I looked at your Facebook pictures. You look
fine.”

“
I’m still not thrilled at
the prospect of my own partial nudity. However, I assume there will
be partial nudity on your part, so you have my attention,” he said
with a chuckle, and those words did all sorts of things to
me.

“
Just get here,” I said,
putting on more confidence than I actually felt. “Trust me, this is
going to be perfect.”

After we hung up, I went to my bedroom and
rumpled all the clothing in my drawers looking for my swimsuit. It
was a red gingham print bikini, with thin, tie-up straps at the
shoulders and hips. I’d bought it because it was super cute and
sexy, and because Brad had told me I dressed like a little girl.
Now, I kind of wished I’d kept my vintage one-piece with the wide
halter straps and the low-cut legs. It was easy enough to tell Ian
to not worry about how he looked, but every little freckle and scar
on my body seemed to be magnified by a thousand at the thought of
him seeing them. From a logical standpoint, I knew genetics and
exercise had given me the kind of shape that got a woman into a
men’s magazines, but they were airbrushed and pushed up and had
tons of makeup on. I couldn’t exactly wear a smoky eye look to the
pool.

But I assumed Ian wasn’t
going to be disappointed when I didn’t walk out of the locker room
looking like a
Maxim
cover model. “Stop being so hard on yourself, Penny,” I
scolded myself, and stuffed my suit into my purse. Then I changed
into pink denim shorts that were just a little too short and a
white tank top. If I was going to be in my bathing suit later
anyway, might as well put on my hot-girl, hot-weather clothes. That
would give me the boost of confidence I so desperately needed, at
the moment. I pulled my hair up, put on some waterproof mascara,
and waited. About an hour after his call, the buzzer
rang.

I hit the button and said, “On my way down,”
because the apartment was way too trashed to let him come up. As I
hopped out the door, I slid my sunglasses on so I wouldn’t be all
squinty and scrunch-faced in the sunlight.

Ian leaned against his car, wearing navy suit
trousers and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled back and
collar undone.

Sunday. Right.
I couldn’t imagine how distracting he must be in
church to anyone who was attracted to men. Or maybe I was biased,
because every time I saw him, he seemed a little hotter.

His gaze flicked down to my legs, then
guiltily back up. There was that confidence boost I’d been looking
for. He cleared his throat. “So, where is this adventure that
requires swim trunks taking us?”

I smiled sweetly and pushed up my sunglass to
bat my eyelashes at him. “To trespass.”

Chapter Seven

I have snuck
into the pool at the One UN hotel somewhere around a hundred times.
It has a beautiful panoramic view and a canopied ceiling. It was
like swimming in an event tent. Not as glamorous as some of the
rooftop pools in the city, but there was never an attendant on
duty, and in all the times I’d been there, I’d only seen three
guests.

We parked on the street. As we walked toward
the building, I reiterated the plan we’d gone over in the car.
“Walk through the lobby like we’re supposed to be there. We’re
going to go up to the fitness center. We’ll split up at the locker
rooms, but from there, you can go right to the pool, no
hassles.”

“
You’ve robbed a bank
before, haven’t you?” he asked, casting a worried glance up at the
edifice of the building.

“
It’s going to be fine. I do
this all the time. I like to break rules if they’re ones I know I
can’t get into actual trouble for.” That was true. I would never
jump a turnstile or shoplift anything, but I frequently took food
and drink into stores with posted signs, just for the thrill I got
if no one asked me to throw it out. “My teenage rebellion was
really boring.”

The air-conditioned lobby cooled the sweat on
my neck and cleavage, sweat I hoped Ian wouldn’t notice. Luckily,
the pool water would wash it off.

The first time I’d visited One UN, the lobby
had nearly caused me to run out again. There were so many mirrors
and contrasting patterns, it was like a full-on assault on my taste
in furnishings. But the more often I came here, the more it grew on
me.

“
This place is what the
Epcot designers probably imagined the future would look like back
in the 1970’s,” Ian mumbled under his breath, and I
laughed.

“
If you come here often
enough, you’ll grow fond of it.” I led him down the mirrored,
vertigo-inducing hallway, to the east tower elevators.

“
How often do you come here,
exactly?” he asked cautiously.

“
Oh, maybe twice a month,” I
said as I hit the button. “Nobody has ever said anything about it
before. I don’t know if there are just so many people coming
through that they don’t recognize me—”

“
They, uh…” He cleared his
throat. “They might recognize you. They might just think
you’re
visiting guests
.”

It took me a moment to understand what he
meant by his inflection. When I did, I laughed. “Oh my gosh, you’re
probably right. Well, there are definitely worse misconceptions
that have been made about me in my life than mixing up what job I
have.”

“
That’s true.”

We got on the elevator, my mind suddenly
blank of any conversational topics.

“
What sort of
misunderstandings would you say you’ve run into about yourself?” he
asked, saving us from awkward silence purgatory.

The biggest ones all had to do with sex, or
my lack of having it. I hated to keep bringing up the virgin thing.
There always came a moment, be it in a friendship or a dating
situation, when I felt that my virginity started to define me.

“
Well, a lot of people
assume I’m a total prude when they find out that I’m a virgin. And
a few guys have called me a bitch when they realized I wasn’t going
to sleep with them.”

“
They called you a bitch
because you wouldn’t sleep with them? That’s fucking terrible.” He
sounded more offended by it than I’d ever been. Probably because
men didn’t realize how often women heard that name hurled at
them.

“
It might sound shocking to
you, but trust me, every woman on this planet has been called a
bitch enough that it doesn’t shock us anymore.”

The elevator doors opened onto the
twenty-seventh floor, and we stepped out. Ian let me lead the way.
“What about you? What are some misconceptions about you?”

“
There are some people in my
life who think I’m a bit of a playboy. I think I may have earned
it.” He said it like it was the most horrible thing someone could
think of him, and that didn’t seem fair. Men were expected to
embody that Heffner-esque mystique of the revolving bedroom
door.

“
Now I’m imagining you in a
smoking jacket, surrounded by young, hot blonds,” I joked with a
sly glance. At least, I hoped it was sly, and not just like I had
something in my eye.

It must have worked, because he winked at me
and said, “Half-true.”

Someday, I would learn to take a compliment
without my whole head turning the color of a cooked lobster.

As always, nobody was on guard outside the
locker rooms. Rosa said that she’d come here once, and a man had
asked for her room key, but she’d just pretended she’d dropped it
and made a big deal about having to go all the way back down to the
front desk. I think after that she’d gone to the Mondrian and snuck
in there. I’d never managed to get into that one.

When you’re early-adulthood-poor in New York,
you have to make your own fun.

I pointed to the locker rooms. “Here. You go
in there, I’ll go in there, and we’ll meet on the other side.”

There was a baby changing
table in the largest bathroom stall, so I stuffed my purse,
clothes, and shoes in it after I’d slipped on my bikini. I stood in
front of the mirror and adjusted my straps, and checked out the
rearview to make sure the bottoms weren’t saggy.
You’ve got to start working your lower abs
again,
the snotty, critical voice in my
head that sounded a lot like my mother said, but I resolutely shook
that voice away. I looked fine. Better than fine. I looked
amazing.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it
when men paid attention to my appearance. I’ve been called a tease
more times than I could remember, and it used to bother me. Then I
grew out of being embarrassed or apologetic for looking good. If a
guy could appreciate a car without driving it, he could do the same
with me. I took my hair down, because ponytail holders on wet hair
are a major no-no. I tried to shake it out to disguise the dent
left behind. I would just have to get wet right away to get rid of
it.

I grabbed a towel from the stack provided at
the pool entrance and strolled out. The flooring had a super weird
texture that always took me by surprise. When I looked up from my
feet, I saw Ian standing in the water.

“
You got in already?” I
asked.
No, he materialized there.
I could be so dense, sometimes.

He turned around, and there was no mistaking
the fact he was checking me out. It was refreshing he didn’t try to
hide it. Men usually tried to hide it, and it was always
obvious.

His gaze drifted over me from my toes up
before he said, “Stop showing off.”

How could one person be so dorky but so
smooth at the same time? I looked down to hide the goofy smile I
couldn’t rein in and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Sorry. Somebody
has to be the prettiest girl in the room, though.”

He looked around. We were totally alone.
“Let’s go for prettiest in this hotel. Or the city. That would also
do.”

Yeah, right. “Beyoncé lives in this city. But
I appreciate the endorsement.”

There were steps into the pool, but Ian was
by the ladder, so I used that instead, trying hard not to slip and
fall like an idiot as I eased myself down backwards. The water was
warm enough I didn’t do anything super uncool like shriek or tiptoe
once my feet touched down. “Isn’t this nice, though?” I asked,
sinking down to cover my shoulders with water. It felt uneven to be
half-in, half-out. “It’s not crowded like those pools you have to
pay for.”

“
And much less Axe body
spray, I’m sure.”

I dunked my head under. If I
were alone, I would reemerge like Ariel breaking the surface
in
The Little Mermaid
. That seemed just slightly dramatic, so I came up and pushed
my hair back like a normal person. Ian was still just standing
there. A sudden realization occurred to me. “Can you
swim?”