First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) (19 page)

“
More like charity work,” I
snorted.

“
Then, I’ll consider myself
a philanthropist, because I’m keenly devoted to the cause.” He sat
beside me, again, and put his arm around my shoulders. But this
time, he held me a little closer than before. The easy intimacy of
the gesture warmed me from the inside out, and I stifled a giddy
laugh.

I pulled my feet up on the couch and lay back
in the crook of his arm. “Thank you.”

“
You’re more than
welcome.”

“
No, I mean, thank you. For
not pushing for more.” A rush of emotion overwhelmed me. I knew my
voice was going to shake, and I didn’t care. “It’s really nice to
be treated like a person and not a challenge.”

He hugged me tight with the arm that lay over
my chest. “Penny, I really don’t care if you sleep with me. I hope
we see each other long enough that we do, but if it never happens,
I won’t feel like you’ve deprived me of anything. Being with you
has been the best part of the past few weeks.”

I frowned at how much his statement managed
to echo feelings I hadn’t thought to examine.

I took his hand in mine. “You know…you’ve
been the best part for me, too.”

* * * *

The high I’d
gotten from my date with Ian was still going strong on Sunday
morning. Rosa was tired of hearing the details—the octopus details,
not the sexy details—which I think influenced her decision to
reschedule our planned Sunday Marvel marathon. We’d been slowly
working through all the movies in order, because both of us were
woefully behind the trend. She swore she wasn’t going to spend the
time with Amanda, but I knew she was a liar. And truthfully, I
didn’t really mind having the day to myself. I felt more positive
and upbeat than I had since Brad and I had broken up, and I was
ready to run.

I’ve always wanted to run the Battery Park
esplanade, so I threw on my gear and headed out. My plan was to go
across town to the Irish Hunger Memorial, then along the river,
through Battery Park, and back home. I mentally added it up to
about eight miles, but it might have been less.

I started out just before sunset, and the
heat was a little more than I had anticipated, but it felt good to
get out in the sun and soak up some much needed vitamin D. Also, to
have time to just be without thought. My head had been buzzing
lately, and so much of it was about Ian. Taking a break from those
thoughts was probably the healthiest thing I could do, in terms of
keeping a level head about our relationship. I mean, we hadn’t
committed to exclusivity, even. We’d just said we weren’t
interested in seeing anyone else. Did that mean for a long time? Or
just for now? I needed to get all of those questions out of my head
for a little bit.

My brain was fairly empty,
my ears full of Kanye’s “Stronger,” a staple on my running playlist
for the past year, when I spotted… Oh god.
Oh no
. Walking along beside a tall,
willowy brunette, was Brad. And he was pushing a
stroller.

I thought about veering off my route and
avoiding him. But something mean inside me, some masochistic part
of me, forced me to make eye contact with him. I slowed down some
and, popping out my headphones, said, “Hi, Brad.”

He looked startled and guilty, and it took me
a moment to realize why. My gaze flitted from the baby in the
stroller to the fucking enormous ring on the woman’s finger.

“
Hey, Penny.” He tried to
smile at me, but it looked as unpleasant and forced as I knew it
was for him.

My heart pounded even harder than usual on a
run. I thought it might actually burst and kill me. And death by
ex-boyfriend was not the way I wanted to go.

“
Danielle, this is Penny.
Penny, this is my fiancée, Danielle.”

Danielle
. I knew that name. He’d mentioned her in passing every now
and then, when she’d texted him about work, or when he’d gone out
with a group of office friends.
“About
work?” How could you be so stupid, Penny?

“
Penny and I…used to date,”
Brad said, and he looked at me with such a pleading expression I
was sorely tempted to ask her if she knew we’d both been dating him
at the same time.

But Danielle’s face showed no trace of
jealousy or triumph or pity. She smiled wide with perfect, white
teeth and put her hand out. “Hi, Penny, it’s nice to meet you.”

“
Wow, fiancée,” I repeated,
hoping my smile didn’t look as fake as his did. “And you have a
baby.”

“
Yeah.” She looked at Brad
the way I used to look at him, love and adoration forged under the
heat of his awe-inspiring charisma. And who could blame her? He was
the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome, and he could swing from
brooding and romantic to open-hearted and vulnerable with every
change of his partner’s mood.

And it was all fake. There wasn’t anything
deep or honest about him. He’d drawn me in the same way he’d
obviously drawn Danielle in, and we’d both fallen for it.

I wanted to vomit on his shoes.

I realized that over the sound of the buzzing
in my ears, Danielle was still talking. “—even though she was a
surprise.”

“
Aren’t surprises just…the
best?” I asked, feeling a knot of tears welling in my throat. “How
old is she?”

“
Four months,” Danielle
answered, with all the pride of a new mother.

Meanwhile, I was frantically counting
backward. Brad and I had broken up in late May. He’d waited. My
god, he’d strung us both along, right up until she was ready to
give birth? Or maybe even after?

How could he have done this
to me? To either of us, really? I wanted to hate her, but I
couldn’t believe she had any idea. She seemed very nice and
enthusiastic to share the details of her romance with
my
boyfriend.

But he wasn’t my boyfriend, anymore. And he
apparently hadn’t been, for god only knew how long.

“
Well, congratulations, to
both of you.” I gestured to my Fitbit. “I don’t want to be rude,
but I’m trying to keep my heart rate up. Training, you
know?”

“
Of course,” Brad said, as
eager to get away from me as I was to get away from him and his
perfect new life with his perfect new fiancée who wasn’t me and his
perfect baby that wasn’t ours. “It was nice to see you,
Penny.”

I gritted my teeth and replied, “You, too.
And it was nice to meet you, Danielle.”

I managed to keep running until they were out
of sight. Then I doubled over, gasping. I stumbled like a zombie to
the nearest train and headed back to my apartment, on the verge of
tears the entire time. I hated crying in public. I refused to do
it.

By the time I got to the apartment, though, I
no longer felt the urge to weep. I was angry. Really angry. But I
was numb, too. Numb was the worst thing to be. I showered,
replaying every moment of the regrettable meeting in my head. I
imagined angrily confronting him, right there in front of his new
family. Telling Danielle everything and watching his whole life
hopefully crumble. But that would hurt Danielle and whatever the
hell the baby was called. I hadn’t caught the name. Brad might hurt
them, but he might not. Maybe fatherhood would change his spots.
But it wasn’t my place to destroy another woman’s life, just
because my ex had acted shitty to me.

I also thought about calling him and
screaming at him over the phone. Or going to his work and
physically assaulting him. Obviously, I wouldn’t act on that. I was
embarrassed that I actually thought of it. And I considered, for a
brief, wild moment, begging him to take me back. But I didn’t want
him back. I just wanted to win. Or something. My brain was
overwhelmed by a rush of emotion I couldn’t control.

And I felt guilty. So, so guilty. Because I
had moved on, or I thought I had. I loved Ian, and even though it
was a new, fragile love, I felt like a traitor for even considering
I might still have feelings for Brad. Or that I would want that
snake over a guy who had treated me better in four dates than Brad
was ever capable of treating me.

When I got out of the shower, my phone was
blinking. I wrapped my towel around myself and reached out with a
shaking hand. It was a text from Brad. Had he sent it while he was
still out bonding with his fiancée and baby? The thought made my
skin crawl with disgust.

Thank you for your discretion at the park
today. I never meant for you to find out this way.

Bullshit. He had never meant for me to find
out.

How long was this going
on?
I texted back.
You owe me an answer.

It took a minute, a full minute of me staring
at the screen before I gave up and moved to drop it. But the
familiar chime rang out, and like Pandora opening her stupid box, I
looked at his response.

Since last July. I’m sorry, Penny. But you
kind of brought this on yourself. You couldn’t really expect me to
go on for years waiting for you.

Waiting for me. Waiting for
me to sleep with him. It was somehow
my
fault he hadn’t been able to stick
to the terms of our relationship, or end things with me before
picking up another woman and dating her for almost a year before
breaking things off with me.

There were so many things I
wanted to say, so many names I wanted to call him, but that would
only make him feel smug and right. So I shot back,
Lose my number.
And then,
I erased him from my contacts altogether.

I sat on the edge of my bed, my hands
shaking. I needed to talk to someone. I needed to not be alone in
the apartment, where I was dangerously close to snapping and
breaking everything that could be broken.

This is
stupid
, I warned myself as I
dressed.
You’re being stupid, and you’re
probably going to ruin everything.
I tried
to pretend I didn’t know my own intentions as I locked the
apartment door behind me. But my heart knew better, and it overrode
my brain to direct my feet to the subway, to the familiar route I
rode every day. I got off a stop early and kept my head down as I
walked, ignoring my usual instinct to stay wary of my surroundings,
especially at twilight. I reached Ian’s door and pushed the buzzer.
There was no answer.

I’d come all this way for nothing. It was
clearly a sign that I shouldn’t have come at all.

“
Penny?”

I turned at Ian’s voice. He didn’t sound
angry, but pleasantly confused. Then he saw my face, and I realized
how I must look, standing there with stringy, half-dry hair and no
makeup, shivering because I’d worn a tank top and shorts and the
night was unusually cool.

I was so embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I should
have called—”

“
Are you all right?” He was
still dressed for church, but he carried his tie and his jacket in
one hand. With the other, he reached out and cupped my jaw, looking
down with such tender concern that I couldn’t hold back my tears
anymore.

“
I saw… I ran into my
ex-boyfriend at the park, and—” It was too difficult to keep
talking through the sobs that wracked my shoulders and back, but I
managed to sputter out, “With his fiancée and his baby.”

“
Come here.” It wasn’t a
suggestion, but an order, and one I gladly obeyed. Ian pulled me
into his arms and held me tight, as if he could squeeze all the
pain out of me. The sound of his breath against the top of my head
eased my heart. “Let’s get you inside.”

Chapter Ten

The only thing I could
think of to say as Ian led me to his apartment was, “I’m sorry.” I
didn’t know what I was sorry for. For showing up uninvited? For
bringing my past boyfriend problems to my new boyfriend’s door? For
ever dating Brad in the first place?

I was sorry for it all, but the last one
especially. My heart was in my stomach, and my stomach was ready to
expel it onto the floor. I let Ian walk me from the elevator to his
couch. I was shivering, and he took it to mean I was chilled. “What
you need are some warm clothes and a stiff drink.”

Was I cold? I was definitely numb. He draped
the throw from the back of the couch around my shoulders. “Stay
here, I’ll be back.”

I pulled the blanket tight around me. The air
conditioning in the building was an arctic assault that made me
long for the humidity outside. My hair felt like it would never get
dry. I should have been embarrassed to be seen like this by Ian,
but I didn’t care about anything.

That scared me. I’d thought I was over Brad,
or as over him as I could get after a few months. I hadn’t reacted
this badly when we’d broken up. I’d done the days of crying thing,
then I’d flown to Las Vegas with Deja and Sophie and Holli on an
amazing private jet and partied until I couldn’t see straight.
Maybe that trip, and the feeling that I’d left my cares in the
desert, had tricked me into believing I was all better, when I
wasn’t.

So what was I doing here, with Ian, if I
wasn’t over my ex? I liked Ian so, so much. I loved him, the new
and exciting kind of love, not the kind that destroyed your entire
life when you found out the person you loved had basically had a
secret family for the last third of your relationship. Now that I’d
found out so much of my time with Brad had been a lie, I had to
start getting over him, all over again. Did that make the way I
felt about Ian a lie, too?

The thought made me even more furious with
Brad. It was one thing to dump me, another thing entirely to lie
about having some kind of weird double life while he was dating me.
But now his actions and my responses to them made me doubt the one
really good thing I had going at the moment.