First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) (24 page)

“
Food’s here!” Rosa called
from the other room.

“
Wait right here,” I told
him, adding, “The remote is on my nightstand.”

After I paid the delivery guy, I grabbed a
plate and threw some pizza and breadsticks on it for Rosa. I handed
it to her as I passed through the living room, and she beamed up at
me. “Have fun.”

“
Nothing’s going to happen,”
I sing-songed back in a low voice.

Ian waited for me on my bed, propped up on
the headboard with the remote in his hand. He looked…guilty.
Because I had paid for dinner? That was so stupid but also pretty
nice, considering the way some of my ex-boyfriends had
nickel-and-dimed me. I held up the stack of boxes. “I kind of
over-ordered. Owing to my condition.”

He sat up and reached for the food while I
knelt on the bed beside him. “Are you sure you want to eat in here?
Where we’re going to get pizza sauce all over your bedding?”

I frowned. “I don’t know
how
you
eat pizza,
but I try not to turn into a yard sprinkler of tomato sauce when I
do it. Besides, you’ve had roommates before. You know how important
space is.”

“
That’s true. It was fairly
awkward when I wanted to bring a girl back to my sleeping
bag.”

I sat beside him cross-legged while we ate.
And I did not hold back to be ladylike. When I was on my period,
people were lucky they didn’t lose body parts while I ate. I let
him do most of the talking, nodding and saying, “Uh-huh” a lot
while he told me about his day. He asked me about mine, but “I
forgot my menstrual cup and had to stuff toilet paper into my
panties while I wandered pathetically around the office begging for
tampons” wasn’t exactly the story I wanted to share, so I said,
“Nothing out of the ordinary really happened. Your job seems a lot
more exciting than mine.”

“
Or less frustrating,
depending on how you look at it. I’m dreading going in tomorrow.”
He sounded so tired I felt guilty that he’d hauled his ass all the
way out here to sleep in my lumpy bed and eat pizza with
me.

I wiped my hands on a napkin, then laid my
palm over his knee. “Well, thank you for coming over here, even
though you’re having a bad week. I’ve been feeling progressively
better since I got off the phone with you.”

“
Happy to help.” He cleared
his throat. “Since we’re on the subject of work, there is something
I need to discuss with you.”

“
Oh?” I reached for a third
breadstick. I was going to have to run thirteen miles on Sunday,
but at the moment, the carbs were worth it.

“
There’s a chance I may have
to go away on business for…a while. A temporary
relocation.”

My heart plunged.

“
Nothing permanent. And it’s
not final, by any means.” He must have seen the shock and
disappointment in my expression, because his brow crumpled in
concern. “It wouldn’t be until next summer. But I thought I should
let you know the possibility exists.”

That calmed me down a little, and I took a
bite. Next summer was months away. Although at that point, would he
expect me to go with him? I mumbled around a mouthful of garlicky
amazingness, “Where would you be going?”

“
Nassau. The Bahamas,” he
clarified. “To work on a resort.”

“
Oh, wow!” Having a
boyfriend in a tropical location wasn’t exactly the worst thing
anyone had ever faced, for sure. There would be all sorts of
snorkeling and scuba opportunities. Swimming with sharks, petting
stingrays… That was the least objectionable place to have a
long-distance boyfriend. “Would I be able to come
visit?”

“
I hope you would,” he
sputtered. “After I came all this way tonight.”

I chewed my lip. “Okay. Well, since we’re
bringing up unpleasant subjects… My parents are coming to town next
week.”

“
And that’s unpleasant?” he
asked.

I didn’t want to get into all the details, at
the moment. Rosa was right, it would be a good test, and I didn’t
want to influence the outcome. “No, but having to ask you this kind
of is. They want to meet you.”

“
They know about me?” He
seemed pleased by this, which was a hundred times better than
freaking out at being asked to meet my parents after a few weeks of
dating.

“
Yeah. I mentioned I was
seeing someone, and my mom thought this visit would be a good
time.” I shrugged. “We don’t get together often, so I think she
wants to check you out before things get serious.”

“
Are things not?” he asked,
and suddenly everything
was
.

“
That’s not what I meant.” I
caught my bottom lip between my teeth. “I mean, I didn’t want to
presume—”

“
Neither did I. But I’m
quite serious about you, Penny.” He reached out to touch my face,
and the tender gesture made my chest tight, until I realized he was
wiping a smear of marinara off my cheek.

“
Oh my gosh, way to ruin the
moment with my sloppy eating.” I laughed. “Well, I’m serious about
you, too. Seriously serious.”

“
Good.” He looked at me for
a long time, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But I knew
it was good, from the small smile that flirted with his mouth.
Finally, he looked down, as if breaking himself from a spell, and
said, “Of course I’ll meet your parents. Just tell me where to be,
and when.”

“
I will.” I reached over and
took his hand, squeezing it. “Thank you.”

“
For?”

“
Giving me a chance.” I
looked around my room, still feeling self-conscious about the way I
lived. “We don’t have much in common. We’re in such different
places, life-wise.”

“
You’re thanking
me
?” He shook his head.
“If you remember correctly, Doll, I was the one who fucked up badly
on our first date. And I’m a hundred and thirty years old. So,
thank you for giving
me
a chance.”

When we finished eating, we got around to
turning on the television, and I snuggled down beside him as he
stretched out.

“
You do the clicking.” My
full belly made me sleepy; all I wanted to do was lay my head on
him and close my eyes. So I did. But they came open again when a
thought popped into my head. “You don’t have a TV, do
you?”

“
Of course I do.” He almost
sounded offended at the suggestion that he wouldn’t.

“
I didn’t see one in your
apartment,” I countered.

“
That’s because it’s very
ingeniously hidden away until I need it.” He frowned as he
hesitated briefly on what looked like a gardening show then clicked
past it.

I half sat up, demanding, “Well, where is
it?”

“
You know where the couch
is? The window in front of it? The television slides up from the
floor.” He never took his eyes from the screen, and somehow that
made him super hot.

I was way too into him if I found being
ignored in favor of the television sexy.

“
Oh, it does not!” I
insisted. “That’s like
The Jetsons
or something.”

“
You’re twenty-two, what do
you know about
The
Jetsons
?” he challenged. Then, he went on,
“Remind me the next time you’re over, I’ll show you.”

“
Fine. But I won’t believe
you until you do.” I wriggled down closer beside him. My uterus was
still trying to destroy me. “Hey, could you reach under the bed?
I’ve got a heating pad under there.”

He leaned over the edge and felt around a
moment then said, “Aha,” and came back up with it. He watched me as
I rolled over and plugged it into the outlet. “Do you need any
help?”

“
No, I’m young, but I’m
allowed to plug things in all by myself,” I said, wrapping the
heating pad low around my waist. It started heating up, and I
groaned in anticipation of the relief to come.

“
That bad, is it?” he asked
with genuine concern, and not one iota of disgust.

“
Yeah.” I’d heard from some
women that their cramps were as bad as contractions during labor. I
wouldn’t know about that, but I hoped it was the case. Otherwise,
labor was going to really suck. “Thank you for not saying, ‘it’s
not that bad.’”

“
What idiot would say
something like that?” he asked in a tone of horror.

I leaned up and gave him The Look.
“Everyone.”

“
I would never say that.
Mostly because I don’t know what it feels like, but also because I
don’t feel like having a woman rip a handful of my intestines out
in retaliation.” He put his arm around my shoulder.

When I laid my head on his chest, he squeezed
me close. “You’re the only woman I would eat pizza in bed with.
Just so you know.”

“
You’re the only man I
wouldn’t hide my period from,” I mumbled with a yawn.

A laugh rumbled in his chest. “Forgive me for
saying so, but I do think you’re getting the more pleasant
bargain.”

I drifted to sleep to the sound of the
television and the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my
ear. If being serious meant more nights like this, then I was as
serious as a final exam I hadn’t studied for.

Chapter Twelve

“
I can’t
believe you did that,” Rosa said, for the thousandth, self-esteem
destroying time.

I combed my fingers through my hair. The half
of it that was left.

My parents coming to the city made me lose it
every single time. My octopus tattoo? Christmas, 2014. In February,
when they’d made an unscheduled drop-in for a charity function, I’d
seriously flirted with a nose ring, until Sophie had talked me out
of it.

“
It looks really good,
though,” Rosa reassured me, walking in a half-circle around me. She
could barely get past me in the tiny bathroom. “I just can’t
believe you did it. For a while I thought you were a part of a
religious cult that wouldn’t let you cut your hair.”

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the
sight of my shaggy, chin-length bob. But it haunted me.

“
Of all the stupid things
I’ve done, this might be the worst.” It was a cute haircut, and it
looked fantastic on me. But that wasn’t the issue. The issue was
the withering conversation it was going to cause at dinner tonight.
“I don’t know why I do this, every time. It’s like I’m baiting them
for negative attention.”

“
That’s exactly what you’re
doing,” Rosa agreed. “But I wouldn’t consider this a negative. It’s
a great look on you. Besides, do they really think they can control
what you do with your hair?”

I arched a brow at her in the mirror.

“
Well, on the bright side,
Ian will probably think it’s hot.”

“
Yeah.” I smiled to myself
and reached for my eyelash curler. I had a half-hour to get ready
before I had to leave for the restaurant. Though I was dreading
seeing my parents, I couldn’t wait to see Ian. I also didn’t want
those two worlds to collide. All of those conflicting emotions, and
my hair had paid the ultimate price.

“
So, do they know you’re
dating Gandalf yet?” Rosa asked, leaning against the wall with her
elbow on the towel bar.

I made and impatient noise as I released my
eyelashes from the curler’s grasp. “Okay, again, not Gandalf. Not
Methuselah. Not Dumbledore.”

“
Sorry.” She held up a hand
like I was the one being unreasonable.

I reached for my mascara. Working at a
fashion magazine, I got all kinds of awesome makeup free from the
beauty editor. I was addicted to Urban Decay. “I’m meeting them at
the hotel and riding with them to the restaurant. I already told
them he was older, but I thought I would save the specifics until I
could tell them in person.”

“
Are they going to
freak?”

I lifted my chin and pointed my eyes down to
wiggle the brush between my lashes. “Nah. They’re going to be
psyched that he makes better money than Brad.”

“
That’s a little creepy,
don’t you think?” She knew what I thought. Just like I knew what
she thought. But if I dwelled on it, I would just be more rattled
than I already was.

“
Maybe, but at least it’s
convenient. If I thought this would be some huge drama, I would be
a wreck.”

Rosa snorted. “Well, thank god you’re
not.”

I dressed carefully.
Something conservative-ish, but not too stuffy. I didn’t want to
get the lecture about dressing appropriately in public
or
the lecture about never
attracting a man if I looked like a librarian. I chose a black wrap
dress with three-quarter length sleeves and a low neckline that
showed just a little cleavage. Dressing to please my parents as
well as my boyfriend was a land mine of “can’t win”.

I paid an Uber driver to zip me over to the
Pierre, where my parents always stayed when they were in town. The
Plaza was too predictable, so they told me. As I crossed the
checkered floor of the lobby, I touched my hair, straightened my
necklace, and hoped for the best.

We were meeting in the bar,
an art deco style space that could have come right out of
Mad Men
. Which was
basically in keeping with my parents’ entire philosophy,
really.

“
Penny,” Mother called from
a table near the steps that led down into the room. My father
stood, but she didn’t; when I came over, I had to lean down to hug
her. “Careful of my earrings, dear.”