First Time: Penny's Story (First Time (Penny) Book 1) (35 page)

We
had
discussed our desire to have kids
within the next couple of years. But now, that seemed so close. The
excitement overwhelmed me. “Two is good.”

“
Yeah. How much do…” He
stopped, frowning and making a sound that seemed like it could be
associated with acid reflux. “Do you know how much weddings run
these days?”

“
Well, I mean, I guess it
depends on where you’re having it. In the Bahamas or…” I rocked my
legs side to side in a nervous bounce. Was he proposing? Maybe not
officially, but we were planning our future. It
was…incredible.

“
I suppose we would have to
take that into account at the time.” He leaned up, and I moved in
for a kiss, smiling against his lips. We interrupted ourselves
again and again with our goofy grins. Finally, he gave up, breaking
away to say, “I think we should be clear, though, on how long a
separation this would be.”

I made a “tch” and sat up. “I was really
hoping we wouldn’t have to talk about that, but you’re right. We
need to be responsible.”

“
It’s going to be over a
year.”

My heart plummeted. “Over a year? When would
you leave?”

“
July. And I’ll likely stay
there until they break ground in 2017.”

I didn’t trust my voice to speak, so I
didn’t.

“
I know. I can’t bear the
thought of it, myself. But as we said before, you could always come
visit.”

Visit. Not come with him.

By July, we would have been together for
almost a year, and he wouldn’t want me to come along?

“
Yeah.” I chalked up the
sadness I felt to how tired I was, and the fact that I’d already
put myself through an emotional wringer already tonight. I forced a
smile and said, “Pretty convenient honeymoon spot.”

“
It could be,” he agreed,
but my façade wasn’t as good as I’d thought it was. “Ah, what’s the
matter, Doll?”

You’re going away for over a
year, and you don’t want to take me.
We’d
only been going out for a few months. It was ridiculous to expect
him to move me to another country with him. Maybe he couldn’t.
Although, he’d just said he was going to make a lot of money, and I
had some meager savings. If he was fine talking about marriage and
children but not fine with the idea of living with me when
he
was
fine with
being away from me…

“
I’m just… really going to
miss you.” I settled back in beside him, silently willing him to
offer to take me along.

He didn’t.

Instead, he kissed the top of my head and
pulled me close. “I’m going to miss you, too. Believe me, if
anything could tempt me away from this job, it would be you.”

But I wasn’t enough. And I couldn’t get that
out of my head, even when the alarm sounded in the morning.

* * * *

The grossness of my fight with Ian seemed to
evaporate overnight, though I could tell he still felt terrible
about it when he dropped me off at work.

“
Oh, shit,” I said as we
pulled up. Sophie was already walking toward the
building.

“
I made you late again,” Ian
said grimly. “Do you want me to come in? Charm her? Beg
forgiveness?”

“
No, please do not ‘charm’
my boss. I think you’ve done enough of that.” I rolled my eyes.
Maybe I shouldn't say stuff like that, after our fight last night.
But it was still weird knowing my boss had fucked my
boyfriend.

I gave Ian a kiss that was way, way briefer
than I would have liked and jumped out of the car. I managed to
sprint to the door just as Sophie reached it, and I opened it for
her.

“
You’re still late,” she
said with a knowing smile.

“
I’m sorry.” I’d been saying
that a lot lately. “Ian and I got into this huge fight last night,
and we—”

“
Stayed up all night making
up?” she finished for me as we crossed the lobby for the
stairs.

“
Not exactly. But we did
make up.” I followed her up the stairs.

“
I’ll level with you,” she
said over her shoulder. “I’m late, too. I’ll cover for you, if you
promise to play along.”

“
Deal.”

We entered the office and nodded to the
receptionist, a slender white girl named Bethany, with dark hair
and a bad case of resting bitch face. But she was really, really
nice. She gave us a big smile and a chipper “Good morning!” when we
came in.

“
You saw us earlier this
morning, remember?” Sophie said with a pointed look.

Bethany nodded in understanding, making a
silent “Oh” with her mouth.

When we got into the main office, Deja was
leaning over a desk, talking to Matt, one of the graphic designers.
Her dark hair was half-shaved, and the angular bob on the other
side covered her face. I thought we might sneak past her
undetected, but she looked up at Sophie and I and frowned. “Are you
both late now? Is this catching?”

“
I wish. The card machine
was down at Fry’s, so Penny had to come rescue me with petty cash.”
Sophie swung her purse off her shoulder and handed it to me without
looking. “I’ll pay it back.”

“
I will never understand how
you’re a billionaire and you never have cash on you,” Deja said,
totally buying the fib. Sophie winked at me as she walked
past.

The rest of the day went pretty smoothly,
considering it started out with a lie. It was around three when my
cell rang. It was Ian, which was strange; he tried to avoid taking
or making personal calls during the work day. I answered with a
“Hello?”

“
You’re
American.”

“
You noticed,” I said,
adjusting my phone on my shoulder. They should make cell phones
thicker, so holding them like that didn’t feel so awkward. “Hi,
Ian.”

“
Hello, Doll,” he said with
a chuckle. “Do you know who else is American?”

“
You are, even though you
rarely admit it.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure Sophie and
Deja were both deep in their discussion of the next issue’s
layout.

“
How dare you. I was going
to say, my sister’s husband is American. And since I assume you’re
not going to spend Thanksgiving with your lovely
parents—”

I snorted.

“—
maybe you’d like to come
to Thanksgiving dinner at her house, with me?”

Spend American Thanksgiving with Scottish
Catholics? My WASP parents and their Mayflower pride would recoil
in horror. “I’d love to. But…”

“
But?”

I sighed. “Your sister doesn’t want to meet
me. That was kind of obvious when she ran away to D.C. to avoid
me.”

“
She didn’t run away. And
even if she did, this time, she couldn’t. Because I know where she
lives, and that woman would never abandon a turkey.” He tried for a
laugh. “Look, I don’t want to pressure you—”

“
No, it’s fine.” I pressed
my fingertips to my forehead. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m
being a bitch about this.”

“
It because you’re nervous
You know that it’s important to me that the two of you get along.
But I swear, Penny, I am not going to kick you out of my life if
you’re not my sister’s favorite person.”

I ignored the fact that he hadn’t argued with
my use of the word “bitch”. “Why do you assume it’s going to go
down that way, instead of the other way around?

He graciously overlooked my snippiness.
“Because I know my sister, and I know that of the two of you,
you’re the one who’s going into this wanting to get along.”

“
And your sister, she’s not
going to want to get along?” Nothing seemed more appealing to me
than spending Thanksgiving with someone who’d decided to hate me
before she’d even met me. At least my parents had reasons to
dislike me, even if they were unfair.

“
She’s going to be cautious.
I won’t mince words about that,” Ian replied.

“
That sounds kind of mince-y
to me.” It still sounded like he was prepared to go into battle
over me.

“
I believe that my sister
will like you. And she’ll want to like you, as well. But she’ll
stay guarded. When she sees how much I love you, and how important
you are to me, she’ll back off.” He didn’t sound very sure of
himself.

“
If I don’t get along…” My
throat went dry, and I had to start over. “If I don’t get along
with your family, our relationship isn’t doomed?”

“
Did I get along with your
parents?” he countered. “You’ll get along just fine. If you don’t,
we’ll live with it. But Annie doesn’t decide my personal
relationships for me.”

This was important to Ian. That much was
obvious. And I did want to see what kind of family he came from.
I’d only met his nephew, and I didn’t know what to make of him. If
a swearing, snarky priest was any indication of the kind of people
Ian came from, it was almost worth going, just for curiosity’s
sake.

“
Okay,” I agreed. “Is there
anything I should bring?”

“
No, don’t. Annie will think
you doubted that she could handle all the food, and she’ll take it
as an insult. I’ll get a really nice wine and we can bring that,”
he said.

Great. His sister was apparently the type of
person who took even simple gestures of kindness as slights. That
would be fun to navigate.

I decided to look on the bright side. “We?” I
giggled at the word, because just saying it filled me with sparkly
excitement. “I like that sound of showing up places as a couple and
only needing to bring one dish to pass.”

“
That’s one of the benefits
of serious, long-term relationships. That and health
insurance.”

“
Do you need my health
insurance?” He probably had that amazing no-copay kind that
successful adults seemed to have.

“
It’s probably better than
mine,” he grumbled. “Well, we can compare our plans later. But
you’ll go with me on Thursday?”

“
Yes,” I said, and my heart
squeezed. “I’ll go anywhere, as long as it’s with you.”

Anywhere. Like a small island country, for
example.

“
Noted. Do you want to stay
at my place on Wednesday night?”

Noted? What’s that supposed
to mean?
I was torn between hope that it
meant he would ask me to move with him and despair that he might be
just dismissing me, hoping I would ignore it.

“
No,” I declined his
invitation. “It’s the biggest bar night of the year. I’m going out
with a couple of friends. But I can meet you at your place on
Thursday.”

One night away from Ian wouldn’t kill me,
even if our time together was precious, with him moving away. I
needed to go out with my girls, and Kelly Sullivan knew the owner
of a great place in the village.

“
Fair enough. I’ll find out
what time we should be there, and I’ll let you know
tonight.”

We said “I love you” and hung up. I cast
another guilty glance at Sophie’s office and opened up my pictures
on my phone. I found a selfie Ian and I had taken in a movie
theatre while we’d been waiting for the previews to start. God, he
was so handsome. Even the lines by his eyes when he smiled and the
silver in his hair. I thought about not seeing that face for
eighteen months. Not curling up beside him on the couch or smelling
him on my pillow after he left in the morning.

A lot could happen in eighteen months. He
could meet someone else, someone prettier and more interesting.
Someone his own age, who didn’t make him feel old whenever she
talked about her interests and her upbringing. Someone who wouldn’t
sit at home and pine for him, because she was more independent than
I was.

That fear was the worst one. What if I did
wait for Ian, and the waiting made me look needy or clingy or
desperate? How long would it take for “I miss you” to sound like an
all-inclusive guilt trip?

And what if, when he came back, things
weren’t the same? If in the intervening time, we both changed too
much, and we didn’t fit together like we did before?

He had to have his reasons for not wanting me
to come with him. Maybe he did want me to come with him, but he
thought I couldn’t leave my life behind. And maybe he just didn’t
want me to come with him, because he didn’t feel the same way about
me that I felt about him.

I couldn’t ask him. I didn’t want to hear the
wrong answer.

Chapter Seventeen

In hindsight, I should have stayed at Ian’s
apartment. The city was packed with people out for the parade.
Getting a taxi was impossible, and the subway was packed. I was
twenty minutes late and super apologetic as I rang the buzzer.

“
I’m here!” I shouted
through the intercom. “I’m sorry!”

“
Meet me inside,” Ian
replied, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. I went through
the doors and waited in the building lobby. Ian was downstairs
within minutes, and when he saw me, he smiled hugely. So he
couldn’t have been that angry with me.

“
You look beautiful!” he
said, gesturing at my dress.

“
Thanks.” I’d had no idea
how to dress to meet his sister. After what he’d said about not
bringing any food in case I insulted her, I’d worried that dressing
too informally would seem like I didn’t care about impressing her,
and that dressing too formally would seem like I was trying too
hard. I’d settled on a brown plaid dress cut in a retro style, with
a wide yellow sash around the waist. It was something I would wear
to work, occasionally, though I hated the idea of going to a
holiday “business casual”.