I Made You My First (8 page)

“So this is
your
house?”  

He looked at
 me reluctantly, “For now,” he said, almost disapprovingly, and then quickly added, “What can I get you to drink?  Are you hungry?”   I couldn’t keep myself from looking at all the objects around me.  I stared at everything before looking back at Irish, remembering he was waiting for an answer.

“What do you have to drink?”  I asked. 

He opened the refrigerator door and just stood there, holding the door open, with a condescending smile.  “Jurnee, I asked you what drink you’d like?” 

“What are you having?”  I answered. 
That was a safe answer
, I thought. 

“Well it’s already six o’clock and I promised Judy that I’d have you home in one piece
and
at a reasonable hour, so I believe that I’m going to have juice.”

“How long is the drive to Judy’s?”  He rolled his eyes at me. 

“Why?”

“Don’t ask why,” I said
zestfully.  “Please answer my question.”

“It’s a thirty- or forty-minute drive.  “Why?”  He couldn’t stand it.

“Well then, do you have any wine?” I asked politely. 

His head dropped forward but then he smiled.  “No, I don’t have any here, but I know where I can get some.”  His blue eyes were now wide and excited as he stared into mine with curious enthusiasm.

“Really,” I smiled, scrutinizing his eyes. 

He took my hand, playfully leading me to the living room, seating me carefully in an overstuffed chair.  He pointed his finger at me and said, “Sit, I’ll be right back.”

I laughed.  “Okay.”   And he disappeared.
 

I sat in the chair looking around the room. 
This is not the room of a player
, I thought, which is what I’d assumed Irish was.  This was a homey, down-to-earth abode.  Awards hung on one brightly-painted wall, and fluffy pillows rested on the matching sofa.  Maybe I’d been totally wrong about him. Maybe I wouldn’t
get hurt
as I’d first thought I would. I was positive there was no way to describe what he was doing to me.  No way to explain the way he made me feel. I’d decided in that moment to ditch my worries about Irish. I was embarrassed to admit that after my behavior on Judy’s patio, I was actually beginning to look more like a player than he had been.  I laughed out loud at that.

Just then he came through the door.  “I wasn’t sure if you wanted red or white,” two bottles were tucked under his arm, “so I brought both.”  I smiled. 

“Where’d you
get
those?” I asked.

He gave me an evil grin and said, “You have to promise never to tell.”
  I smiled and nodded.  “My brother’s house is just up the hill, and he has a cellar.  But you can’t tell,” he said, giving me a broad grin and a chuckle.

“This is from London’s house?” I asked.
 

“No, actually it’s from Hayden’s.  He’s the only one with a wine cellar.”
 

Okay, I really didn’t know how many siblings Irish had.  He’d left the door wide open for me to be nosey.

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”  I asked, turning toward him, hoping for more details about him and his family.  Instead, he stood in front of me, holding the two bottles, trying to get me to pick one.  “White’s good,” I finally said.

He started digging in a drawer, looking for a corkscrew, and then finally answered my question.  “I have two brothers and one sister.”
  I sighed in defeat. He clearly wasn’t ready to share.

“That’s cool,” I said quickly.  He was struggling with the corkscrew, so I walked into the kitchen to help.

I pressed my body up against his back and whispered softly, “I can help you with that if you’ll let me.”  I felt his body go limp.  I smiled teasingly and took the bottle from him.  He gladly gave it up and watched me as I twisted the screw into the cork, and popped it out.  I handed the bottle back to him.  While he was pouring the wine into my glass, I discreetly stared at his face; no, I admired all of him really, secretly reevaluating the Irish I’d first met at the airport.  He no longer seemed like a playful challenge, an intriguing piece to a game I’d never played; now he felt almost like a reward, like a trip to the ice cream shop after winning a softball game.  Suddenly without warning, his eyes shifted from the glass to mine and I felt myself blush with the realization that I’d been caught ogling him.  He just stood staring back at me for a long moment, in complete silence, as if he knew exactly what I’d been thinking.  I felt embarrassed and extremely warm.  I decided I liked it. I liked him knowing the way I felt.

He handed me the glass and held out his hand, leading me back
 into the living room.  My eyes were all over him as I tried to maintain some self-restraint.  I watched the way he moved, studying his gestures.  He guided me back to the chair I’d first sat in, and then sat down on the sofa across from me.  At first we stared at each other.  I finally gave him a sexy little smile and took a sip of my wine.

“So, what do you want to do?” he asked.  My eyebrows went up and he smirked, but didn’t turn away.  He held my stare and repeated his earlier remark, “We can’t really do what I’d planned now, it’s too late, but I’m up for anything you want to do.”

“Did you say
anything
?” I asked.

He grinned nervously but quickly looked away, circling the room with his eyes.  “I have games and a deck of cards somewhere,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down his thighs.  His smile was relaxed, “Or, we can just talk.”
  I watched his expression change.  He was a good host but he was on his turf and he was much more confident than he’d been at Judy’s.  He looked very sure of himself.  He seemed to be announcing to me, through his body language, that he was now in charge.  It was somehow turning me on, so I just stared at him.

Staring back, he stood up slowly and said, “Since we’re going to get comfortable now, may I take your shoes?”  I watched him slide his shoes off and I reached down and stepped out of mine.  He took them from me and set them by the front door.  I took a sip of wine, watching him bend over as he set them down.  He plopped back down on the sofa.  I knew we had only hours before he’d be taking me back to Judy’s, so in that moment
 I decided to suggest a game Judy and I had created years ago. 

I wanted to know more about him.  “Would you be up for a question game?”  I asked.  His eyebrows went up and he cocked his head, giving me a devilish grin.

“Sure, what’re the rules of this game?”

I smiled back at him.  “The rules are easy.  I ask a question and you answer truthfully.  Then it’s your turn.  And I answer truthfully.”

He smiled, “How do I know if you’re answering truthfully?”

I lifted the glass to my lips, taking a long sip before answering,
 “If you don’t want to be honest, just say you don’t want to play.  We can play rummy,” I retorted. He looked at me suspiciously, and with an intense stare, accepted the terms.  “Okay, we’ll both be honest, no matter what?” 

“Yep,” I agreed.
  

“Who’s first?” he asked.

“I’ll go first,” I grinned.  “I’ll start off easy.  What’s your full name?” I smiled, watching his face. 

He leaned back on the sofa, crossing his hands behind his head.  “This is pretty easy, huh?  I thought this would be tough.” He winked at me.

“My full name is Irish Bryce Thompson and I’m twenty-five,” he added sarcastically.  I smiled.  It was my turn now and I knew he wasn’t going to be asking me my name, he already knew it so I prepared myself. 

“Okay,” he said, sitting straight up, leaning in toward me.  Several feet lay between us, but he lowered his voice to just above a whisper.  “Where did you learn to kiss like you do?” His eyes burned deeply into mine and his face became serious. My eyebrows rose.

“Really, that’s your first question?”  I rolled my eyes and smiled.

“Well I could tell you my blood type now and spare
 myself question number two,” he added with a smart-aleck grin. 

I sat back in my chair and thought about my answer, just to mess with him a little.  “Okay, I learned to kiss, mouth
open, from Keith Okonski in the sixth grade.  He also taught me how to play spin-the-bottle.”

He smiled.  It was my turn again and I wanted to ask something I really wanted to know, rather than embarrassing him.  I leaned forward this time and stared him right in the eye.  “How many women, and you can round it off if you need to, have you
 brought here before me?”  I gave him my best sarcastic grin.  To my surprise, he didn’t look flustered or uncomfortable.  He actually looked calm.

Looking me square in the face, he said, “Well, Jurnee, I can honestly and truthfully say that you’re the first woman I’ve ever brought here, excluding my mom and sister, that is.”  His expression was honest and sincere.

That wasn’t at all what I was expecting.  I continued staring at his face for tell-tale signs.  He looked like he was being honest. 

“Why?”  I asked quickly before giving him
any time to think about it.

“
Because this is my home and I consider it my sanctuary, not my playground,” he said.

I was completely floored.  I had to look away from him because I wasn’t sure what my face was showing.  I was beginning to feel warm.

“My turn,” I heard him say.  I took a drink from my glass and looked back at him head on.  “If you could be anywhere in the world right this very minute, where would you be?” he asked, sitting back in his seat.  I thought he was fishing, wanting me to say
here
, but I wasn’t sure.  After my emotional day, I had to look away. The emotions of Aunt Jean’s call registered on my face, and I could feel my throat swelling up. My eyes were beginning to fill. 

“Whoa,” I heard him say.  “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”  He must have thought I was crying, because he was sitting on the arm of my chair before I knew it.

“I’m not crying, Irish.”  As I finished saying that, I felt an incriminating tear drop run down my cheek.  He looked into my eyes, held my face, and gently kissed my forehead.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, pulling me tenderly into his chest.  I was caught off guard by his caring gesture, maybe because it all
happened so fast.  I pushed into his body and relaxed every muscle, surrendering to his embrace. 

This feels so good
, I thought.  I remained there, staying very still in his arms, my face buried in his chest.  We stayed that way for several minutes, gently rocking back and forth.  I wasn’t sure of the time. 

He lifted my face gently.  “I’m so sorry, Jurnee, I could’ve picked a hundred different questions and that was the stupidest
 one of all.  Can we take a break from the game and go for a walk?”  I nodded.  “I’d like to show you something.”  We stood up and he grabbed my coat as we headed for the front door.  He held his hand out and we walked down the same path we’d come in on.

I could see colorful lights ahead, through the trees.  It was dark and they looked so bright they reminded me of the lights on a Ferris wheel.  As we moved closer, I could see it was a huge fountain sitting in the middle of a pool, or a pond.
 The lights then looked more like a rainbow stretching out over the length of the water.  We stopped at the edge of the pool and admired the colors.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s a fountain and pool made for my grandmother.  She was very colorful,” he said, looking at me with his handsome smile.

“It’s lovely.”

He bent down, feeling and splashing the water with his fingers, “It’s warm, feel.”

I sat down Indian style, with my jacket in my lap.  He sat beside me.  I leaned in toward the water and could feel the heat drifting up toward my face.  I dipped my hand in the fountain.  It was as warm as bath water. 

“This is amazing,” I admitted.  I wondered if it was the place he’d said he wanted to take me earlier, but I didn’t ask, I just sat quietly next to him.  I felt his arm move across my back and his hand rested on my shoulder.  I didn’t move, but just let myself enjoy his touch. 

Snuggling in closer to him, I asked, “Irish, may I ask you something?”

He put his head on the side of my face.  “Jurnee, you can ask me anything.”  I couldn’t see it but I felt his smile.  After a few seconds, he lifted his head and looked at me, letting me know I had his full attention.  I took a deep breath. 

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like his answer, so I prepared myself.  “What did Judy tell you when she called you today?  I guess I’m really asking why
 you went to the bay to get me.  Was it because you felt sorry for me?”  I exhaled.  There, I’d said it.  I watched his face.  He turned his whole body toward me and stared. 

I know it was only seconds, but it felt like minutes before he said anything.  “Jurnee, I didn’t feel sorry for you,” he held my hands and
 continued staring at me.  “I wanted to spend time with you today and honestly, when you said you were going with your girlfriends to the bay, I was really bummed.  I started questioning whether you were really going with your friends or you just
didn’t
want to see
me
.”