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Which is why I’m not ready to have sex with Peyton.
Hands brush the sides of my torso and snake around my waist to connect at my lower back. I inhale deeply for the first time in minutes. Let the cool air fill my lungs and settle my anxiety. Allow my body to relax and melt with hers.
“I’ll come back to your place under one condition,” she whispers in my ear. “We talk. That’s it. Tonight will not be a rerun of last night.”
I nod. This, I accept… with one slight variation. “Can we at least grab food?” I lean back, sweep wayward strands of hair from her face, and brush my knuckles down her cheek. “Microwave meals from the store or order delivery. Don’t care which. But we should eat.”
“That’s fine.” She looks to the broom on the ground. “We should finish up and close.”
I don’t want to free her from my hold, but we will never leave otherwise. So I loosen my grip and step back. I drop a kiss on her forehead, take a deep breath and nod.
We get back to work and finish our nightly tasks. Twenty minutes fly by faster than expected and it isn’t long before we say good night to the staff walking out the door with us. I tell Peyton I will order Chinese and pick it up on the way to the house. After she gives me her order, she hops in her car and drives out of the lot.
As her taillights disappear, an odd sensation slithers up my spine, spreads through my limbs and I shiver head to toe. The sensation eats me alive like a microbial plague. Makes me second-guess Peyton’s reason to come over tonight. Acid rises in my throat and I swallow to stanch it from exiting my lips.
It’s all in your head, man. Don’t make something out of nothing.
After several deep breaths, I call the Chinese joint near my house. I order more than either of us will eat, but plan to have leftovers for another meal or two. Once the order is placed, I take one last deep breath, death grip the steering wheel, and drive off.
When I hit the bridge, I pray the salty air whipping my face and filling my lungs will untwist this knife in my gut. Will loosen the knot gradually getting tighter with each mile my truck eats up. Will vanquish the overall bad feeling swallowing me whole.
No matter how many breaths I take, no matter how I steer my thoughts, the pang beneath my diaphragm doesn’t fade. If anything, the knife twists deeper. Grinds my bones and digs into the marrow.
Please, let this be my imagination running wild. Don’t let the beginning of what we have go to shit. Not over this.
I repeat this again and again. A dictum to reign over what will come of tonight. A precept to dictate the future, regardless of the irrationality steering my thoughts. Because if you repeat something enough times, if you put the energy out into the universe, it becomes truth. Not like prophecy. More like guidance down the path of my choosing.
The red-dress woman made an attempt to derail my life, my future, tonight. Tried to trap me with a pregnancy scare. But she won’t rattle me so easily. She won’t cuff me at the ankle and drag me beside her. Not without hard proof. And until that day arrives, I will live my life. On my terms.
Who knows what my future holds. If Peyton is a part of said future, I will be forever indebted to her and whatever celestial being grants me the opportunity. An opportunity to right the wrongs I have committed. An opportunity to see where our connection leads.
“Thank you,” I mutter into the wind. “Whoever is looking out for me, thank you.”
I won’t let you down.
