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As soon as I get home, I take a few aspirin and climb in the shower. I still feel crappy, my head is throbbing, but my clarity over the situation seems to be getting clearer.
Even in the twenty-first century there’s this double standard that guys are allowed to send unsolicited dick pics, but when a woman admits to enjoying a one-night stand or even to enjoying sex, there’s a collective gasp of horror from the world. I really hoped Tommy wasn’t that type of guy, but I may have misread the whole situation and I’m not going to let him think he gets the final say in any of this.
With my thoughts still front and center in my mind, I dress quickly and grab the cup of coffee I made before getting in the shower. Even though I’m not working today, I’ll be heading over to Somerville’s because the way things ended are not how I want them. He doesn’t get to win and there won’t be this weird awkwardness between us now.
I pull into the parking lot and immediately head back toward the sheds, not certain if Tommy will be there or not, but it’s a good guess.
I find a few of the new guys working on one of the machines and I call out to them, “Hey, any of you seen Tommy?” I stop in the entryway to the shed, my hands on my hips and I’m certain a resting bitch face that could stop anyone in their tracks.
“I think he’s out in the orchard,” Dylan calls back as he stops working and looks over at me. I immediately turn and begin to walk in that direction when I hear Dylan make some snide comment followed by an incredibly immature catcalling sound as if he knows I slept with Tommy last night.
“Grow up! You’re like a giant man-child!” I yell, not giving him a chance to respond, but it’s obvious Tommy’s been gossiping about his evening and tossing me into a pile of conquests. And to think I thought he might be different and that I was actually falling for him.
Lauren and Ellen always talk about how he’s this great guy who gets shit on by women, but fuck that. He’s really put on a good act all these years. He’s no different than all the other guys I’ve hooked up with. One-night stand or not, keep your fucking mouth shut.
I’m even more fired up than I was just a few minutes ago and when I find him on a ladder in the orchard, it takes everything in me not to want to sweep the legs out from under it and watch him hit the ground.
“Listen!” I call out and he startles, almost falling off the ladder and for a second I feel guilty, but that halts when I see the shocked look on his face as I walk up to him.
Did he really think he’d never see me again? We fucking work together, which is exactly why I’m here. He doesn’t get to make my work environment awkward because now he’s embarrassed that he slept with me. I can make my life awkward as fuck all on my own.
“Penny,” he says, climbing down the ladder and I hate the way my name sounds on his lips. It holds sympathy and comfort and something about it makes me want to tell him I was falling for him, but I cut it off. I’m not going down that road and if he really has feelings for me, he can be a fucking man and say it.
“I want you to know that I didn’t sleep with you because of daddy issues or because my life is out of control. I did it because I fucking wanted to, and you don’t get to make me feel guilty. It was sex between two consenting adults—”
“Pen—”
“Nope, don’t interrupt me. You had your chance at your house this morning and you crept around the topic like a coward.” I stop, sucking in a breath, but not long enough for him to interject. “If you have any respect for me as a woman, which everyone here claims you’re all about respecting women, you don’t get to discriminate and act like you’re fucking awesome for getting a girl ten years younger than you to give up the goods.”
I pause again, not because I want him to speak, like I said, he had his chance and I’m just disappointed in myself for letting him control what happened this morning.
“And since we’re on the topic, what the hell does that even mean? Giving up the goods?”
“I don’t know,” Tommy answers, his eyes wide as he shakes his head. His answer is almost an automatic response to my rant.
“It makes it sound like I’m smuggling cocaine in my vagina and you’re trying to get it out of me. That’s far too passive and I’m anything but compliant. My vagina does what it wants and who it wants, whenever it wants.” I stomp my foot, holding my head high, I turn on my heel and begin to walk away from him.
I have no idea what I hope to accomplish, but I certainly feel better and he still hasn’t bothered to try to redeem himself.
I whip back around, “And stop talking about me to those assholes in the shed. My consensual one-night stand is none of their fucking business.” I flip my brown hair over my shoulder and begin to storm away once again.
But I’m back a few seconds later when I remember the bees. “And I’m still tending to the bees so don’t go thinking you’ll get to avoid me.”
“Penny, seriously, wait up!” he yells, jogging to catch up with me, but I keep walking. “I didn’t say anything to the guys, I swear. I didn’t say anything to anyone.”
I stop, turning back to look at him. He’s about twenty feet away and he looks as perfect as he did last night in his house. He has the most striking caramel-colored eyes and right now they’re watching me with a burning intensity I can’t manage to read. His dark brown hair tousles in the warm breeze and he looks like he belongs tangled among the branches of the apple trees that surround us.
He looks like perfection, not a concept or an idea, not a word or a thought of it, but actual living, breathing perfection. I hate him for being so much of what I want and not wanting me back.
It’s the story of my life.
“Okay,” I respond, but I know I need to walk away because letting myself remain this close to him is a mistake. He needs to be dropped into the one-night stand category fast.
But we stand suspended in silence, the leaves of the trees rustling around us, the words between us falling silent and everything else keeps moving as if it has no idea.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, quiet droplets let loose into the air, but I have no indication as to what he’s apologizing for. I’ve heard these words so many times from so many men and never once was the actual intention there. It was a mindless apology meant to placate me back into my place and I hate to admit that in the past it worked.
“I’m not sorry,” I reply. “I’m not sorry for sleeping with you or making you feel uncomfortable or for anything I’ve said. It’s obvious what passed between us was nothing more than a fleeting moment.”
