Clay

I couldn’t decide between French toast and frittata, so I just decided to make both. From what I remember, Penny will eat just about anything. I hope that Ethan is the same way, but even if he isn’t, I am sure I can whip something up.

As I beat a bowlful of eggs with some cream, I find myself whistling over the sound of the crackling bacon. It’s a lot of food. Way too much, but hopefully it won’t all go to waste.

I feel her watching me from the top of the stairs for a few seconds and don’t respond, giving her time to adjust. She pads down the stairs in her bare feet and out of the corner of my eye I watch her glide over the slate tile floor.

“Good morning,” she murmurs sweetly, settling into a chair on the opposite side of the kitchen island. I let myself steal a glance at her, happy to see that she’s smiling.

I am pretty sure that I am smiling too.

“Good morning. There’s coffee if you want it.”

She sighs with gratitude. The sound reminds me of her moans last night and shivers race down my torso.

“Wow, this is fantastic.” She smiles as she pours herself a healthy cup, topping it off with whipping cream.

“If you have any requests, I usually keep a list on my cell phone. Just shoot me a text and I’ll pick up whatever you need.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Requests? Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I shrug as I pour the egg mixture into the hot pan where potatoes have already sautéed and cover it with the lid. “Berries, snacks, beverages. Whatever you are used to.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she muses. “I guess I just eat the same stuff I always have.”

“So, Cheetos and Ramen?” I quip.

She points a finger at me and squints. “Ah, there it is. I knew you couldn’t just be all sweetness and gourmet cooking.”

Flipping the French toast with the spatula, I suppress a smirk. “And rocky road ice cream. Can’t forget about that.”

“Yeah, actually, we will need some of that,” she admits.

Silence falls between us, and I stubbornly try to ignore it. This doesn’t have to be awkward, I tell myself. Not at all. Everything is pretty smooth sailing for us. It’s just like riding a bike.

“So… about our pact,” she starts awkwardly.

Something in her voice makes me freeze as I open the oven door to let the frittata finish. I turn and catch her eye. She is really staring at me, hard, the smile gone from her face. I see her swallow nervously.

“I mean, I just thought I would go ahead and put it out there,” she continues in a rush.

I can see she’s uncertain, maybe even upset.

“Sorry, what are we talking about?” I ask, keeping my voice even.

Apparently, that was exactly the wrong thing to say. Her eyes widen dramatically and her fingers grip the countertop.

“Our pact?” she says again hoarsely.

I shake my head helplessly, trying out a friendly smile. “Um, you’re going to have to help me out here, Pen. What pact? Do you mean a bet or something?”

She pushes herself back from the kitchen island and begins pacing back and forth, the soles of her feet slapping softly against the slate. I begin to feel like I have done something horribly, horribly wrong.

“Pen? What is going on?”

She mutters to herself for a few seconds before turning to face me with a stony expression, the lines of her jaw suddenly squared off and hard.

“You know what? It doesn’t matter,” she replies tersely.

“It kind of seems like it really does matter," I reply cautiously.

“No! It doesn’t!” she blurts out. “Because I was going to let you off the hook anyway. So this is better, right? That you don’t even remember? I mean, how perfect is that?!”

I remember back to that moment last night where she was all open and sincere, how that is the perfect Penny moment. This would be the opposite moment: angry Penny is pretty terrible.

“I don’t remember our pact,” I say softly, trying out the words to see if anything floats to the surface of my memory.

“Of course you don’t!” she continues, her voice rising. “Because now you’re a ladies’ man! Now you’re the Beaumont bachelor! Why would you remember a stupid thing like that? We were just kids!”

The timer goes off, and while I am grateful for something to do to camouflage my confusion, my stomach is churning. What the hell is she talking about? If she weren’t so mad, I would just go ahead and ask her.

“We were kids, yeah,” I agree, figuring that is the safest course of action here, no matter what.

She continues muttering while I get food to the middle of the dining table. Maybe food will calm her down? Should I go get Ethan? Really, I don’t know what is going to set her off.

“Just consider it canceled, okay? Just forget about it.”

I meet her eyes, trying to figure out what it is going to take to defuse the situation. Her hair floats away from her face in weightless tendrils, and the skin beneath her eyebrows is reddening, a seriously bad sign.

“So, you’re canceling it.” I nod.

“You don’t even know what I am canceling, so please don’t pretend to have an opinion about this, okay?”

The food on the table looks great. I’m hungry. I know she has the stamina to fight with me until everything is cold, so I might as well just bite the bullet and ask her.

“What was the pact?”

My heart hammers in my chest like a room full of hostages trying to get out.

She narrows her eyes and squares off, holding the pose for a few seconds before her shoulders slump slightly. Gradually her demeanor changes to something more like shyness. Embarrassment, maybe?

“Do you happen to remember the last time we slept together?” she finally says, her voice barely above a whisper.

Like magic, I instantly do. The images come crashing through me like wave after wave of storm surge. That night Ryan dumped her. She burned dinner. She ended up in my arms, fulfilling a wish I hadn’t even really dared to express to myself. It was long before anybody ever even thought about calling me a ladies’ man. She really opened my eyes, tested my heart, and showed me how our connection made all the difference in the world.

And then, the next morning, we agreed it wasn’t such a great idea to continue. I remember now. She was graduating early. I was surprised, because I was comfortable with the idea that we would to be together for who knows how long. But no, she already had a job lined up. After she told me that, we decided that we couldn’t be together, but if life didn’t work out for us…

Oh, wait.

Oh, no.

“Penny, I just thought you were blowing me off,” I explain. “I didn’t think you meant it.”

Her mouth pops open in surprise. “You didn’t think I meant it? You didn’t think we meant it? Because we agreed.”

I walk over to hold her. She must be so upset right now. But she flinches away stubbornly. I let my hands fall uselessly to my sides.

“We were just kids, though,” I continue. “There would’ve been no way I could have held you to it, you know?”

She glares at me, her lips pressed tightly together to hold back whatever it is that she wants to say. I realize suddenly that I might have forgotten about it, but she didn’t. And now here she is. And here I am.

“Well it doesn’t matter,” she continues in a hard voice. “I just canceled it. It’s done. We are just business partners okay? Roommates? Maybe even friends with benefits, how about that?”

“Really, we can just—”

“— I just thought we should talk about it, okay? So there wouldn’t be any expectations. Everything is fine.”

We stand there uncomfortably for a few moments until she finally focuses on the table and the food that is swiftly cooling down.

“I need to get Ethan up. I need to go register him for school,” she murmurs.

“Actually, I should jump in the shower,” I finish, eager to give her some space. “I’ll clean up here. You guys eat and do whatever you need to do. We can talk more about this later if you want to, okay?”

But she doesn’t answer. She just heads off to Ethan’s room, and I go upstairs, more confused than ever.

Ron is already at the development when I arrive. He is standing in front of the concrete and brick entry arch, his hands on his hips. Today his tracksuit is light blue. Powder blue, some might say.

“What are we staring at?” I ask as I walk up, trudging through knee-high weeds.

“I hate this sign,” Ron announces, gesturing dismissively with his hairy knuckles. “And it faces the wrong way, anyway. The name should face people coming from the highway, shouldn’t it? Why is this aimed at fifteen miles of cornfields, I ask you? Who’s going to see it from that direction?”

“They were probably going to put the same thing on the other side of the entry,” I suggest reasonably, which only seems to aggravate him further. “Never got around to it, I guess.”

Ron sucks his teeth and shoots me a scowl before marching back toward the model homes.

“You really got your work cut out for you,” he growls. “Did you even see these? You know what’s going on inside there?”

“No,” I admit, following him at a safe distance while keeping one eye on the ground for snakes. “Are the plans around somewhere? How far along are they? They look pretty much done.”

“Yeah! That’s what you would think!” Ron scoffs. “Who knows what they were thinking. But these are not completed models. These are just shells, maybe to get investors or something. They’re not finished, not at all.”

“Okay, so I’ll get some investors and Penny will get the crews together. No big deal. Why are you so pissed?”

“Because I totally overspent just to show Penny who was boss, that’s why!” he blurts out, cursing when he almost rolls his ankle on a rock hidden under some long grass.

I start laughing, ignoring the evil look he’s giving me.

“You did what? What the hell did you do that for?”

We reach the first model and Ron shoves open the door, stepping into what will be a foyer, eventually, after our crews get done with it. Right now it is just subfloor and studs. The electrical isn’t even in. It’s like a movie set, made to look nice on the outside but nothing inside.

“We should just tear these down and start over,” Ron mutters angrily.

“Now, that’s crazy. You don’t need to waste all this just because you’re mad. I’m surprised you did that, though. She really got to you?”

He shrugs and looks away, kicking a 2 x 4 with the toe of his running shoe.

“I’m not used to the competition. This is my region. This is my project. And now she’s… Well, how is she? How’s life as a happy couple?”

He turns to me, waggling his bushy eyebrows. I hold my hands up and shake my head.

“That’s… Complicated.”

“Oh no, not complicated,” Ron smirks.

I scowl at him, wishing I hadn’t said anything. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs and shuffles away, ducking underneath dangling bits of sheet metal.

“You just tend to like your ladies on the simple side, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I sniff, making a mental list of all the materials that are still in place. We can use most of the stuff. I think he’s overreacting.

“Sure you do,” he continues confidently. “You like them kind of dumb. Kind of unchallenging. That way you can make a quick getaway with no repercussions.”

“That’s not what I do,” I insist. “I’m just an easy-going guy. I’m nice. That’s what everybody tells me.”

He looks back over his shoulder with a sarcastic smirk on his face. “Oh yeah, you have good manners and everything. You’re just not, you know… the commitment type.”

“I am the commitment type! I just haven’t found anybody worth committing to, Ron,” I huff, irritated that I even have to have this conversation.

But he just waddles away, talking to himself about the project that he got himself into. He’s mad, but he will get over it.

And I’m sure he is wrong. I was going to ask Deborah to marry me, after all. And apparently, at some point in my life I thought Penny and I had a fighting chance. In the future. The future that happens to be now.

That I happen to have already screwed up.

Shit.