Oksana came around the picnic table cautiously. Annie realized then that Oksana looked just as good in her street clothes as she did in workout apparel. She gave herself a few seconds to admire Oksana in her black, calf-length spandex and fitted Dodgers T-shirt. Lines around her eyes made Annie realize she wasn’t the only one who’d had a sleepless night.
“Hey,” Oksana said. “Are you okay?”
Annie sat up and slipped her phone into the pocket of her thin running jacket.
“I have to say this.”
“Okay…”
“I want to tell you everything. And I know how it’s going to sound, but please just hear me out and then, I don’t know. You get the floor to rebut.”
“Okay.” Oksana’s scowl didn’t help with Annie’s confidence issue, but they’d crossed the bridge of too late days ago. She had to say this.
“I’m not sure if I’m going to marry Jeff.”
“Why?” Oksana asked hesitantly.
“Because…I think I have feelings for you.”
Oksana’s reaction was immediate.
“Oh! Come on, Annie!” she yelled, throwing her hands in the air. “Don’t do this!”
“Oksana, I have to. Can we please just talk about it?”
“Why? Because we had sex?” Oksana groaned. “I don’t want you to do this. I should have—this was a bad idea. We shouldn’t have slept together. You had your plan or whatever, but it’s clear it didn’t work out, Annie.”
“Yeah, because of you.”
“What do you mean ‘because of me’?
You
told
me
it was no strings. You told me it was your freebie, your pre-wedding, my fiancé doesn’t care fling.”
“It was and then things changed. You seemed fine with it when I kept texting you, and you seemed more than fine with it when my fingers were in your pussy. You didn’t stop me from kissing you, and you weren’t complaining in my bed yesterday morning either.” The truth wasn’t pretty, but Annie couldn’t let her twist certain truths between them.
Oksana took a stunned step back and gritted her teeth, her cheeks flushing with a small hint of pink. Seeing how pissed she already was, Annie dug the hole a little deeper.
“I’m not saying this is about you. It is and isn’t. I knew Thursday wasn’t ladies’ night. I looked it up before I went out, but I went anyway.”
“Why?” Oksana asked, seeming genuinely confused.
“Because I had to get out of my house. Because I wanted to be with you!”
Oksana’s face fell. Annie couldn’t understand why this was making her so angry, but she let her speak.
“Great. Well, I’m glad you could use me to scratch your itch. I’m glad I slipped up and fell into your bed again, right when you wanted me to.”
Annie’s mouth gaped open. “That’s not it at all. I’ve always liked you.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. I’m just not a big fan of pushing myself on someone who isn’t interested at all. If you were straight, I figured you’d be lacking that certain interest in me, but then you offered. You agreed to be a part of this. With me.”
“So why did you lie about ladies’ night?”
“Because that was my initial intention. I wanted to see if it was you or women in general, but I knew it was you I wanted to be with. The thought of being with someone else just…I don’t know. I went out and tried to drown my sorrows in mint and liquor and then I…”
“What?” Oksana said.
“I shouldn’t have thrown myself on you like that.” Annie heard herself getting louder and louder, but she didn’t reel in the momentum. “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I was already horny just thinking about you before you got to the bar, and then I was so relieved when I saw you. I mean how often are you just praying to see someone and they come walking up to you? And you looked so hot. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Okay. So you had your time to think and now you’re questioning your relationship with Jeff because we fucked twice. You wanted your one night of freedom and you got two. Why the change in plans?”
“I’m questioning things with Jeff because right now I care more about how
you
feel than how Jeff feels. It’s messed up, Oksana. I know. I have been thinking about you non-stop since the first time we slept together. I can’t be sure about marrying someone else when they aren’t the most important person on my mind.”
Oksana spun around and Annie watched her back as she wrapped her arms around her ribs. This was not going well. She knew Oksana wouldn’t be excited to hear that she’d had a part in ending her engagement to Jeff, but she had to come clean. She never considered she’d be hurting Oksana in the process.
Annie wanted to cross the short distance between them and hold Oksana until she somehow magically understood what Annie was feeling, but she’d made that mistake once, letting what she wanted rule the moment. She couldn’t push right now.
A deep breath trembled over Oksana’s shoulders and then she turned back.
“I don’t want this,” she said quietly.
“I…understand.” She did, but it didn’t stop her stomach from dropping to the dirt below the picnic table.
“No, you don’t.” Oksana was suddenly furious. Annie stared at her, afraid to make any sudden movements. “You really thought you were just going to tell me that you’re confused about Jeff and I was going to jump for joy and run away with you? I had a good time with you. I won’t deny it. You’re great in bed, okay? But I’m not a fucking home wrecker. You told me it was no big deal and now it is, and I don’t want to be the person who gets blamed for your wedding ultimately going to shit.”
“Who’s going to blame you? Jeff won’t—”
“Right. He sounds great, but what about your friends and your parents, people who’ve already shelled out money for dresses and hotels and plane tickets. I’ve been in a wedding before, Annie. That shit ain’t cheap. So when all those people get your, ‘Oops, sorry. I’m a lesbian now,’ phone call or text message or however you plan to break it to them, guess who they are going to blame? Your new fag girlfriend who corrupted you away from Jeff.”
Oksana’s words had set off an emotional bomb right there in the park. Annie couldn’t hear the birds or the traffic from the street. Just her own strangled breathing and stuttered heartbeat.
Annie closed her eyes, swallowing the pain in her throat.
“I don’t think I can marry him,” she replied before she looked back at Oksana’s exasperated expression. “I’ve thought about everything you just said. My mother is going to kill me if I do this. I know it, and I know some of my friends will probably never speak to me again, but again, that’s just whatever. It’s—I know how I feel about you, but this part of it, with me and him, that’s not about you, Oksana. Even before we had sex, I was excited for him to leave because I knew I was getting a chance to be with someone else.”
She shocked herself with those words, but they were true. From the moment Oksana had agreed to sleep with her, she’d been counting down the days until Jeff left town.
“I don’t think about him beyond what I’m going to say when he comes back. I don’t miss him. Who doesn’t miss their fiancé? I know he’s sleeping with other women while he’s away and I don’t care. I should be furious or jealous or something, but I’m not.
“I wasn’t moping about when he was coming back or wondering why he wasn’t writing me more. These past few days all I could think about was making things right with
you
. If I could, I would undo the way we got here, but I wouldn’t change the way I feel. I really like you, Oksana. I just wanted to tell you. I should thank you. You’ve given me even more to think about.”
“Do I get the floor now?”
“Do you want it?” Annie said, defeated. Oksana rolled her eyes at Annie’s dramatics.
“The way I feel about you doesn’t matter because we can’t undo anything. You are my client. I should have never slept with you. Period. And I should have never slept with someone who was in a relationship because that is wrong. It doesn’t matter how you slice it.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Annie nearly shouted. “I get you’re upset with me, but stop painting me like the evil bitch here and tell me why
you
did it if it was so wrong. You let me fuck you and then stayed. You didn’t drop me off and leave. You didn’t cut and run for the door after I kissed you. You let me take your clothes off and you spent the night. When does your guilt come into play?”
And then they were just arguing.
“I fucked you because I’ve wanted to since the day I met you.”
“So you’re attracted to me. Do you have feelings for me?”
“Of course I do. If I didn’t I wouldn’t have gone to you at the club.”
“So besides not wanting to feel like a home wrecker, what’s the problem? If you like me and I like you…” Annie brought her hands together in front of her chest in that meshing motion.
“Annie, you don’t even know me,” Oksana said.
“And you don’t really know me either. What’s your point?”
“That
is
my point.” Oksana didn’t skip a beat before she confessed, “I’ve been down this road before.” That stopped Annie’s sarcasm in her tracks. Her mouth flapped open. She didn’t want to believe that Oksana had broken up a couple before, but Oksana went on before her mind could ask the question. “Not this exact situation, but I was with someone a little like you. She was perfect and I loved her so much, but it turned out she wasn’t so sure either.”
Annie reached out her hand, but Oksana stayed put. Annie pulled her hand back and shook her head. “You cannot put that on me. I’m not your ex.”
“I know, but you’re just as dangerous. I have rules for myself. This…” Oksana pulled up the left side of her shirt and revealed the large Cyrillic letters that ran the height of her ribs. Annie had no clue what it said, but she was transfixed as Oksana pointed right to the K. “I got this to cover up her name. I branded myself with her name because I thought we would be together forever and she did everything in her power to make me believe that. I thought she loved me, I thought she loved my family, but she didn’t. Me,
we
were something she was unsure about.
“After that I promised myself I wouldn’t ignore warning signs anymore. Not with friends, not with my career, and I’ve stuck to that. I fucked up by sleeping with you, but you’re not at risk of a DUI now and I’m thinking more clearly. I can’t willingly walk into a relationship that starts like this, Annie. I don’t want you to marry someone you’re unsure about either. But I can’t take a chance on someone who is showing me every sign that they aren’t thinking clearly. You really think you’re just going to call the wedding off and everyone’s going to be all ‘Oh, okay. Whatever’?”
Annie snickered and shook her head at the face Oksana made, but she had a point.
“No. I don’t.”
“
I
want something better for myself. I need someone I know I can trust. I need someone who is one hundred percent sure about me. That’s not asking too much, is it?”
“No,” Annie huffed indignantly.
“And can’t you see how this sounds to me? You’re still engaged and telling me you have feelings for me. How do I know you’re not going to turn around in two months or a year and tell me you’re actually straight or that you’d rather be with someone who can father your children, because that I can’t do.”
“That’s not fair,” Annie grumbled.
“Why isn’t it fair? It is and you’re just mad because it’s not what you want to hear.”
“So what if we gave this a try and you decided you didn’t want me? Then what?”
“I don’t know. I have to think about my grandma and I have to think about Kat.”
“I want you to. I want to fit into
your
life. I’m not asking you to change just see if you can work me in.”
“And what about your friends? You think they’ll warm up to me when they find out the truth?”
“My best friend wants to meet you, actually.”
“You told her?”
“Yes. I needed to talk to someone. My other friends…”
“Your other friends and your family will hate me.”
“At first they might, but I don’t care about what they think.”
“Yeah, you say that now.”
“Well, what do we do?”
Because I’m falling for you even harder,
Annie wanted to say.
Plus, I kinda want to know if you’re wearing any underwear under those spandex.
“I don’t know.”
Annie’s ragged breath propelled her off the picnic table. She felt Oksana’s eyes on her as she paced in the dirt.
“Jeff comes back in three weeks and then I think I’m ending it.”
“And you hoped we’d hang out in the meantime.”
Annie turned on her with a glare. Oksana glared back until Annie relented.
“What should we do about this whole workout thing?” Annie asked with a sigh.
“I need to blow off some steam so I’m going to run up to the top. You’re welcome to join me. When you break things to your mother, we’ll refund her for the rest of this month.”
“No. I’ll pay for it. Just let me know how much.” Her mom really was going to kill her. “In three weeks—Jesus. In three weeks, can I call you?”
“No.” Oksana straightened her shoulders and focused those beautiful dark green eyes right on Annie. “When it all blows over, when you know, not when you think, not when you’re a little confused. When you
know,
then you call me.”