BREAKING POINT

Joey got to his feet but he made no sound other than a grunt Penny couldn’t interpret.  Maybe he was relieved at the interruption. Maybe he was disappointed. Or maybe he just had stiff muscles from all that physical work in the garden.

He offered Penny a hand to help her up and she took it but it didn’t feel anything like the hand that had been caressing her skin only moments before.

And still, Joey didn’t say anything. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to, but then he closed it again, uttering nothing more than another uninterpretable sound as he bent over to pick up the garden fork.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Penny picked up the baby monitor. She glanced over her shoulder as she went to collect her shirt.

He was turning over earth as if his life de-pended on making this garden look as per-fect as possible.

—————–

A foot on the fork. A pile of earth turned over. Smacking it with the prongs of the fork helped it fall apart and look like soil ready to accept new plants. Again and again, Jeremy went through the motions, ignoring the sweat that trickled between his shoulder blades and down his forehead to reach his eyes and make them sting.

How the hell had that happened?.

He’d had things perfectly under control…. At least to an extent. He actually managed to take some of those twinges of desire for Penny and turn them into something far more acceptable-an appreciation of all her amazing qualities.

Well that was what he’d thought he was doing. Instead they were there, bubbling away under their cover like a volcano getting ready to erupt and it had only needed the provocation of seeing her fingers pulling at the fabric clinging to her breasts as she pulled off biddi bids to blow everything sky-high?

Okay, it had needed more than that. What had been his complete undoing had been to see his own desire reflected in Penny’s eyes. He couldn’t believe it. Right now he was beginning to wonder if he had imagined it. But he hadn’t, it had been there. Desire. As in, she wanted him too…. To what extent he wasn’t quite sure. That sizzle in the air between them had completely fried his brain.

And then the astonishing taste of her… The sensations the touch of her hands created rippling over and then under his skin… The silky softness of her skin that he wanted to taste as much as touch…

Everything was just as he had imagined it. Even better…. Holy heck…if it hadn’t been for Howard waking up when he did, they would have been making love right here on this newly tilled earth. Without caring when Audrey would be back home. Without thinking about the effect it could have on their friendship or if Penny was ready for that kind of raw passion. Without any conscious thought of finding protection.

The kind of passion that would have had them getting even more sweaty and dirty and… And he’d better stop even thinking about what that might have been like because it was doing his head in.

Joey smacked another solid forkful of earth and watched it splinter and separate with satisfaction. He didn’t even pause before jamming the prongs into the ground again.

He kept going, until he heard the sound of  his car starting up and then crunching over the loose surface of the shelled driveway and he realised that she was still sticking to the plan and had gone off to buy the new vegetable plants. He could help get them in to the ground later but for now, he had done enough. A lot more than he’d intended doing, that was for sure. He should be ashamed of himself. But, if he was honest, he just wanted to turn back time. And have Howard sleep a little longer.

It was safe to go inside now, at least, and, man, did he need a shower.

It might have to be one of those cold ones, again, dammit.

——————-

There was an elephant in the room.

Somehow, they managed to get through the rest of the day, pretending that things were back to the way they’d been in recent days. Even during dinner Audrey sensed something was up with the both of them. And when she asked, they both said everything was alright and Audrey wisely didn’t push the subject.

When Joey was clearing up the kitchen as Penny settled Howard for the night and Audrey was working in the living room, Joey knew that something was going to have to be said to defuse the tension that even the hint of eye contact was generating.

Penny clearly felt the same way. He had his back to her-his hands in the kitchen sink scrubbing dishes-when she came back into the room but he could sense the determination in the way she was moving. The way she pulled a tea towel from the hook beside the old coal range and then came to stand right beside him.

Close enough that he could imagine that he could actually feel heat radiating from the bare skin of her arms.

“We’re both adults, Joey” she said quietly.

“….. And we like each other”

Surprise sent Joey’s glance skidding side-ways to meet hers. Like? Such an insipid word to encompass everything he thought about Penny. It didn’t come anywhere near touching the respect he had for her courage and generosity, his admiration for her determination and energy or his appreciation of the way she looked and moved and spoke… But he couldn’t put any of that into words so he simply nodded, hoping his smile would convey a little more than ‘like’.

Penny picked up a plate and began to dry it, as if this were a perfectly normal kind of conversation to have while a household chore was being attended to. “And we both know this is never going to be anything more than friendship.”

The tension remained around them as Joey simply murmured his agreement but something struck an odd note.

Why?

What was wrong with him that would have excluded him as even a possibility of being a life partner? Why did she not want them to be more than friends? Did she not trust him? She should….. He’d never done anything to hurt her.

It took a moment for him to focus on what Penny was saying now.

“….. I can’t put what we have now at risk, Joey” she was saying. “That kiss shouldn’t have happened. And we shouldn’t let something like that happen again”