MissManaged

Chapter Four

Tobin

Mornings started early on the farm. Cows needed to be fed and milked and let out to pasture. Barns had to be cleaned. As an organic dairy farm, we were required to provide access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, and exercise areas. That meant our herd spent most of their day grazing in the fields.

I rarely joined my father in the mornings. Normally he handled everything in the barn while I checked in at the artisanal cheese house we started a year ago. But today I needed to get my hands dirty and my body sweaty, and doing chores was probably the only way that was happening anytime soon.

Memories of yesterday’s encounter with Charlotte ran through my brain on an endlessly repeating cycle.

How she looked—hot, despite the fact that I’d obviously interrupted her morning coffee.

What she said, how she said it, the emotions that danced across her face while she spoke.

Charlotte was still angry with me, and I couldn’t fault her for that. The more I reflected on my father’s words, the more ashamed of my actions I became. I’d been accused of being cocky by both ex-girlfriends and acquaintances, and I always blew them off as being too sensitive or jealous of my confidence. But now I was second-guessing a lifetime of interactions.

As I completed the morning routine on autopilot, conversations and disagreements from the past ran through my head.

That time when a girlfriend in high school broke up with me because I told her I didn’t want to go to homecoming with her if she couldn’t afford a new dress and a trip to the salon. Obviously, there was no point of us attending if I wasn’t going to be homecoming king. I thought I was saving us the embarrassment of not winning the crowns, but she ended up going with her friends while I sat home by myself.

Or that time I’d boasted to everyone that my graduation party would be the most kick-ass party the school had ever seen, only for my parents to catch wind of it and cancel their weekend trip out of town so I ended up having a closely supervised lame-ass party that everyone left after an hour.

As if those two instances weren’t bad enough, there was the time I bragged to my fraternity that I’d have no problem whatsoever banging our biology teaching assistant but ended up being hauled in front of the student-wide judiciary with a sexual harassment complaint from her instead. What I’d thought were sexy attempts at getting her to go out with me, she’d considered unwelcome sexual advances from a student. That one I’d just barely escaped being kicked out of college for and led to me buckling down and focusing on studies instead of partying.

You’d think after having multiple examples of my overconfidence getting me in trouble, I would have learned my lesson. I was a grown man, not a stupid teenager. I’d been out of college for years. My father was right. I needed to act my age and not let my hormones goad me into acting like an idiot. For one thing, the consequences were too high now that I was in charge of the farm, but for another, I’d never get a woman to trust me enough to let me be in charge if I acted like a fool.

From now on I would be the man my father expected me to be, the man I wanted to be, and hopefully, the man that Charlotte would be willing to take a chance on. I’d keep it professional while we worked together, but once the project was done, I’d be taking her to dinner and getting to know her much better.

I mean, I’d ask her to accompany me to dinner and invite her to spend time getting to know me.

I headed up to the main house, my childhood home, at lunchtime and found my mother in the kitchen finishing assembling a platter of sandwiches.

“Hi, Toby. How’s your day going today?” she asked, grabbing a pitcher of tea out of the fridge and setting it on the already set table.

“Good, Mom. How’s yours? Everything good in the cheese house?” While I liked to check in there every morning, it was actually my mother who oversaw the daily operations. She managed the three workers and kept the production schedule, so we knew what to make, when.

“Yes, everything is humming along. You should stop in later. Your father and I are going to see if the cheddar is ready.”

“Sounds good.”

The door opened and my father walked in and took a seat at the table. “Have you heard from the website woman yet, Tobin?” he demanded.

I cringed and shook my head. “Not yet, but it’s not even noon.” I grabbed a sandwich and loaded up my plate with potato and macaroni salad. “Everything looks great, Mom,” I said, hoping to change the subject. I did not want to discuss what I did on Saturday with my mother.

“I know you’ve been avoiding me, Toby. Trying to get out of talking about how horribly you treated that woman.” She clucked her tongue as she filled her own plate. “You know better than that. I just hope you sincerely apologized. We don’t want her to think that’s how our family treats people.”

“I did, Mom. I know I screwed up and I’ll do better,” I promised.

She nodded and we dug into our food. We’d all been up at sunrise, doing our part to make sure the farm remained successful. We each had our role, and none was more important than the other. I oversaw the business side of things while my father assisted our foreman with managing the animals and my mother ran the cheese making. She and my father ended earlier these days and took weekends off, but I was often in my office or the barn until dinnertime and most of the day on Saturday.

If I ever got Charlotte to agree to go out with me, I didn’t know when I’d have time to see her. That was the first thing I’d work on. I needed to make time in my life for myself. It wasn’t my parents who drove me to work six days a week, it was my need to ensure Daniels’ Family Farm was the best, to prove I could handle the job my father had given me. But I could cut back a little and at least make time to get a haircut and spend time with friends, if I even had any left.

My phone rang, saving me from mentally reliving more cringeworthy moments from my past.

“Hello,” I answered without looking as I hurried to chew the bite of sandwich in my mouth.

“Hello, Tobin?” a sweet, feminine voice said. A voice I’d become very familiar with over our weeks of talking about what I wanted her to do for me.

No, not for me. For the business.

“Charlotte, uh. How are you?” I said, stumbling over my words.

My parents stopped eating and focused their gazes on me. The scrutiny was too much, so I stood and walked out on the porch to get some privacy.

“I’m good.” She paused and I braced for bad news.

My first instinct was to start talking, telling her how great it would be to work with me and how many doors would open once she had our business. Instead, I bit my tongue, knowing how my boasting would sound.

“Have you made a decision?” I asked when she remained silent.

“Yes.” A sigh. “I’ll work with you, Tobin, but I expect that we’ll both behave as professionals the entire time.”

I couldn’t help my grin as relief swept through me.

“That’s great, Charlotte. I promise you won’t regret giving me a second chance. Would you like to come out to the farm this afternoon and get a tour?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t pushing too hard.

“Sure, I don’t have anything scheduled for the rest of the day. How does one thirty sound?”

Getting to see her in an hour and a half? “That sounds perfect. I’ll meet you where you parked last time.”

“I’ll see you then, Tobin,” she said and hung up without waiting for me to say goodbye.

That was kind of annoying, and rude, but I let it go. Charlotte was coming here, and we were starting over. I hurried back into the house to give my parents the good news.