Women and Restaurants (Patreon)

God. What the hell, seriously? Couldn’t he have taken me somewhere normal instead of this, dear Lord, dump? And this was the best I’d managed to find in six months?

I let out an annoyed breath and tightened my grip around the glass of kompot, shifting my gaze from the disgusting green walls with those stupid Slavic patterns to the food on the table. Though honestly, my eyes should’ve stayed on the walls. No, I like potatoes, and I like fish too, generally speaking, even if this one looked like it had been fried back during communism. And I probably would’ve eaten all of it happily, because for the last six months my diet had mostly consisted of cheap yogurt, instant noodles, and cheese rolls after shifts at H&M. But the fact this was our fucking “evening together,” and our third date already, turned the whole thing into some kind of mockery.

I slowly dragged my long red fingernail along the rim of the glass and winced at the squeak. At the next table over, two men in work vests silently shoveled down bigos, occasionally glancing my way. One of them stared especially long. Didn’t even bother hiding it.

And the worst part was that I already understood that look way too well.

Six months ago, I would’ve said he wasn’t even looking at “her.” But now I knew he was. Boldly, pretending to eat and talk, but still staring. Staring at my lipstick-covered lips with that disgusting-tasting gloss that smeared the second I made one careless movement with my mouth. Staring at my bare shoulders, at my tits under the white top I’d specifically worn for this stupid date, already preparing myself for those looks in advance. But none of them, for fuck’s sake none of them, knew how much effort it had taken me to learn how to do mascara properly, use these stupid long nails, or walk normally in tight jeans without looking like a drunk construction worker in heels.

Fuck this.

I shifted my eyes toward Piotr sitting across from me and barely stopped myself from rolling them right into his face. He didn’t seem to notice the cafeteria with its peeling Coca-Cola logo in the corner, the sour smell of fried oil, or the way the men at the next table kept staring at me like I wasn’t here to eat but to put myself on display. No, Piotr sat there perfectly calm, slightly hunched over his plate with a cutlet, looking like a man who’d brought his girlfriend not to a worker’s cafeteria near an industrial district of Kraków, but to an actual restaurant.

“What?” he asked after noticing my stare, though before I could answer, he added, “Too hot or something?”

With that, he immediately went back to his plate and kept eating at a speed like someone was about to snatch the food away and not feed him again for the next six months, while I silently studied his face.

And the most irritating part was that the bastard was genuinely handsome.

Yeah, six months ago I wouldn’t even have allowed myself to think that. And if I had, I probably would’ve mentally washed my brain out with soap. But now, after spending so much time admitting that moving into this body had changed more than just my country from the UK to Poland, but also apparently my sexuality, I’d just tiredly accepted the fact.

Not made peace with it, no. Fuck that.

Accepted it.

The same way you accept rain, cold weather, or the fact that now you have to shave your legs and constantly take care of your hair.

And that pissed me off more than anything.

Because Piotr really was attractive.

Not “a handsome guy,” the way I’d say it before to friends at a bar while mocking some actor. No. I caught myself actually studying his neck, his hands, the stubble along his jaw, the broad shoulders under that cheap black T-shirt. And the idiot wasn’t even trying to look impressive. He just sat there eating his cutlet, drinking kompot, occasionally looking at me with that calm masculine gaze that made something inside me tighten strangely.

A nightmare? A nightmare?

And all I needed to do to get back to my 2026 from this damn 2009, and reclaim my life along with the winnings from that bet with the weird guy, was prove I’d been right. That women really did have it easier. That even a girl from the Polish provinces, with no education, no connections, and barely any money, could build a better life in a few years than a guy like me had by thirty-eight.

So what the hell was I even doing here?

“You gonna eat or not? You said you were starving,” Piotr mumbled through a mouthful of food, completely unaware that at that exact moment I wanted both to punch him and keep staring at him.

I blinked, snapping out of my thoughts, and irritably poked the fish with my fork.

“I am eating.”

“Uh-huh. For the last ten minutes. I know what you’re thinking about.”

“Oh yeah? Smartest guy in the room?”

Piotr snorted and took a sip of kompot.

“You act way too spoiled for a girl who usually eats dry instant noodles straight from the packet in the H&M stockroom.”

“Oh, shut up,” I muttered almost automatically, but I still felt my cheeks heat up unpleasantly from irritation and something else at the same time, because the handsome asshole was right, and apparently knew more about what I liked than I did.

I’d already opened my mouth to snap back harder, but at that moment one of the men at the next table suddenly chuckled to himself while chewing his bigos, and I realized too late he’d been listening to our conversation. Or rather, to me, because as it turned out, a female voice was impossible to make “unnoticeable.” Especially one like mine now. Not squeaky, no, but soft, young, standing out too much in this smoky room full of men in work jackets and heavy boots.

“Your girl’s got attitude,” he smirked at Piotr with a disgusting half-smile.

I instantly tensed.

A girl with attitude.

Was that really how it looked from the outside now? Not “Mark Thompson, thirty-eight-year-old man with opinions,” not someone who’d spent half his life arguing politics, economics, and how the world worked, but just... “a girl with attitude.”

Katarzyna Nowak. Twenty-one years old. Kasia. Cute H&M salesgirl with lips, nails, and tits under a white top.

I’d already opened my mouth to fire back with something sharp, but Piotr unexpectedly beat me to it.

“Yeah,” he said calmly without even looking up from his plate. “At least she’s not boring.”

The man snorted.

“As long as she doesn’t nag you at home later.”

I felt something twitch inside me with irritation. There it was. Exactly that. The male club. Those stupid half-jokes delivered in that tone like I was just a piece of furniture with breasts they could discuss between bites of bigos and sips of kompot.

Why the hell did this trigger me so much now? I used to be exactly like that, and I remembered perfectly well how meaningless all of it felt back then.

But still.

Now it irritated me more than the dumb customers who spent twenty minutes picking out a scarf for twenty złoty and then looked at you like you personally owed them happiness.

I sharply looked up at the guy.

“Nobody asked you,” I replied coldly, but immediately felt myself shrink inside because... because suddenly I got scared.

I instantly glanced at Piotr, and that was probably the worst part of the whole situation, how automatically I did it.

But Piotr didn’t even tense up. He kept calmly finishing his food, barely anything left on his plate while mine was still almost untouched.

“Relax, Kasia,” Piotr said more quietly now, finally lifting his eyes to me before adding so only I could hear, “If anything happens, I’ll hit him. Not a big deal.”

I blinked, staring at him, and for a second completely forgot about the men, the cafeteria, the disgusting smell of old oil, even my own irritation.

Because he’d said it so casually. No bravado, no attempt to show off in front of me. Like he was talking about something ordinary. Buying bread. Taking out the trash.

And worst of all, hearing it made something inside me feel... warmer.

Fuck.

I quickly looked back down at my plate and stabbed the fish with my fork like it was personally responsible for all my problems.

“How noble,” I muttered, finally starting to eat the damn fish just to shove all these thoughts and fantasies out of my head and stop thinking about the fact that since the day we met, we’d already had sex in my dreams at least five times. Maybe more.

“Yep.” Piotr shrugged. “I try.”

I rolled my eyes and demonstratively took a sip of kompot, though inside everything still felt strangely melted from that calm little “I’ll hit him if I need to,” said in a tone like it wasn’t even worth discussing.

And somehow that affected me more than anything else.

What the hell had happened to me? How had I become the kind of girl who melted over lines like that, getting taken on dates to some cheap cafeteria instead of the restaurants I used to take my girlfriends to back when I was still Thomas, complaining about how “modern women” only cared about money, status, and better restaurants?

Jesus Christ.

If someone back then had shown me my current self, sitting in a cheap Polish cafeteria in a tight white top, red lipstick on, holding a stupid glass of kompot while internally melting from one calm “I’ll hit him if I need to,” I either would’ve laughed in their face or punched them.

God damn it.

Was this really my life now?