“What if I am curious?” she asked. Her eyes flashed at me.
“That would be interesting, but I’m not sure I could handle you.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she teased.
“But as far as the dating situation, there is no situation,” I said. “I’m just chilling with that for now.”
“That’s not right,” she said. “A great catch like you should be out painting the town red with a beautiful lady on your arm.”
She leaned in a little bit closer as she said it. I knew the attraction was there. We could both feel it. But it wasn’t the right time for me. I knew it in my bones that it was just wrong and it would not work out if I were to try to pursue something with her right now.
“Thanks,” I said. “Maybe one day I will do that, but right now it isn’t in the cards for me.”
We chatted a bit longer and then I called it a night and headed home. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach as I did so. I wanted so badly to just tell Laney how I felt about her, but that nagging feeling inside of me that told me how wrong it was would not let up a moment. I was just going to have to deal with it for now, at least until that time was over and I was able to free myself from this shackle I found myself in.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about Laney. She was everything I’d always wanted in a woman and I had a feeling that she would never be the type to stray or cheat on her man. But again, I had thought the same thing about Tiffany. Clearly, I was a poor judge of character since I had allowed that to happen under my nose. It was awful the way something like that could really spurn you in your life and take over everything. It had changed me and made me a completely different person in so many ways.
I wondered if I would ever really be me again.
Chapter 2
Laney
I watched Mason leave the bar with a sinking feeling in my heart. He was such a great guy. It was safe to say that I’d had a massive crush on him since I first met him. He was so handsome, suave, charismatic, and just damn sexy. Plus, the fact that he was a hardworking, successful man was just icing on the cake. He was a genuinely good guy deep down. I knew that. He had a reputation as a tiger in business, but I could see he had a great heart. He loved his son and he worked hard to build his business. I respected him so much.
And I knew he had an attraction to me. It was obvious, but for whatever reason he hadn’t asked me out. I had thought about just asking him out a few times, but I always chickened out. It wasn’t that I was afraid of being turned down, but that I knew he would most likely say no. Even if he said yes, I knew he wasn’t ready to date anyone seriously. And I wasn’t really looking for anything casual at the moment. I could see how badly his heart had been bruised. He didn’t talk too much about it, only that he had been lied to and it had ended in a nasty breakup.
I finished up my shift at the bar and after cleaning and straightening everything, I headed on home. I cranked the radio loud the moment I fired the car up and I quickly lost myself in the zone of the music. It was my biggest release. After flirting and trading jokes with patrons all night hoping to get some great tips, I was done with people. I was ready to relax on the couch with a cold beer and watch something mind numbing on television.
When I got home, I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex. The parking lot was dark as shit thanks to the streetlamp that had been busted for six months. I’d contacted the landlord to do something about it and he said the city was working on it, but nothing had happened yet. It made walking home at one in the morning from the parking lot to the building a bit treacherous. I was always convinced that one day some psycho would step out of the shadows and attack me. I had started carrying pepper spray for this reason.
I kept thinking about Mason. I really liked him. I wanted so badly for him to grab me up and pull me across that bar and have his way with me. I’d fantasized about it several times, pretty regularly as a matter of fact. And this had even led to the more than occasional masturbatory fantasy. I wondered if he’d had any of those kinds of fantasies about me.