Don't Stop Believing

Hanson

Hanson

“I can’t figure her out,” I said to Brian when we were training together at the facility.

I had learned my lesson about going to public gyms. I had just finished on the treadmill. I sat on the bench watching Brian lift weights.

“What is she doing?” he asked.

“I don’t know, man. One moment, she’s all over me, making me feel like I’m everything she ever wanted, and the next, she’s so cold it kills me.”

“And your professional relationship?” Brian asked. “Doesn’t that have something to do with it?”

I shrugged. “I guess so. I just don’t get it.”

We sat in silence, the clank of the weights the only sound ringing around us.

“Where do you stand now?” Brian asked after a while.

I shook my head, even though he wasn’t looking at me. “She’s barely talking to me. Since Saturday, I haven’t heard from her. She wasn’t at the office at all on Monday, and the last time I talked to her, she was short with me.”

Brian finished his weights and sat up.

“I don’t know how to help you,” he said. “You don’t usually care about women, and they’re usually too clingy. Now it’s the other way around. I don’t know this Hanson any more than you know what she’s doing.”

I chuckled. “I’m not that bad,” I said.

Brian looked at me hard enough that I conceded.

“Yeah, okay. I get what you’re saying. She’s just impossible to read. It drives me crazy because I usually know women. But it’s not a big deal. I’ll just have to get ass somewhere else.”

I winked at Brian who shook his head.

“You’re something else,” he said, walking to the treadmill to finish his workout.

“I’m done here,” I said. “I’m going to hit the showers. I’ll see you later.”

Brian waved at me before pushing his speed up to a steady pace. I left the gym and walked to my locker. I had told Brian I would get ass somewhere else like I didn’t care, but I did care. I didn’t understand it, but I cared. I didn’t know what was going on with Lacey, and I didn’t like it.

Brian would never understand. He was hung up on an ex he saw as his star-crossed lover and I never even saw him hook up with anyone else. He never even hooked up with anyone at the party despite my urging. So how could he understand, when for whatever reason he kept himself closed off to contact of pretty much any kind whatsoever with other women? For once, talking to Brian about Lacey just wasn’t helping.

She had been upset about the photos of me and other women, almost like she’d been jealous. But I had been trying to make it clear that I wanted her and only her, and she wanted nothing to do with me.

If this was some kind of game she was playing, I didn’t understand it. At the party, she had been more than okay until the moment we’d been about to get down to it. She’d pulled away from me so fast and left me hanging with blue balls that I hadn’t wanted to take care of my needs with someone else.

When I’d tried to call her, she hadn’t answered her phone.

I was Hanson Bell. I never took it personally when a woman gave up on me. It was damn good riddance most of the time. But this time, it was almost offensive.

At least we had the meeting later today. She would be forced to see me, and maybe we would be able to figure something out. If this was the only way I was going to have contact with her, so be it.

Chapter 31