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I don’t do anything except meaningless flings these days, and Gwen is hardly the right woman for that sort of arrangement. She works for me.
It doesn’t matter if her lips are perfectly formed and her voice is sweet and gentle. It doesn’t matter that I want to touch her hair to see if the waves are as soft as they look.
None of that matters.
What matters is that I am late for work.
I have to get up. Now.
I stumble to the master bathroom, scrubbing my hand over my face and groaning again as I go. I pride myself on staying fit and healthy, but right now, I feel old.
In three years, I’ll be forty…
Not that forty is old. Far, far from it. And yet, I’m not twenty anymore.
I can’t stay up all night listening to a dog bark and then feel spry in the morning. I can’t pull all-nighters like I once could.
The hot shower helps somewhat. The ache in my joints fades, and my mind starts to feel a little sharper. I get out, dry off, and pull on a pair of sweatpants.
I still can’t get the cobweb-like thoughts about Gwen out, though. But maybe they’ll clear away once I have some food. It’s tough to think straight on an empty stomach.
It’s a testament to my sleepy confusion that as I shuffle out of my bedroom and down the hallway, I still can’t stop thinking about her.
Do her socks match today?
Is she feeling cheerful or nervous and flustered? Will she flirt with me again, like she did last night?
The strange thing is, I want her to flirt with me. I want her to bat those pretty lashes and try to hide a smile. I want her to look at me like she’s thinking the wrong things—thoughts she shouldn’t have about me.
Why do I want all that? Nothing will ever happen with her. Nothing can.
I scrub my hand over my face again and groan.
Wake up, Brock.
Maybe this is all because I slept in an empty bed. An empty bed is as bad as an empty stomach when it comes to feeling deprived of needs. I need attention from women. Call it a weakness. I’ve indulged in meaningless, short-lived flings for years, and they satisfy me. I don’t need anything more. Definitely not a relationship. The mere thought of getting serious with a woman makes my skin crawl.
I married Mia. All those years ago…
I married her, and I hurt her.
Not intentionally, but still. It takes two to argue, and that’s what we were doing when I crashed that rental car.
She was in pain because of me.
We divorced.
Never again.
But these flings I’ve been having… one-night stands, quick vacations with women a few times a year, meet-ups in foreign countries… they’re wearing me down. They satisfy my needs, yes, temporarily. But the satisfaction is shallow and doesn’t last.
And my last date, that tedious, four-hour affair with Vanessa Von Kemp, was nothing but a frustrating bore.
It’s not until I’m about to step into the entryway that I realize where I walked. I had no intention of coming here when I left my bedroom. On the contrary, I had a vague plan of heading to my kitchen.
What is wrong with me?
It’s like all those pointless musings about Gwen carried me here. Right now, I can hear her. It sounds as though she’s somewhere over near the front door.
