I get two miles in on the tread, then my solitude is interrupted by my neighbor, Jenn.
Jennifer Vaughn has lived two doors down from me for eight months and has made her interest known in approximately forty different ways, ranging from subtle to legally actionable.
It’s not that she isn’t beautiful. She’s a stunning woman. Petite, porcelain skin and long, fire red hair with bangs that fall over her freckled cheeks. I just haven’t been interested in exploring a love life.
Today she's wearing shorts that ride completely up her ass — a genuinely excellent ass, I want to be clear; she has undoubtedly put in the work — paired with a sports bra that crisscrosses in the back. I know about the back because it is currently facing me as she performs squats that are so elaborate they might constitute a religious ceremony. She's watching herself in the mirror with the concentration of someone who is also watching me watch her.
My cock twitches.
And honestly? HONESTLY?! I could give him a fucking standing ovation right now.
Gay my ass, buddy.
We just had a physiological response to an attractive woman like a completely normal heterosexual man. Rosalie doesn't know shit.
I slow my pace on the treadmill, bring it down to a walk, and step off. Head to the free weights and start loading the bar.
Jenn chooses this moment to turn around, clocking me with a smile she has absolutely practiced. "Bennet. I didn't see you there."
She saw me there.
"Good morning, Jenn." I reach for the collar to secure the plates.
"Early morning?" She drifts toward the machine closest to me with the unhurried confidence of someone who has never been turned down and isn't expecting to start today.
"Board meeting." I take a long drink. "You?"
"Couldn't sleep." She tilts her head. Her brunette ponytail falls over one shoulder. She is objectively, measurably attractive. She is standing close enough that I could touch her if I reached, and my body has confirmed this morning that it is functional and interested in women. But I feel absolutely nothing except a mild guilty wish that she would go to a different machine.
That's the part I can't explain to Rosalie.
It's not that I don't notice. It's not that something in me is missing or broken or pointed in a different direction. It's that noticing has never been the problem. The problem lives further down the line, in the part where you let someone close enough to do something about it. In the part where you make yourself that vulnerable again.
I don't do that part. Ican’tdo that part.
"You should come to my friend's rooftop thing Friday," Jenn says, smiling. "It'll be fun. Low-key."
"I've got a thing on Friday."I don't have a thing on Friday.
She seems to accept the rejection with more dignity today. "Some other time."
"Sure."
She drifts back toward the squat rack. I put my earbuds in. My cock, apparently satisfied that he's made his point, settles back into irrelevance.
Gay my ass.
I've got a board meeting to survive.
But ugh.Fuck.
Rosalie has colonized my brain, and she's not paying rent. Because now I feel the itch. The need toprovesomething. To put myself out there, get back on the horse, demonstrate conclusively and with empirical evidence that I am aheterosexual man who is capable of pursuing a woman like a normal person.
Except.
Isn't this exactly the fucksicle I'm already in? I hired women to prove to the world I could get woman after woman. Built an entire persona around it. Became the bad boy billionaire as a coping mechanism with a publicist and a wardrobe budget. And now the logical next step my brain is proposing is:date someone to prove to your sister you're not gay.
These are not, I will acknowledge, stellar choices in a lineup.
