She debated whether or not to change after working out but between the short 45 minute timeframe she had set and her lack of interest in putting in too much effort for this person who didn't think she was worth his time, she had decided against getting dressed up and opted for just staying in her gym clothes and a ponytail.
She texted him "I'm ready when you are"
"Meet in the lobby?"
"Sounds good"
She threw on her cardigan and grabbed her purse and looked at herself one more time in the mirror.
"You are good enough as you are" she reminded herself one more time as she grabbed the handle and walked out of her hotel room.
She promptly forgot what she had just told herself and was already a bundle of nerves by the time she reached the elevator and was pulling at her shorts, and annoyed at her hair as she stepped into the elevator. The door shut and the elevator started moving down toward the lobby and she was still fidgeting nervously.
The doors opened on the third floor and there he was, the same tall, dark, and handsome man with eyes she just fell into if she looked too long... so she quickly looked away, faking a broad smile to pretend she wasn't nervous and pretend she wasn't worried about her appearance. "Hiiiii, nice to see you!" she said as she snuck a glance and saw he had a broad smile on too as he stepped into the elevator and let the doors shut behind him. "yea, long time no see!" His dark hair was pulled back into a smooth bun and she immediately started imagining what it would look like down and how it would feel to run her fingers through it. He was taller than her with a broad-shouldered football player stature and a frat boy swagger, all of which both intimidated her and turned her on, especially in this tiny elevator. Neither of them went for a hug, but the lack of a hug stood out and made it feel even more awkward as they left the elevator and walked out of the hotel while exchanging small talk. They both commented on the weather, and the location, and anything else easy as they walked to the nearest restaurant to grab food. They sat down and ordered beers to start with.
The waitress came back with the beers and she immediately grabbed hers and took a swig, needing something for her hands to do other than fidget and needing the alcohol to get her through this.
As she took a long sip, she looked over and he was holding his glass above the table and had his eyebrow raised. She put her glass down "I'm sorry, did you want to cheers?" And he said "obviously, it's been so long, cheers to hanging out"
She raised her glass, tapping his, and said "cheers!"
He took a big swig of his drink and said "well let's address the elephant in the room, let's talk about us"
She almost choked on her drink, sputtering nervously "what do you mean?"
"Well, I feel like we left things in a weird way and we should probably talk through some things"
"Do we have to?" She said, not really sure where this was going or what it was going to help. The situation was what it was, they had made their decisions and moved on, what more was there to say?
"I mean I guess not but don't you want to? I want to"
"Ok, well, tell me what you need to say. Tell me what you think we need to talk about" she said, taking another long drink for courage.
He said "we left things in a weird place. We haven't talked in years. You obviously deleted my number but I hadn't deleted yours"
"I told you to lose my number, whether you did or didn't is on you but you didn't use it so I don't really see the difference" she said, "is that all? You wanted me to keep your number?"
"No," he said, leaning forward with his big hands around his glass "you have to admit we have a connection. I'm sitting here across the table from you completely turned on. There is a chemistry between us that is undeniable, we have an effect on each other."
"Sure" she said, still not understanding the point of this conversation but happy to hear she wasn't the only one who was incredibly... distracted. She stared at his big hands encircling his beer glass and thought about them on her body instead. It was easier to be in her head than to look in his eyes.
"The way I see that we left it," he said "is that we were really physically attracted to each other and we had a good time, we had lots of fun but you had more feelings and I didn't so you decided it was best for us to stop talking."
She felt herself blush, honestly embarrassed.
was this man really blaming her for having feelings, blaming her for stopping them from speaking?
Like she was broken for reacting the way she did.
She didn't know how to respond and as she was staring at the table and trying to form a response, she started to get mad.
What a cocky fucking son of a bitch.
She looked up at him, right in the eyes she's been avoiding, and...
she realized he was being earnest, he really did think he was trying to help, trying to address something between them but he was also just so arrogant that he couldn't see how his perspective on things was just ...
never going to make her happy.
That was it, she realized as she breathed out, her anger deflating somewhat, he didn't have feelings for her, he had just said it himself. She had feelings and she had projected her feelings on him and had assumed he had feelings for her as well.
She was still embarrassed, and angry, and struggling to figure out what to say.
"You're Right" she said hoping the conversation would drop "it was my fault, you didn't have any feelings for me, I had things I needed to work through" and she couldn't look in his eyes while she said that so she glanced at the bar. She saw a man in workout clothes sitting alone at the bar.
"Yea" he said, obviously missing her negative reaction "it's hard because i think we could have had a lot of fun together."
That was too much. To ignore her feelings and try to guilt trip her for not being more fun?! She was done.
"Thank you for asking me to hang out and thank you for wanting to resolve anything that left over from years ago." She said as she grabbed her wallet and placed $10 on the table. "I think we've worked it all out and I'm going to go find someone with feelings" she quipped sarcastically as she stood up.
He looked confused as she walked away towards the bar and she didn't care, he could go fuck himself.
She sat down next to the man at the bar also wearing workout clothes and said hi, starting on her next round of small talk for the evening. She leaned in to say something to the workout clothes man next to her, who cares what his name was, and as she leaned in she glanced over her shoulder at Jacob who had turned his chair to face the bar and was frowning at her and sipping on his beer. She felt a shiver run through her at that dark smoldering look and she imagined him pulling her across his lap and spanking her again for her bad behavior. But he would have to care to think she was being being bad.
Then she remembered him saying she had "more feelings" and she felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment once more as she turned away from Jacob and laughed at something Workout man had said, leaning forward as she laughed to put her hand on his leg. She continued chatting, her and workout man continuing small touches, until she finished her beer and then she excused herself to the bathroom. On her way back to the bar, a shadow passed over her and there he was in the hallway with her. She looked up at Jacob.
"Why are you behaving like this?" He asked
"You shouldn't care if you don't have feelings for me" she said
"I don't care" he said
She blushed again, feeling stupid again, but she looked him straight in the eyes and tilted her chin up just a fraction "Great, we're all good then"
He held her gaze in that cramped, dark hallway and she started to fidget, trying to stick to her guns that she could just walk away and find someone better, nicer, interested, at the bar.