One Step Away (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 1) (16 page)

Alexander nodded, focused, determined.

“Moving on: we’ve talked around this next
topic a bit, so tell me: what do women want?”

He didn’t even need time to think it over.
“Safety, security, excitement, fun, a sense of humor,
intelligence—”

“I didn’t expect a list. But okay, all of
that is true. But just as importantly, they want to
feel
.
Women are emotional creatures. A lot of the time, they make
decisions based on how they feel. We make decisions based on
reasoning and logic. That’s why men and women have such a difficult
time trying to understand each other. Knowing that women act and
react based on feelings, what does that tell you?”

“I have no idea.”

“When a gorgeous woman sees a guy come up to
her and compliment her, she feels bored. And of course, she wants
the opposite of that. She wants to
feel
.”

“Feel what?”

“Preferably excitement or happiness. But who
doesn’t? What matters is that when they’re with a man, women want
to feel something – even confused or pissed off isn’t entirely bad
every once in a while – just not bored. So you have to generate
that feeling while being mysterious. It drives them crazy, in a
good way, when women have no idea what a man will say or do.”

“Unpredictable,” Alexander said.

“Exactly. It triggers both their thoughts
and feelings. Do that—then leave them.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. Take off. Leave them.”

Alexander stood there, shaking his head,
waiting for more wisdom—that actually made sense, this time. But
that didn’t happen.

“What’s the problem?”

“Of course!” Alexander said, smacking his
forehead with a little more force than he’d planned, but he was too
riled up to feel any pain. “What normal guy doesn’t treat women
like that? Do you hear the crap coming out of your mouth?”

Damon released a deep breath and held out
his hands before his friend to convince him to continue listening
before rushing to conclusions.

“What? What now? I take her to a theater,
and in the middle of the play, I get up and say, ‘Hey, babe, I’ve
got more important places to be. But if you want a quick lay—well,
you know where to find me?’”

Damon put his hands on his hips, stewing
with bottled anger. “Are you done?”

“No! I’m not done. Is that how you treat
women?” he asked, pointing at his friend. “Like shit? Well, you
might be an asshole, but I’m not!”

“Oh, so now, I’m an asshole, huh?”

“Yeah! When it comes to women, you’re damn
right, you are!”

“So now,
you’re
the one instructing
me
about how to relate to women?” Damon smirked, shaking his
head. “And how’s that worked out for you?”

That question sapped all of Alexander’s
anger. Until now, he had no idea that he’d been breathing
heavy.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” Damon said,
settling himself down. “Look, I’m not trying to break you down. I’m
just trying to help.” He turned aside as though what he planned to
say next shouldn’t be overheard by others. “You’ve been there for
me, all right? I just want to do the same for you.” He let that
sink in for a long moment and then met Alexander’s gaze again. “But
I’m not going to force you to do something you don’t want to
do.”

Alexander, touched by seeing such emotion in
his friend’s eyes, decided to give Damon the benefit of the doubt.
“Okay. But I’m not going against what I believe in.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t ask you to.”

He let out a heavy sigh, determined to trust
Damon’s advice. “All right, so…I’m supposed to leave a woman. When
does this happen? After I first meet her or after a few dates?”

“Both. If you’re on the phone and you’re
having a great time, tell her you enjoyed talking to her, but that
you have to go. Then say goodbye and hang up.”

“But if I’m having a great time—”

“You hang up because you’ve created those
feelings inside her, and when you take those feelings away, they’re
left wanting…more. It builds anticipation in the best way. You’ve
heard ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’? There you go. Same
thing if you’re on a date, and it’s going great, wrap things up.
It’ll build the excitement between you. Always leave them wanting
more.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t treat a beautiful woman any
differently just because she’s gorgeous. By not complimenting her,
or putting her on a pedestal before you know anything about her,
you’re sub-consciously making her earn your approval. You’re not
saying it, but she’s feeling that way because you’re not trying to
impress her. So if she’s interested in you, she may try to get your
attention and earn your approval just because she’s not used to
being put in that position. She’s used to having guys fall over to
get her attention.”

Alexander nodded.

“Are you ready for the final lesson?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know why Marisa never found you
attractive? And I’m not talking about physical appearance. I’m
talking about you as a person.”

“No.” Alexander said. Of course, Marisa
never explained the reason why, leaving him confused and unsure how
to reverse the direction of her feelings.

“Women test men. They have an inner contempt
for men who are weak and do whatever they say and go along with
whatever they want. You’ve worked with women for the past thirteen
years. You’ve listened to them complain about men, and you’ve taken
mental notes to not fall in those traps. All good things.

“But as I said, if you’ve been reporting to
women for so long, you’re used to getting direction from them. That
means you’ve been in a place where you never had a chance to take
the lead and take charge – with the exception of smaller details
that you delegate to your own staff. But the bigger decisions have
been made by the women in your life. It’s the reason you’re
attracted to powerful women. It’s because that’s all you’ve known
since you grew up. And even if you don’t know it, it’s one of the
reasons why you’re in love with Marisa.”

“So what do I do?”

“As I said, women test men. You see it every
day and in every way. Watch sitcoms. Women are constantly
complaining about something and they get their husbands or
boyfriends to reluctantly agree to do whatever they ask. The women
come off looking like ballbusters. Some chicks get off on this. But
most women resent their husbands and boyfriends because they all
allow themselves to be commanded around like little children. They
don’t want to. I’m going to repeat that: women don’t want to treat
men this way. But men let them get away with it. And as long as
they’re in a relationship, women will always test the men in her
lives.”

Alexander said, “An old friend who was
married for years told me it’s just easier to agree with women.
There’s less drama. So that’s why I’ve always kind of, you know,
let Marisa have her way.”

“Did you even hear what you just said? You
said, ‘an old friend who
was
married.’ You’re taking
relationship advice from a guy whose marriage failed?”

He hadn’t thought of it that way. How had he
let himself accidentally sabotage his relationship with Marisa
based on faulty advice? He felt like a moron.

“Have you ever seen a totally hot chick in a
relationship with an ugly guy?”

“Yeah. That never made any sense to me.”

“And how many good-looking men do you see
with an unattractive woman?”

After giving it some thought, he said,
“Never.”

“Exactly. We’re more shallow. We’re drawn to
appearance. Women find it important too, but personality and humor
are sometimes just as important. Those attributes make them
feel
. And even when an ugly dude doesn’t take a woman’s
shit, it stirs her emotions.”

“So why do they keep testing?”

Damon turned to Alexander. “It’s the most
important lesson I could teach you. But it won’t have the same
impact if I tell you. So you have to figure that out on your own.
And you will. Once you put that together with everything we’ve
discussed and you act on those principles, I look forward to seeing
the man you become. Because when that happens, Marisa will fall in
love with you.” He directed his beer bottle toward the redhead.
“Now get out there and make it happen.”

Urged on by everything Damon had said,
Alexander walked up to the good-looking redhead, waiting for her to
return his stare. When their eyes met, he was tempted to look away
by habit. (He never maintained eye contact with Marisa because
she’d realize that he had more in mind than simply being her
friend.) This time, however, he locked on the woman without looking
elsewhere, until stepping up to her table.

Only now did he realize that a dark-haired
beauty sat beside her. The collar of her pink dress shirt peaked
through a tight purple sweater that emphasized her breasts.
Although momentarily stunned, Alexander didn’t let that emotion
touch his facial features.
They love playing games
.

Alexander re-directed his gaze to the
dark-haired woman then gestured to Damon at the bar. “You know, my
buddy told me that he could guess your name by a simple palm
reading.”

“Really?”

Damon, watching them with a wicked grin,
raised an eyebrow at the dark-haired woman, challenging her to
whatever claim Alexander just made.

She turned to her red-headed friend. “This
I’ve got to see. Back in a bit.” She grabbed her purse from around
the back of the chair, got to her feet, and headed toward
Damon.

“Is that true?” the redhead asked Alexander.
“Can he really do that?” In her early twenties with freckles
sprinkled across her nose, she put a hand through her thin bobbed
hair.

“No, but something told me that I’d like to
get to know you, so—”

“You decided to lie.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Do you do that often? Lie to get what you want?”

Taken aback, but unwilling to let her detect
his momentary discomfort, he noticed that she was playing along.
“Only when it works to my advantage…like if I get pulled over.”

“Oh, so that happens often, huh? You run
into trouble with the law a lot?”

“It’s just racial profiling. Now, they’re no
longer going after African-Americans and Hispanics; they’re coming
after us white folks to even things up, you know, for statistics.
You mean you haven’t been pulled over lately?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you’re not attractive enough.”
Those words came out of Alexander’s mouth before he even knew he’d
uttered them. His stomach clenched. He’d been enjoying himself, and
since the conversation felt so effortless, he’d decided to trust
whatever words crossed his lips. As her mouth dropped open in
shock, rather than acknowledge his crude comment, Alexander did the
opposite by holding eye contact and looking nothing but completely
assured, allowing a corner of his mouth to lift upwards in the
makings of a smile.

And then she broke into a grin. “I can’t
believe you just said that. It was so unbelievably…rude.” Then she
chuckled with great humor. “My name’s Cassandra. And you are?”

“Alex.” He just looked at her, startled that
she hadn’t thrown her drink in his face and left him there,
dripping wet.

She held his gaze. “So what do you do,
Alex?”

“I’m in between jobs right now.”

Cassandra couldn’t hide a flicker of
disappointment. “It’s a difficult economy.”

He waved off the suggestion. “Today was my
last day. I got a promotion, so I start my new job on Monday.”

“Oh,” she said, her tone perking up. “But
you didn’t tell me what you do.”

“I’ll give you three guesses. If you’re
wrong, you need to tell me what you do.”

She straightened up in her chair, eager to
begin. “You don’t work with your hands.”

“Wrong. I work on the computer much of the
day.”

“I meant, like a mechanic or a carpenter. So
that’s not the same thing.”

“So you’re saying I use my feet on the
keyboard? Which automatically makes me think that’s habitual for
you. You must be very flexible. I’m guessing you’re—”

“Hey, it’s my turn. So you work on the
computer. That would make you a writer. No, a professor. No wait:
an architect. That’s it, an architect.”

“I said three choices,” Alex said with a
hint of a smile. “You’ve already named five. You lose. You owe me
an occupational title.”

A wide smile lit her expression. “Now, I
know what you are. A librarian. She nodded with pride.
“Occupational title? Who talks that way, unless they’ve used the
Occupational Outlook Handbook? Ha! A librarian.” She leaned
forward, holding his gaze with a tempting smile. “That’s kinda
hot.” She licked her lips. “So, Mr. Librarian with a new promotion,
what job did you—”

Alex shook his head. “Not so fast. Someone
who knows about the Occupational Outlook Handbook has either worked
in a library or has recommended that resource…like a guidance
counselor.”

“One for one. Impressive. I work at Bedford
Falls High School helping kids looking to get admitted to college
all the way down to students with various…issues.”

“Juvenile delinquents? What do you do when
they’re bad? Get out the paddle?” He couldn’t believe the words
that tumbled out of his mouth.

“Corporal punishment? My, oh, my, Mr.
Librarian. You’re either demented…or quite naughty.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. It
was a test to see how he’d respond, to see if she could get under
his skin and fluster him.
Leave them wanting more
. “Well, I
have to get going.”

“I guess it’s kind of late for a librarian,”
she said with an edge, making it apparent that she didn’t want
their conversation to end so soon. “Have to go home and read a book
before bedtime.”

“No, I’m just going to play some darts.”

“Did you want to do it here or…”

Make her earn your approval
. “Thanks
for the offer but you’re not my type.” Just saying those words made
him want to cringe.