Chapter 2 #2
The rejection stung, but I’d been half expecting it. What I hadn’t expected was the small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “What’s funny?”
“You. You just gave me this big speech about changing your habits, and then you asked me out.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Except this is the fourth time we’ve met. Think about that.” She straightened up. “You want to impress me? Stop trying so hard. Stop playing whatever game you think this is. Just… be a normal human being for five minutes.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Then learn.” She walked away to serve a customer, leaving me staring after her.
This is the fourth time we’ve met.
I turned that over. I’d counted two — the bar last Friday, and tonight. Where the hell was she getting four from?
Just be a normal human being.
It sounded so simple when she said it. Like all I had to do was flip a switch and suddenly become someone else.
But I didn’t know how to be anyone else. I’d been Handful for so long — the player, the joker, the one who never took anything seriously — that I didn’t know what was underneath. Or if there was anything underneath at all.
I drained my drink, left another twenty on the bar, and rode back to the clubhouse.
Glitch looked up from his laptop the second I walked through the door. “She said no?”
I stopped. “How do you know that?”
“Holden texted Colt. Colt told Lilac. Lilac—”
“—told everyone,” I finished. “Fuck, this club gossips worse than a hair salon.”
“We prefer to call it intel sharing.” Glitch closed his laptop and leaned back, arms crossed. He looked at me the way he looked at code that wasn’t behaving — like he was trying to figure out where the error was. “She said no?”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m a little shocked.” He tilted his head. “You don’t usually get turned down. You have a whole system.”
“I don’t have a system.”
“You absolutely have a system. Grin, compliment, lean in. Works every time.” He paused. “Or it did. Are you losing your touch?”
“I haven’t lost anything.”
“You just told me a woman said no.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. He had a point.
“But I’m not shocked she said no,” Glitch continued. “I’m shocked you went back.”
I dropped onto the couch across from him. He wasn’t wrong about that either. I didn’t go back. Ever. If something didn’t work the first time, I moved on. There was always someone else. Except apparently now there wasn’t. “Why?”
“You don’t chase. That’s your whole thing. Women come to you, you have your fun, you move on.” He tilted his head again, studying me. “This is different.”
“She’s different.” Glitch waited. I turned it over, looking for the right words. Usually I didn’t need words for this. Usually I didn’t think about it at all.
I thought about it. How was Austen different?
She was beautiful, sure — that copper hair, those green eyes, the curves that haunted my dreams — but I’d been with beautiful women before.
Plenty of them. “She’s not impressed by the cut,” I said finally.
“She just… sees me. The real me. And she thinks I can do better.”
“Can you?”
“I don’t know.”
Glitch nodded slowly. Behind him, Wren appeared in the doorway — his girlfriend, the tiny blonde who always looked slightly overwhelmed by the clubhouse chaos. Glitch heard her before he saw her; he turned, and smiled at her.
“Seb? I made coffee. Do you want some?”
“Yeah, sweetheart. I’ll be right there.” She disappeared, and Glitch turned back to me.
“You went back,” he said. “That means something. What, I couldn’t tell you.
” He stood, tucking his laptop under his arm.
“The real question is whether you want to be better for her, or for yourself. Because if it’s just for her? It won’t stick.”
He left, and I sat alone in the common room.
On the far couch, one of the club girls was curled up with her phone, scrolling through something with her knees pulled to her chest. Dark hair, decent body, nothing special. I didn’t know her name. Didn’t need to.
Holden’s voice landed in my head, uninvited: Women are either targets or obstacles to you. They’re never just people.
I’d done it without thinking. Cataloged her in about two seconds and filed her under irrelevant.
Down the hall, I heard Glitch’s voice followed by Wren’s laugh.
For yourself.
I turned Glitch’s words over for a while. I’d never done anything for myself that cost anything. Fun, yeah. Easy comfort, sure. But actual change? I’d never wanted anything badly enough to go after it that way.
Did I want it now? I didn’t know.
Just be a normal human being for five minutes.
Austen’s words. She’d made it sound so simple — like there was a version of me that existed underneath all the bullshit, just waiting to be found. Like stripping it back was something a person could just decide to do.
But what if there was nothing underneath? What if the performance was all there was?
Only one way to find out.
I pulled out my phone and searched for nearby bookstores. If I was going to try something different, I might as well go all in.
Jane Austen, here I come.