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please,” Autumn said. “You didn’t make him work that hard.”

      Winter turned up an eyebrow at her statement. “I guess you’re right if you’re comparing it with the way that you are making Ajay work.”

      “I’d have to be interested to make him work for anything.” She ignored Danni’s giggle.

      “Who are you kidding?” Winter gave her a look of disbelief. “We already know you’re attracted to him, so I don’t know why you’d think we’d believe that.”

      “Yeah, he may be attractive, but he’s not my type.”

      “Since when is tall, dark and handsome not your type?”

      “Or muscular and successful with a deep powerful voice?” Danni added. “I’m missing what’s not attractive...”

      “Then, why don’t you date him?” she said defensively.

      “Sweetie, I don’t date men that my friends like or who like my friends.”

      “You guys are leaving out important facts.”

      “Like what?”

      Autumn sighed before continuing. “Like the fact that we don’t really get along.”

      “Just like Taheim and I didn’t get along? Look how that turned out.”

      “That’s different. You guys started off with that terrible blind date, otherwise, things might have been different between you initially. With Ajay, he may be attracted to me, but we don’t understand each other. I’m a bit of a loner sometimes and he doesn’t know the meaning of loner. He owns so many lounges, bars and nightclubs in Chicago that he’s always around people. And I’m not a health nut, but I eat nutritious foods. Have y’all seen the menu for his venues?”

      “Can you lay off the menu issue?” Danni said, shaking her head. “Seriously, you’ve been on his case about that since last year.”

      “That’s not all. He has this bad-boy attitude about him.”

      “Bad boys were always your type.”

      “Maybe when I was young and naive,” she said, looking to Winter. “Now I’m older. Wiser. I’ve dated so many different types of men and they all have the same thing in common.”

      “And what might that be?” Danni asked.

      She began moving the lettuce around on her plate, not really wanting to answer the question. She didn’t like sharing her insecurities despite the fact that the women sitting at the table knew her well enough not to judge her.

      “What do they have in common?” Winter asked when she didn’t respond.

      “Well, for starters, they don’t understand me. I’m too intimidating for a lot of men. Too opinionated for others. Too complicated for many. Too reserved for a few. And definitely too intelligent for some to find any common ground.”

      “Or, you’ve dated so many frogs that you’ve convinced yourself it’s you, not them.”

      “In some cases it may be them, but the common denominator in every situation is me. And let’s not forget about him.” She didn’t dare say his name out loud. It hurt too much. Made her feel too much.

      The table went quiet for a couple of minutes until Winter spoke. “Sis, sometimes we let decisions or people from our past affect the outcome of our future. What happened when you were in high school was unfortunate, but you can’t let that define your view on relationships. I don’t know why you think that you won’t find a man who understands you. But what I do know is if you aren’t willing to give a man a chance to try, then you may never know if what you think about yourself is true.”

      A couple of hours later, Autumn was still thinking about her sister’s words. She was usually the one giving the ladies advice, so it felt strange to be on the receiving end. She’d spent so long analyzing past relationships and wondering what went wrong. For a while, she blamed the fact that her parents’ relationship was so broken she was bound to mess up. But that really wasn’t fair. She adored her father, who was now back living in his home country of France. Yet she despised her mother, who was incapable of loving anyone but herself. Even so, Autumn knew deep down the problem she had when it came to the opposite sex was a result of what she’d gone through in the past.

      Her first serious boyfriend had left her emotionally damaged, and even now she couldn’t talk about him. Other men she dated after him had claimed to break up with her because she seemed detached. Indifferent. Impassive. Every relationship would start off going well, until things went sour and she still had no idea why.

      “Or you just don’t want to face the facts,” she said aloud to herself after she’d arrived home. Fact: most men were interesting, until they weren’t. It never failed that she eventually got bored or they got bored with her. Fact: a woman who claimed to feel butterflies when a man kissed her deeply should explain to the female population that the sparks lasted only for a short while. Eventually the sparks disappeared. Fact: a woman could go her entire life without experiencing a real orgasm as a result of sexual intercourse with a man. A fact that she wished weren’t true, but understood all too well.

      She went to her bathroom and turned on her shower. Her town house was only a few blocks from Bare Sophistication, and she’d fallen in love with the place when she’d visited Chicago before moving there. Before Winter had moved in with Taheim, she had stayed one block away, and Danni was still only a few blocks away.

      She briefly reflected on how many women went from living independently to living with a man once they entered a serious relationship. It was understandable why that would be the next step, and she supposed men had to go through the same thing when they decided to hang up their bachelor jacket and trade it in for a nice durable family coat.

      She scrolled through the music on her iPhone in search for her playlist filled with relaxing music. Once she found it, she connected her phone to the waterproof Bluetooth speaker she kept in the shower. As soon as the water rushed across her body, she immediately grabbed her plush purple loofah and dabbed it with her favorite honey-and-vanilla shower gel infused with coconut.

      She was just beginning to allow the music to control her body when an incoming text message interrupted her tunes. She never responded to a message while she was in the shower or taking a bath, but as she peered closer to the screen and read the name of the person intruding on her alone time, she froze.

      Oh, goodness, what could he be texting me for? They’d exchanged numbers last year when Taheim and Winter had gotten engaged, but not once had Ajay sent her a message. She dried one hand on the towel hanging outside her shower and unlocked her phone so she could read the text.

      Hey, what are you doing?

      Hmm. It was a little out the blue, but she was too curious as to what he really wanted not to respond.

      Just relaxing. What about you?

      She watched the three dots appear on her screen to indicate he was composing his text.

      I’m relaxing, too. Just got done playing basketball with the guys.

      Great, now I’m imagining him all hot and sweaty. Even as the thought entered her mind, she shook her head to try to get rid of it. She wasn’t the type to swoon over a sweaty man, and she definitely wasn’t going to start now.

      I just finished a yoga class with the ladies.

      She had barely hit Send before he responded.

      Yoga, huh? A man can do a lot with that type of information.

      She smiled despite herself. Ajay barely flirted with her in person, yet was flirting with her via text message. Maybe he’s just horny. Or maybe he was just warming her up before getting to the real reason he texted her. The water continued to hit her body, and the combination of the rhythm of the water and rereading what Ajay had written her was sparking her boldness. She wanted to entertain his flirtatiousness...just a little.

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