She sounded like she genuinely cared about me.

I said, “Well, thank you. And you know I had a crazy dream about you, too.”

“I’m sure you have,” she responded. “But it’s time for me to go ahead and go now. Nice talking to you, Terrance. Be good.”

“Oh, yeah, you know I will.”

“’Bye now.”

She wasn’t giving me an opportunity to say much else.

I said, “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

That was it, she gave me a fast dial tone.

I looked at my phone and said, “Damn! That’s how she treats me now?”

It’s amazing how a woman you used to have the upper hand on can flip the script and have an upper hand on you. After the conversation with Andrea, that’s exactly how I felt. She made me feel seven years younger than her instead of the other way around. I felt insignificant and childish.

I reminded myself that Andrea was only twenty-six years old. She seemed much older though. She had lived a full adult life already. And there she was giving me advice on how to live mine now. So how had I ruined hers? Had I turned her into a lesbian? Had she given up all hope in men because of me? What was the extent of my damage to her? And how much of that damage could be attributed to her husband? How had her husband, Jayson Walker, felt about his role in her life? Did he even care that she was no longer with him? Had he gotten over her and her relationship with me?

I never did get a chance to ask Andrea about her rumored miscarriage. Maybe that wasn’t my business either.

“Give them more of what they want, huh?” I repeated to myself out loud. “Starting with whom?”

I felt like I had already been giving women what they wanted, or at least lately. But maybe not with all of them, and maybe not everything they wanted. Who can give a woman everything? They don’t appreciate everything anyway. In fact, it seems like the more you give a woman, the more they want.

I thought about that and laughed. Some of us men were the same way.

Right on cue, I got another phone call on my cell from Rachel. I looked down and read her 614 area code once again on the screen. I took a breath and wondered, Should I answer this girl and see what she wants?

“Hell, I already know what she wants: she wants the royal Johnson,” I said out loud with a chuckle. I was being put to the test immediately. Could I really decide on giving women what they want?

I went ahead and answered the call before the phone stopped ringing.

“So what, are you gonna curse me out again?” I asked Rachel as soon as I answered the line.

“For what? It don’t seem to work.”

I was actually impressed with her persistence. If you stay at it long enough…