“What do you want from me?” she finally asked me. “If you want something, then say it. I would.”

Damn she was digging into my ass. What did I really want from her? An ego boost? But I wasn’t willing to outright bang her, unless she made it terribly easy for me. If I had to do any real work to get it, then I wasn’t up for it.

It’s funny what complications can do to a guy. All of a sudden, my alert penis fell limp. The party was over. I didn’t want anything from this girl. I didn’t even want to talk to her anymore. I just wanted to crawl up in my bed and go to sleep.

“Mmm hmm,” she grumbled. I had failed to answer her. She said, “You know what I want?”

I just looked at her. I had an idea of what she was about to tell me.

She said, “I want a motherfucker who can say what’s on his damn mind. If you don’t feel like coming, then say you don’t feel like coming. If you got yourself some new got’ damn whore, then say you got some new whore. And if you want some new fuckin’ pussy, then say you want some new fuckin’ pussy.”

She looked me dead in my eyes when she spit out her last sentence. But I kept my cool.

I said, “But that’s not really saying what you want. That’s just saying what you want a guy to do. So what do you really want?”

I was knocking the ball back in her court.

She said, “I want a man who’s gon’ handle his business.”

I continued to stare at her. She still wasn’t getting it.

“That’s still not saying what you want. That’s what you want a guy to do.”

“Well look, what you want me to say?” she snapped at me. “You didn’t answer the damn question at all.”

She had another point. I had to chuckle at it.

“I don’t think the shit is funny,” she told me. “There’s too many damn cowards out here if you ask me.”

In a blink, my mind flashed back to that day in Cancún, Mexico, when I let the closest woman who ever got to me slip away. Andrea had called me a coward, too.

“So how bold should a man be?” I asked Rachel, while thinking about my past again. A man could be as bold as he wants to be, but if he’s not in line with what a woman wants, it won’t make a bit of difference. I was bold in saying that I didn’t want to be tied down. And where did that get me? It got me out of a fine woman.

“I mean, you don’t have to be nasty about it, but at least give a woman a chance to make up her mind based on the truth. That’s all I’m saying,” Rachel answered.

Our talk had gotten a lot deeper than I expected.