Page 6 of Obsessed with the Player

It was cute. Even if it shouldn’t be.

I cleared my throat. “And what do you think I should to teach you?” I asked, voice rough. “I want specifics.”

Dan looked away from me for a second, shrugging. “You tell me. I just don't want to be in a relationship again, and you're the only person I know that has singledom down to a science. You're the best person for the job.”

So Iwasright that something had happened with his ex to trigger this whole thing.

This whole need to uproot his life and go to the least likely person for help.

When Travis, my best friend, had told me of Dan’s situation and askedmewhether I could help, I’d damn nearly fallen off my chair. As I said, I’d thought there was just no way that Dan would voluntarily ask me (even indirectly) for anything, so there had to be a very good reason for him to even be considering it.

And the truth was, there was something vulnerable in his eyes, in the line of his shoulders, in hiseverything, right now, and I just wanted, no,neededto know what if was.

But of course, he wouldn’t tell me.

I also wanted to know why the fuck me. Why not a stranger if he couldn’t stand me.

But the second part of his latest statement–that I hadsingledomdown to a science—made my gut tighten for some reason.

I was a very happy single guy. Had always been. I wasn’t interested in relationships not for any fear of commitment, but because I liked the way my life was, focusing on my goals, my gym, and my friends, and sex was an extra that I indulged in during my free time. And I was good at it.Great, more like. I was a charming asshole and I knew it.

I would have never gone as far as to call myself aplayerthe way Dan did, because none of the people I slept with ever expected anything else other than what I offered, even if I could see why it looked that way to him. I was in it for a good time, I didn’t do repeats, and, yes, I liked to have fun.

(There was also the fact that he’d met me while I was trying to sleep with his then-girlfriend, which, in my defense, I hadn’t known she was taken, but I digress).

So if I was me and I was fine with it, why did it feel like someone was fisting my stomach when Dan told me that he wanted me because I had‘singledom’down to a science?

Might be indigestion. That had to be it.

“So what? You want me to take you out to a bar and have a drink?” I asked tentatively.

“No, I want you to teach me to be single,actuallybe single, and do whatever it is that you do in your free, single man time,” he said very seriously, leaning into the table to meet me halfway. If I had still been right there, I would have been close enough for a kiss, and it would have been way too easy to simply grab onto his nape and slap my lips against his.

Don’t think about it,the wise part of me told me.

But then I processed his meaning. Histruemeaning.

“You don't want me to teach you to be single, Dan, you want me to teach you to letloose,” I said, leaning into his space, feeling vicious and bitter all of a sudden, grabbing onto his forearm when he tried to move back. “You wouldn't come to me if it weren't for that, would you?”

Dan visibly swallowed, and my eyes tracked the movement. The cafe seemed to fade all around us, my senses hyper-focusing only on him.

“I know you're the best at beingyou, and I know that being me is the last thing that I need right now. So are you going to help me or not?”

That didn’t sit well with me.

Neither did, for some reason I wouldn’t look at too closely, the idea of helping him be like me.

So I simply said, “No.”

“No?” Dan said, his eyebrows raising, dumbfounded and irritated all at once. “Why the fuck not?”

I let out a vicious smile with a tight jaw. “You think I have nothing better to do than to teach the more stuck-up, straight-laced, in-bed-by-eleven, always-in-a-relationship guy that hates my guts, to let loose? Please, give me some credit. Especially when I know you'll give up in less than the blink of an eye.”

Was it true that I had better things to do? Yes. But was it also true that the idea of where this was going also fucking with me?

Definitely.

Andthat, more than anything, made me mad.

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