The second Quin disappeared from sight out the door, the smile left Taylor’s face and was replaced with a look of anger laced with disappointment. He took his drink from the bar and walked over to his brothers who were both looking around the room, obviously bored.
“What happened?” Isaac asked, clearly appreciating having something to focus on besides the rapidly filling room.
“She left! She told me I was too young, that I wasn’t good in bed, and that I have a small dick! Who the hell does she think she is?!” he ranted.
“She really said all of that to you?” Isaac asked, biting back a laugh.
“It’s not funny!” Taylor exclaimed, “She knows nothing about me, she’s a psycho.”
“Or she might be the sanest woman in the world,” Zac said, receiving another punch from Taylor.
“Can you marry her? She sounds awesome,” Isaac said.
“How could I marry her if she won’t even have sex with me?” Taylor asked, “God, she all but admitted to finding me attractive, so what was the problem?”
“Have you ever been turned down before? Like… ever?” Isaac asked.
“Of course I have!” Taylor said before pausing to think about it, “I mean, there was that one time… no, we wound up having sex in the bathroom. Oh! There was that girl… no, I called that one off. Um… there has to have been a time.”
“I honestly don’t understand why they find you so appealing,” Zac admitted bitterly into his bottle of beer, sniffing its contents before making a face and lowering it to his side again.
“Jealous much?” Taylor smirked, punching Zac again, this time just for fun.
“I’m definitely not jealous,” Zac said, “Now can we go?”
“Why wouldn’t she sleep with me?” Taylor whined as they walked toward the doors, his bottom lip practically sticking out in a full-on pout.
“Because she’s not young, stupid, and star-struck like most of the others?” Isaac suggested.
“Is there something wrong with me? Do I look bad tonight?” Taylor asked, ignoring Isaac, and getting in the backseat of the cab the bouncer had gotten for them.
“Taylor, did it ever cross your mind that she just wasn’t interested? That not all women will sleep with a guy they just met? That maybe she has, you know, a conscience?”
“I don’t follow,” Taylor said honestly.
“And you call me the moron,” Zac rolled his eyes, getting in the front seat and crossing his arms.
“Are you going home for the night already?” Isaac asked Taylor, “Why not go somewhere else and find a different girl to hook up with?”
“I don’t want to. I want to hook up with Quin.”
“You’re acting like a three year old. You know that, right?”
“I’ve just never felt like this before. I feel… defeated. I hate it, it sucks.”
“Welcome to the world of almost every other guy on the planet,” Isaac told him, “You’ll get over it. I promise.”
“Do you think she went out somewhere else? Where would she go?” Taylor asked, again ignoring Isaac.
“Just go home, Taylor,” Isaac stated, not really expecting Taylor to respond or even listen.
Taylor was the last one to get dropped off at home and he trudged up the stairs, opting for them instead of the elevator. He couldn’t stop replaying his encounters with Quin in his head wondering where he’d gone wrong. Those lines had worked on women before, so what made Quin so different? Sure, she was older than the girls he usually hit on, but she was still a woman. Hadn’t he made her feel wanted and special?
And then it hit him: he’d ignored her friend. Any self-respecting guy knew that if you wanted to get with a girl, you had to be nice to her friends, otherwise they’d start badmouthing you the second you had your back turned. Was that what had happened? Hadn’t the friend even offered to sleep with him? Taylor realized that he couldn’t even remember the friend’s name and decided that his ignoring of her had surely been his downfall. He could have flirted with her, differently than with Quin of course. Quin was the one that he wanted, and even though her friend had been cute, she wasn’t Quin.
Taylor shuffled through his place, looking and acting thoroughly depressed, doing his usual nighttime routine and he climbed in bed at five past midnight realizing that it was the first Saturday night he’d spent alone in months. For a minute, he considered getting back up, redressing, and heading out for a nearby bar to pick someone up, but something made him stay safely beneath the covers. As he drifted to sleep, his thoughts were only of Quin: her cynical smile, the way her dress had skirted flirtingly just below mid-thigh, and how even though she’d said several nasty things to him, all he could think about was how to find her and make his desires a reality. With time, he could get her to give in, he was sure of that. When sleep had almost taken him, a question Isaac had asked him earlier popped back into his head.
“Have you ever been turned down before?”
Taylor’s eyes opened and he stared into the blackness with amazement as he finally allowed himself to admit that he hadn’t. Not before that night. Quin was the first girl to ever tell him no.