“You should all be very proud of what you’ve done, especially you, Chase. I don’t know how you manage to pull it off all the times you do, but this man is a natural, he’s a real natural!” Mr. Capone waved his hand around the room, and all the men applauded. That is, all the men except for Chase.

He sat with his phone in his hand, staring at the screen in front of him. He had a blank expression on his face, but that was nothing new to the men who knew him, and none of them were concerned about it. He wasn’t the kind of man who was often very involved in the meetings he was part of, mostly showing up to listen to what the people had to say.

Mr. Capone didn’t focus on him long, continuing to drone on with his dull voice and the club’s agenda for the week. Chase didn’t think he would be involved in any of it, and he was too distracted to give it much thought anyway.

He had told himself that he didn’t care when Penny walked out on him. In fact, there was a part of him that really didn’t. He wasn’t the kind of man to chase down women, especially women who were threw ridiculous temper tantrums like she had. But he also couldn’t lie to himself.

It wasn’t long after she left that he began to feel the emptiness of her absence, and he wanted her back. The only trouble was that he didn’t know how to get her back. He wasn’t the kind of guy to start following her and bothering her everywhere she went. No, he had gone about it in a less intrusive way, hoping that she would answer his phone calls or his text messages.

But each one got either sent to voicemail or left on read, and he didn’t have the option of doing anything else about it. He wanted to. He wanted to pick up the phone and continue to call her until she gave him the time of day, but he respected her space, and he wasn’t going to push himself on her if that wasn’t what she wanted.

He didn’t know what else he could do. He wanted desperately to make things right, but she clearly felt that the problem was too much for her to deal with, and she wasn’t going to respond to any of his messages. He wanted to hear her out. He wanted to sit her down and listen to how she felt about things, but he couldn’t force her to do that any more than he could force her to pick up the phone and answer him when he called.

It was merely something he was going to have to wait out and something that was going to throw him into fits of agony while he did. He opened up her contact information, alone with his thoughts in the room. Sure, there were dozens of other men surrounding him, but none of them mattered to him. None of them caught his attention. It was just him and his phone, and no Penny.

He debated for a few minutes, trying to think of whether or not he should send another message. He didn’t want to bother her, but at the same time, she did have the power to end all communication if she wanted to. She could block his number, and she could make him stop contacting her. He hadn’t done anything to warrant that, but he knew that if he wasn’t careful, it could happen.

Chase thought about how it all stemmed from the stupid bet. The guys didn’t care about each other’s relationships with women. They only cared about how things were going with the club. But that didn’t change the fact that Chase liked to be different from the others. He wasn’t the kind of man who would use women like the rest of them did.

Sure, he’d get involved in bets from time to time, but he didn’t actually see a woman as an object. Sure, the women he’d been with were one-night stands he took home and just had fun with for the night. But when he met Penny, all he wanted to do was get to know her. Before her, none of the girls had been worth the time to talk to; they mostly just wanted to be a trophy girlfriend and had nothing substantial to say. Penny was different. She was intelligent, ambitious, and beautiful. He could be himself around her and expect something more than just a good fuck.

There had always been something about that girl that had his attention, and he couldn’t see himself ever changing his mind about her. But he didn’t want to be where he wasn’t wanted, so he wasn’t going to continue to push for something that wasn’t going to happen.

He sighed, typing out a quick message and hitting send. The last thing he wanted was to cause more tension between them, but he couldn’t help himself. He promised that would be the last time that he would contact her, no matter how badly he wanted to text her in the future. It was time for him to let go and move on. She clearly had, and it wasn’t doing him any favors waiting around for her to come back when it truly didn’t look like she was going to.

“Alright, everyone, unless someone has a question, I think that’ll conclude this meeting. Have a good night, and remember you are all valuable members of the Alabaster Club.” Mr. Capone wrapped up his speech with a smile around the room, and several of the men leapt to their feet. They would come to these meetings, but it was no secret among them that this wasn’t the favorite place for them to be.

Chase was eager to get out of there and move on with his day. He didn’t care what else the other guys were doing with their time. While he didn’t hold it against them for spilling the beans about the bet, he wasn’t thrilled about it, either. He knew that they had been trying to cause some sort of drama, as all of them very often thrived on drama.

At the same time, he knew that none of them meant any real harm by it. They were all very supportive of him and the shit that he got himself into most of the time. But that didn’t change the fact that he did want to have some space from them, and he wasn’t too eager to go out and do anything that they were fixing to go do.

“Hey, Chase! You wanna head out to that nightclub?” Jax smiled over his shoulder as one of his friends slapped him on the back, a broad smile on his face. Chase wanted to punch that smile off his face, but instead, he smiled back pleasantly and shook his head.

“Thanks, but not tonight. I’ve got enough things on my mind; I don’t feel like getting buzzed,” he said with a sigh. He didn’t want to share the problems he was having with any of them. Though he didn’t doubt that they cared for him, it didn’t change the fact that Chase was also a private individual, and he didn’t want to open up to those he didn’t trust with his most private affairs.

“You sure? It might do you some good to get out and enjoy yourself. You’ve been so quiet for the past few days, we’ve missed you!” James said, but Chase shook his head once more.

“I’m not feeling up to it, guys. You go on without me and have a good time. I’m going to go home and clear my head.” He gave them a look that told them he was serious, and the men backed off.

Chase walked to his car, then sat for a moment, watching as the other men came pouring out of the club. They were laughing and talking, many of them acting as though they didn’t have a care in the world.

He knew it wasn’t true. Most of them were dealing with their own problems in their own lives, but when they were together like this, they could all just have fun with each other. They didn’t have to be weighed down by their personal problems.

Chase sighed. He knew he’d have a good time if he went out with his friends. Hell, it would probably be the first step he’d need to take to move on with his life. But the fact of the matter was that he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to move on from Penny, and he didn’t yet want to face what that meant.

He’d make the decision one of these days and things would change for him, but until then, he was going to focus on himself and clearing his own mind. Penny meant the world to him, and the fact that she was now gone was more than he wanted to think about.

He’d go home. He’d clear his mind.

That would be the end of that.