Steve walked into his bank and walked over to the counter to get and fill out a withdrawal slip.

His mind was churning thinking about his argument with Janet. Anxiety ate up his inside as he was coming to the realization that he had overreacted. He reasoned that even though Janet was wrong, she was only trying to help him out.

And then he thought about wanting to put her off of his team. Steve wondered why he was so angry, why was he allowing this to hurt him so much. He wondered if he was getting too serious too fast with Penny.

“Steve” someone said beside him. Then someone poked him in the side.

Steve looked and saw it was one of his former girlfriends.

“Steve, oh my God, I haven’t seen you in ages. What has it been? 3 years?” The pretty red head said with a huge smile on her face.

“Mary…” Steve said. He remembered that the last time he saw her she had a face full of tears when she caught him in his home with another woman. Someone Steve couldn’t even remember.

She then turned to a nerdish looking guy with glasses and a slightly protruding waistline and said to him, “Jack, this is Steve, he is the guy I dated right before you.”

Steve smiled and shook his hand, “Congratulations Jack…”

“So this is the man that was trying to date my wife to be.” Jack said laughing.

“Wife…married? You got married?”

Mary held up her left hand to show Steve the ring, “1 year, 2 months.”

“Wow…Mary…I’m happy for you.”

“Steve, you really need to stop running from it and find the one you can love.”

Mary hugged Steve and said, “I hope you find it, love is so much better than you think. I hope you are finally getting serious.”

“I am dating someone.” Steve said while thinking about Penny. “In fact, I am here getting some money for her right now.”

Mary smiled, “Steve is finally settling down. I hope it works out for you. Life is too short, you have to grab love wherever you find it. I found mine while trying to get technical support for my computer.” She said while giving her husband a hug.

“Take care…” Mary said as she and her husband walked out the bank hand in hand like the newlywed lovebirds that they still were.

Steve thought about how poorly he treated Mary when they dated as well as how poorly he treated Janet today. He resolved that he would treat all the women in his life much better than he had done in the past.

He walked over to a teller and gave the teller the withdrawal slip asking for 1500 dollars. He decided that this 1500 dollars was a symbol of his attempts to treat people more ethically than he had done in the past.

He smiled as he put the envelope into his pocket and walked out of the bank to his car. Tonight he would give Penny the money, tomorrow he would apologize. And then on Thursday night he and Penny would show up at card game as Steve gets more serious about his life and his love. At least that is what he thought.

******************************

Janet was sitting in her apartment talking on the phone. She said, “Terry, I miss you so much, when are you going to visit?” Janet said while talking to her fiance. “Please tell me it is soon.”

“Babe, please don’t rush it, I have a few interviews. It will be soon though.”

Janet whined, “It has been 6 months and I haven’t seen you. We agreed that after 6 months you didn’t have a job, you would come here or I would come back to New York.”

“Babe, I’m so close. I have two interviews next week.”

“Well, let me come back then.”

“We can’t afford it right now. My part time job is not enough to carry us.”

“Please,I can’t take this much longer. My manager is an asshole, I need you here baby.”

“What happened.” Terry said.

“He went off on me because I told him a girl was taking advantage of him.”

“Why are you in this guy’s love life?”

“Well I kind of set them up, but not really.”

He laughed, “You set a guy up with a gold-digger and then he the asshole because he got mad about it?”

“It ain’t like that.”

Janet heard a knock through on the door through the phone.

“Hey, I’m bout to go out with the guys, can we pick this up later?”

Janet heard Terry open the door and heard a few voices. It sounded like a conglomeration of men and women.

“Terry, who’s that?”

“Just some guys from work.”

“What yall gonna do?”

“Ahh we just going out.”

“Naw baby stay and talk to me.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

Janet begged, “I need you.”

“Woman, you go out play cards and do whatever you want. Do I say anything to you?”

“No…but, I really need.”

“So if you can go out, I can go out. I am going out right now, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Janet heard some laughing in the background.

“We are gonna be late.” A guy’s voice in the background said.

“Shh…Shut up”…Terry said to the people in the background.

“We have a dinner reservation that is soon, I will talk to you later baby…” Terry said.

“Ok…fine. Bye.”

Janet sat there wondering what was on tap in New York and she wished that she could be there. She also wished that she had never set up Steve with Penny.

Janet really needed to talk to someone so she decided to call Penny on her cell phone. She dialed the number.

“Hello.”

“Hey Penny, what’s up?”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.” Penny said.

“Steve…you better stop. No don’t touch me there. Imma get you.” Penny said speaking to a man int he background.

“Ahh don’t worry I…”

Then the phone clicked off.

Janet then called Ashley. “Hey Ash, I just needed to talk to someone tonight.”

“I shouldn’t have answered, I am actually on a date right now.”

“You are gonna have to tell me about it later.”

“Don’t worry I will, bye.”

Janet thought about calling Laura or Michael, but she figured with her luck they were screwing right now and that would totally throw her into depression.

She went to the television and turned on the television while she sat there thinking about being alone.