by Penny Wylder
“She’ll do great. They both are very passionate. That’s all you need when you’re selling something like that.”
Rage clouds my vision, and I stand up, starting to pace so I don’t scream. “Let me get this straight. I ask you for money to start a business in a field where I am already successful and sought after, and you’re saying no and giving the money to Lillian. The girl who maintained a C average in her communications degree at the community college and fucked my boyfriend behind my back so she can start an art gallery in a town of sixty thousand people where there are already five art galleries? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Mom blinks at me, and then she sighs. “This is why your father and I delayed in telling you. You always fly off the handle. Always the foul language, always the anger.”
“I’m not angry mom, I’m fucking livid. My entire life I’ve done nothing but try to please you. Even when I’m doing something that I love with my life, I’m trying to make you proud. I’m one of the best hair and make-up artists in the state. I’ve got contracts on three major movies later this year, and regularly go to Nashville to work on major theatre tours, but by all means, let’s give the money to my sister who knows jack shit about art.”
I hear a small gasp behind me and turn to find Lillian standing in the door, hand on her stomach. Anger and determination fill her gaze. “I know about art, Diane.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap.
Lillian pouts. “I don’t know why you can’t ever be proud of me. I’ve tried so hard to be friends with you, to be your sister, and it’s never good enough. And now I’m trying to bring some culture to this town, and you’re stomping on that too.”
Tears flood my eyes and the room goes hazy with them. You will not cry. You will not cry. You. Will. Not. Cry. None of this is true. Lillian has done nothing but paint me as the petulant child, while she reaped the benefits. And I took it, because life was hard for us. Our parents are assholes and I knew what it was like to be under that pressure. But she’s just like them.
“If you wanted to be my friend,” I whisper, because that’s all I can manage. “If you wanted to be my sister, then why did you sleep with Alex? Why did you tell everyone that he dumped me before you started sleeping with him?”
She looks at me, and there’s nothing but smug satisfaction there. I’m done.
The thought is a relief and I say it out loud. “I’m done.”
“You’re what?” my mother says.
“DONE!” I shout. “I’m fucking done. All I ever wanted from you all was approval. One little bit of it. And I’m tired of chasing something that you’ll never give me. You’re not capable of it. Enjoy your miserable, shitty lives.”
I walk out the door, the assistant staring after me, and I don’t make it to the parking lot before I’m collapsing into tears.
My phone chimes, and I see a text from Glenn. Three words.
Can’t make dinner.
My stomach drops further. If he can’t make it then I have to go see him. Right now. I need to scream and cry and the only place I want to be is wrapped up in his arms. I wipe away the tears streaming down my face as best I can and start to drive.
15
Glenn
When the doorbell rings I’m not at all surprised. I knew that she would come when I cancelled. That’s the point. She has to know the truth. See the truth. That this can’t work. It’s over, at least for now, because I have to stand by the pledge that I made.
Her face is like a punch in the gut. “Diamond,” I say, and she pushes past me into the house before I can say more. She’s been crying, that’s very clear. But it’s not because of me. Diamond isn’t the kind of person to cry because someone cancelled dinner plans.
“It’s so fucked up,” she says. “They’re all so fucked up and they don’t even care.”
I follow her as she storms into the kitchen and tosses her bag onto the counter. “It’s the building. They’re not going to give me the money. They’re going to give it to Lillian and fucking Alex. To open a business they know nothing about because I didn’t go to college, and I hate them. But I’m done. Completely and utterly done.”
She stops, and I’m trying to make sense of her words while also trying to figure out how to tell her what I need to tell her. But she takes care of that for me. Her eyes stray to the calendar on the wall behind me and the words written at the top of it. “What’s that?”
“We need to talk about it,” I say.
She gives me a look, and I hesitate. But no. I have to do this. I will not be my father. I will not back down from commitments that I have made.
“Glenn, what’s going on?”
I clear my throat, and cross my arms. “When I was seventeen, me and Wallace and Frankie took a pledge. We named it the Dirty Thirty pledge. It stated that when we turned thirty we’d give ourselves a month of pleasure by sleeping with thirty women in thirty days. The only way out was getting married. Frankie and Wallace did. I didn’t.”
“You can’t have been doing this,” she says. “We’ve been together so much.”
“I haven’t done it,” I say. “But I’m going to. You were supposed to be the first one, and I put it off. But I made a commitment—a promise—and I’ve been planning on this for more than ten years. I can’t just walk away from that.”
Her mouth drops open, incredulity covering her expression. Then she laughs. “Fuck this day. I just lost my business, my family, and it looks like now I have to lose you too. You know what, whatever. It just figures. This is my life. It’ll always be my life. Just when I think things are going fine, they fall apart. I should have expected it. Have a nice life, Glenn. You and your calendar deserve each other.”
Diamond grabs her bag off the counter and storms out, the door slamming behind her and echoing through the house. I wait for the relief to come, for the settling I felt when I came home and had my decision made. I wanted her to leave. I orchestrated it so that she would leave.
But the relief doesn’t come.
Instead it’s panic, and pain. Sharp pain in my chest that I haven’t felt in years. Since my dad—the fucker who never kept his promises—walked out and I realized that this time he wasn’t ever coming back.
There’s nothing in the world as painful as realizing that someone you love just walked out the door forever. I can’t breathe.
Oh shit.
No.
I push the thought away, but it’s there now, and it settles like I hoped the relief would when I heard the door slam. I’m in love with her. I love her. Diamond Collins. And I just sent her walking out the door.
I might be the biggest idiot on the planet.
Pulling out my phone, I dial Frankie. He answers on the first ring. “You got your shit figured out yet?”
I don’t know how he knew what I was calling for, but he does. “On a scale of one to ten,” I say, “exactly how big of a dumbass I am?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “That would be a fifteen.”
“I fucked up, Frankie.”
He laughs. “Could have seen that coming. You can fix it.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
I can almost see him shaking his head. “Think back over the last few months. If Wallace and I can fix our shit, so can you. She loves you, you love her. Those feelings don’t just evaporate. Get your ass off whatever chair you’re sitting on and go get your girl back.”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
He sighs. “No, you’re pretty new at this. But you also didn’t deny that you love her. So figure out how to make it right.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
I clear my throat. “And Frankie?” There’s expectant silence on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry. I hope you know that.”
“Wallace and I both do. We knew you’d figure it out eventually.”
They’ve had more faith in me this entire time than I’ve had in myself. That hangs in the air for a second before Fran
kie says, “I’m hanging up now. You have work to do.”
“Right.”
The line goes dead, and I have to think. She’s not going to answer me if I call her. I know that, but I try anyway. As the line rings, I wrack my brain. Where would she go? When she walked into the house she was already upset. She was talking about the salon and the building, but she doesn’t own it yet, so she wouldn’t go there.
Her phone goes to voicemail, and I end the call.
I have an idea. It might not work, but I have to try. Diamond is just as stubborn as I am, and if I’m going to get her to talk to me or even listen, I need to find her. But first I need to make a call.
Fuck.
I really am in love aren’t I?
I look up the number and start to dial.
16
Diamond
My heart breaks a little as I approach the building that was supposed to be my salon. I was sobbing in my car, not even able to go into my apartment yet, when the realtor called and told me that the owner of the building wanted to meet with me one more time.
It’s a barely-there sliver of hope. But it’s something. Because right now my heart is broken. I’ve been stomped on and I feel like there are little tiny pieces of me scattered on the road between here and Glenn’s house.
It feels like Alex all over again. I never saw it coming, and I never saw this weird fucking pledge coming either. Thirty women in thirty days because of something he decided to do as a teenager? It’s gross. And unnecessary. But who gives a fuck? If he wants to leave me and do that, then good for him.
I let the anger surround me and give me strength. I allow it to hold me up because I know no matter how this meeting goes, I’m going to be weeping on the floor of my apartment in about an hour.
The realtor is waiting for me at the door, smiling, and I send a smile back that I hope doesn’t look how I actually feel. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she says, ushering me into the building.
“Did he say what he wanted to talk about? Because I can’t get the money in time. It’s not going to work out.”
She shakes her head. “He didn’t say specifically, but he indicated that he wanted to discuss your business.” Gesturing to the back, I turn, and my stomach drops to my feet. Glenn is standing there.
I turn and start to walk out. “Diamond, wait,” he calls.
“Why should I?”
“Five minutes, please.”
I whirl around on him. “Give me a good reason why I should do that when you just threw me to the side like a bag of garbage!”
Glenn looks briefly at the realtor and nods. I hear her slip discreetly out the door to give us privacy. “I don’t deserve it,” he says. “I know I don’t. But I happen to be the biggest asshole on the planet.”
“Yeah, you have that about right,” I say. “You can have two minutes. That’s it. Then I never want to see you again.”
“That’s fair.”
I wave a hand, telling him to get on with it.
Glenn clears his throat. “I told you about my childhood, but I don’t know if I ever specifically told you about my dad. He was an asshole. Even bigger than me, if you can imagine. He was in and out. He never stayed for long. But every time he came back, I was so excited. He would make me promises. Kid stuff. That he would take me to see one of the local ball games. Road trip. Even simple things like going out for ice cream.
“And then he would disappear. Every time. Chalk it up to childish optimism, but I fell for it every time. Until the last time. So I vowed that I would always keep my promises, no matter what they were, because I didn’t want to be like him. I didn’t want to be that man.”
He shakes his head and looks down at the floor. “In some ways I think it’s helped me. In other ways, it hasn’t. I need to learn that not all promises are worth keeping. And that watching someone you love walk away from you, especially because you drove them away, isn’t worth anything.”
My mind trips over his words. Someone he loves. He can’t be talking about me. Because if I think he is, and I’m wrong, it’ll break me. But Glenn is watching me, like he’s waiting for me to say something.
So I do. “You said you wanted to go out and fuck thirty women because of some pledge. You let everything go without a second thought. How can I—” I swallow, forcing myself to take an even breath. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“When I met you, that was the plan,” he says. “But I liked you. And so I told myself I was just putting it off for a while because of how amazing our sex was. But then we started to fall in deeper and I started to like it. And suddenly, when Frankie and Wallace said they were happy for me for finding someone, I snapped. I had broken a promise that I had made to myself. The same one that they had broken to me. Just like all the promises my dad had broken, and I needed to fix it. I needed to prove that I wasn’t the man who went back on his word.”
Glenn’s eyes land on mine, and there’s no trace of lie or insincerity. “But watching you walk out the door ripped me in half. And I realized that I love you.”
My breath catches in my chest. He said that. He really just said that. Glenn takes a careful step forward, and I let him. I should yell at him. I should scream at him. But he came back. He realized he screwed up and is trying to fix it. To prove that I’m worth something to him.
That’s something few people in my life have ever done. “You love me?”
“I do,” he says. “Completely. I can’t promise that I’ll always know what to do. I’ve never been in love before, but I know that you’re what I want, Diamond.”
I clear my throat. “I love you too,” I whisper. “I’ve known for a while, but I was afraid. I didn’t want to say it.”
He smiles at me, and I can feel our mutual relief melting the air around us. “If you need to do it,” I say, “if you need to keep your promise to yourself, I understand. But I’ll need some time—”
Suddenly Glenn’s mouth is on mine, and he’s kissing me hard. “Never,” he says between kisses. “I don’t need other women. I need you.”
I ease into him, letting his kisses start to mend the wounds of today. It will take time, but God, I am in love with this man. “You can use me,” I say. “For the pledge.”
“Fuck you thirty days in a row?” he says. “My pleasure.”
“Not that. You guessed at the club that first night. My given name isn’t Diamond, it’s Diane. I just hate it so I never use it. But for a night, it could be like I’m an entirely different person.”
He chuckles, kissing my throat, leaning me back so he has better access. “Are you going to invent new identities for each of the thirty days?”
“I’ll do what I have to,” I say, reaching between us and finding his cock hard. “It might be fun, and the state of your cock says that you agree.”
“I do agree. You don’t even have to do this, but I’ll be with you, no matter what nickname you go by that day.”
I start to pull my shirt over my head, and he matches me, stripping until we’re naked in this room. I’m glad the blinds are shut, because I want this view to myself. He’s so fucking perfect. I take him in, allowing my gaze to drift from his sculpted chest down across washboard abs to his erection and back to his eyes. I cant wait for him to touch me. “I get to pick the names,” I say.
“Deal.”
He reaches for me, yanking my body against his so we’re skin on skin, and then we’re on the floor together. Glenn pins me under his body, and it takes only seconds for him to bury himself inside me. There’s no time for teasing, neither of us will make it that far. He doesn’t have a condom and I don’t care. I need him close to me. I need to feel his cock bare inside me, that exquisite friction that is just us and nothing else.
He twines his hands with both of mine, holding me still as he thrusts into me, hard and fast and ruthless. This isn’t slow or lazy. It’s territorial. Claiming for both of us. He grinds down onto my clit, making sure I’m driven higher with every thrust.
His cock feels larger without the condom. Hotter. I love the sensation of being stuffed, impaled. Taken.
Our lips and tongues tangle together. He’s stealing my breath, and I’m giving it to him freely. I want him, and he’s mine. He’s not leaving. We’re here together.
The climax bursts behind my eyes, sudden and brilliant, and I quake under his body, breaking our kiss. He’s still fucking me, but he’s right there with me, groaning, coming, filling me up with liquid heat that makes me shudder. It’s the first time I’ve felt his cum inside me and I’ll never forget it. I’m molten inside, the knowledge that he’s filling me up with it sends me over one more time. I can’t breathe, completely devastated with the orgasm.
We come back to each other slowly, his forehead pressed against mine. I can barely control my breath, but I find my words somewhere. “We should probably get dressed. I came here to meet the owner of the building. Walking in on us having sex isn’t going to help my case.” Glenn smiles down at me. It’s a brilliant smile, and it doesn’t match what I just said. “What?”
“Well,” he clears his throat. “You just had your meeting with the owner of the building.”
My heart skips a beat. “You bought it?”
Glenn nods. “Technically I still have to sign the papers, but I made an offer that there was no way he was going to refuse.”
Tears blur my vision, and he kisses me softly. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did. Not just because I want you to talk to me, but because your family can go fuck themselves, and you’re going to be brilliant without them.”
“You were listening?”
Rolling to the side, he tucks me into his chest. “I didn’t absorb most of what you said until after you left, but yes. Tell me what happened.”