Ryan
“How much have you told her?” Justin asked as soon as I got back to the deck. He and Roger must have been waiting to ambush me with the question.
I looked from one to the other and pushed between them. “I haven’t told her anything yet. Obviously.”
“Are you going to?” Roger pressed.
“If she sticks around, sure I will. That’s what we agreed to, right?” I grabbed three beers, tossed one to each of them, and cracked open my own. “What do you think of her?”
I’d never say it out loud, but their opinion meant a lot to me. I’d fallen hard for Isabella a couple of years ago, but they’d never liked her. When she dumped me, eventually, in favor of one of my business competitors, my friends had been full of “I told you so” and “good riddance.” Now I felt like I trusted them more than myself when it came to women.
“She seems athletic,” Justin said.
“Which is good. And she’s easy on the eyes,” Roger added.
“Did the girls say anything?” I asked. Not that everyone needed to get along, but women seemed to have a special kind of intuition when it came to knowing who among them was genuine and who was faking it. Whether or not they cared was a different matter.
“Reena likes her, said she’s funny and cool. Tammy and Lori are… being Tammy and Lori.” Justin rolled his eyes. Tammy was his girlfriend, and she wasn’t the nicest human on the planet. Justin stayed with her because she was always nice to him and she was good in bed.
“That sounds about right,” I said. “Do you want me to tell her about the club, ask if she wants to join?”
“Well, there’s one thing we’re wondering about,” Roger ventured, “a small concern.”
“What’s that?” I asked with a sinking feeling in my stomach. Had they figured out Alicia was my paid girlfriend for the night because I got stood up by a blind date?
Roger looked at Justin, who cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Uh, dude, she’s great, but she’s a waitress. Afternoon Delight is an upscale place, but…”
“You don’t think I should date a waitress?” I asked, the surprise evident in my tone.
“You can date whoever you want,” Roger said quickly. “But, when it comes to the club, we’re not sure that she’ll be able to, uh…”
“Keep up,” Justin finished. “Financially.”
It was a fair concern. The guys all contributed to the Diamond Club equally so everyone owned a share of the action, and the girls chipped in for their own diversions like shopping and dining out. That way there was never a question about who paid for what, who owed who money, or any of that nonsense; we could forget about the money and just have a good time.
“You guys don’t need to worry. If I decide to stick with her and if I decide to ask her to join us, I’ll pay her expenses if she can’t.”
“That’s not how it works,” Justin reminded him. “We all could have done that, but we agreed that the type of woman we wanted in the club requires a certain financial situation.”
I felt my fists clench at my sides. This whole discussion was pointless, actually. What did it matter if she could afford the club or not? She’d never be a part of it. She was a onetime date just here to help me out. Except I enjoyed her and kept forgetting that she wasn’t really one of us, that she was just a waitress. An upscale, fine-dining waitress…but a waitress nonetheless.
“I know that. I’m the one who created the rules for the club, remember? I’ll work it out, okay? Just trust me.”
Roger and Justin exchanged a look.
“Cool, man,” Justin shrugged. “You know we trust you; we just wanted to make sure you weren’t getting distracted by her, uhm…assets—which are abundant.” He punched my shoulder and grinned.
Justin and Roger were good guys. “Everything’s gonna be cool,” I said, smiling.
We all moved back into the main deck area where the music was blaring. Tammy and Lori were dancing in their bikini tops and shorts while Reena and Dylan were getting busy on the back bench. Justin and Roger joined their girlfriends’ dance party.
I stood off to the side and watched, thinking about how the Diamond Club started during our senior year of college. It was a secret group to start with, founded when Justin, Roger, Dylan, and I were traveling in Nicaragua and decided to volcano surf. Flying down the ashy slope was incredible. We all made it through for the most part unscathed, with just a few scrapes and cuts from the rough ash. Afterward, the four of us started talking about how great it would be if we could do something super-risky, something death-defying, on a regular basis. To anyone outside the club, it would appear to be just a regular vacation, but while we were gone we would find the scariest, riskiest activities to take part in.
Tammy was the first girl to be included in the club; she and Justin got together after our third month, but we didn’t include her for nearly a year. That was when Justin asked what would happen when we all ended up getting married. Would we include our wives and take out death-defying trips as frequently, or would we keep them in the dark and be forced to limit our trips or make them less risky—which nobody wanted.
We decided to include women if we’d been dating them for more than six months, and if the rest of the group agreed by unanimous decision that she could be included. It had seemed to work so far. My ex, Isabella, had never been invited in. For some reason everyone else saw through her charms. Everyone except me.
“Hey, Ryan!” Reena came up for air on the couch with Dylan. “Toss me a beer, would ya?”
As though I’d toss her a bottle of beer from thirty feet away. “As a host, I don’t toss, Reen, I deliver.” I walked over and displayed the bottle on the back of my forearm like a server in a fine dining restaurant. “Madame, your beer,” I said in a thick French accent.
“Merci, Monsieur,” she said, imitating my terrible accent with her own variation. She looked over my shoulder and smiled. “Hey Alicia, are you feeling better?”
I turned and there was Alicia, looking a little sleepy but otherwise good.
She nodded. “Hey, everyone. Yes, much better. Just needed a nap, I guess.”
I put my arm around her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Now that the new girl had returned and we were all together, everyone went back to business as usual. I pulled Alicia to the side of the boat and we leaned against the rail, watching the water.
“Are you seriously feeling better?” I asked. I put my hand on the back of her neck and rubbed. The contact prompted my cock to awaken and stir. She seemed to have that effect on me—the smallest motions or touches could turn me on.
“I feel like a new woman.” She pressed her ass against my hip and began to sink in toward me. I knew she felt the bulge in my shorts, because she smiled at me and slid her hand into my pocket.
“This has been a really fun day,” I said, testing the waters.
“For me, too.”
“It wouldn’t be horrible to do it again…would it?” I felt so awkward, the words not coming out the way I intended. “I mean, would you like to go out again?”
“Hmm,” she looked at me thoughtfully with a hint of sparkle in her green eyes. “Would you be paying me?”
“Uh, well, I don’t know…” Shit! I was paying her for today so of course that implied I had a going rate of a thousand dollars per date. “I guess?”
“I’m kidding,” she laughed. “I would love to go out with you. And if we’re going out again, you don’t need to pay me for today; I’m having a good time with you.” She looked toward the stairs leading to the bedrooms, and a slight flush came into her cheeks. “A really good time.”
I smiled and kissed her forehead. Was I really lucky enough to find a girl I could actually date and introduce to the Club? Time would tell…