Oz smiled, although it hurt inside. He had to do better, or he was going to lose a great woman.
“But yeah,” Gloria continued, “it wasn’t until after he married Roz and she showed him how he was destroying his own children with his neglect, did he start having a real relationship with me and my siblings.”
“You’re close to your siblings,” Oz said.
“Very,” Gloria agreed. “We all have different mothers, but we always stayed close. We loved dad so much, and was so proud that Mick the Tick was our father, that we would get together just to brag about him.”
“You bragged about an absent father?”
Gloria nodded. “I know. But that’s how we were. We took the crumbs he gave us. We loved him. He was our world. Still is,” Gloria said with an odd look of trepidation on her face as she transferred the eggs from the skillet and placed them on plates.
“You’re a good woman,” Oz said to her, his look serious. “You’re a good woman, Glo.”
Gloria was touched by his words. She took a moment to savor what he said, and then she looked up at him. “Thank you, Oz,” she said.
“And I’m going to do better by you,” Oz made clear. “No more shit like I pulled last night. I’m going to be better all around. You know that, right?”
Gloria wasn’t going to lie to him. “I know you want to do better,” she said.
“I will do better,” Oz insisted. “I know Mick the Tick was the absent father in your life. I know Bella Caine was a busy fashion designer and was the absent mother in your life. But I won’t be the absent boyfriend.”
Gloria considered Oz. He always did that. He always made her feel like his queen and would promise her the moon. And then he’d become his old, neglectful self again. She was already over all of his big talking. He would have to show her this time.
But she smiled, and reached out her little finger. “Pinky swear?” she said to him.
Oz laughed. “Oh, I can do better than that,” he said as he got up, walked around the island until he was standing behind her. He began kissing her neck. “That better?” he asked her.
“Much,” Gloria said, leaning into his kisses. “In fact all.”
And then Oz lifted her bathrobe, and revealed her naked butt. He rubbed his erection against her as he kissed her, making her wet just from his dry hump. And then she heard him unzip his pants. And then he entered her. And suddenly he was showing her alright. They were showing each other. Their eggs were getting cold as they got hotter and hotter, and as Oz pumped harder and harder. And when he opened her robe and squeezed her breasts as he continued doing her, Gloria thought she was going to cum right then and there.
But she held on. But she could manage it for only for a few minutes longer. But that was all it took. She came with a roaring cum. And then, as if they were totally in sync their entire relationship although nothing could be further from the truth, he came right behind her.
CHAPTER FOUR
A funny thing happened just as Gloria pulled up at The Drakos to drop Oz off. An old tune came on the XM radio station Glo listened to just as Oz had kissed her and was about to get out. It was Diana Ross and the Supremes singing the Holland-Dozier-Holland penned song, You Keep Me Hangin On, and the words caused Oz to look back at Gloria as if that song had busted him. He looked mortified.
But Gloria laughed. “Boy bye,” she said to him, playfully pushing him, and he laughed too. Gloria had that wonderful way about her, he thought happily.
“Until tonight,” he said, kissed her again, and got out of her car.
But as she drove away, that song was still playing, and the words to that song that had mortified Oz, was haunting her.
“Why do you keep coming around
Playing with my heart?
Why don’t you get out of my life
and let me make a new start?
Let me get over you,
the way you’ve gotten over me!
Set me free, why don’t cha babe?
Get out my life, why don’t cha babe?
You don’t really love me -
You just keep me hangin’ on.
You don’t really need me -
You just keep me hangin’ on!”
By the time Gloria pulled up in front of the diner she owned, she pulled out a tissue and was wiping the tears away. Oz made her happier, and sadder, than any man ever could. But was he really just keeping her hanging on? Was she so in love that she couldn’t see what a blind man could see?
She thought about how he kissed her goodbye at The Drakos, as if he couldn’t get enough of her, and then she, happily, drove away. As if last night and his neglect never happened.
But that was their relationship in a nutshell. Volatile and then serene. Over and over again. It was well past time for them to face their problems and do something about them. They both had to know that rollercoaster ride was getting old. But she just couldn’t figure out how to convince him to get them off of that rollercoaster, or get off herself.
Because she also thought about how Oz made her laugh, and made her feel, and how she believed he loved her but didn’t know how to nurture that love. That side of him gave her the strength to keep hanging on. Time would tell if he was taking steps toward changing as he claimed he was. But one thing for sure, she couldn’t keep going up and down with that man. He was too damn old and she wanted to start a family. One more slip up, and she was gone.
For good this time.
She grabbed her purse and her phone, got out of her Lexus, and hurried inside. The diner was still half-filled with the breakfast crowd as her new manager, Marjorie Douglas, was waiting as she entered.
“Where is she?” Gloria asked, but didn’t stop walking.
“In your office,” said Marjorie, following her. “It wouldn’t have gotten to this point if . . .”
Gloria glanced back at her when she didn’t finish her sentence. They were heading toward the back office. “If what?”
“If they would respect me as manager.”
They were in the back hall when Gloria stopped walking and looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“They don’t want to take orders from me. I’m too young, they figure. And I guess too black for their taste.”
“I thought that was handled at our last meeting,” Gloria said.
“Oh, they listened to you. They heard what you said. But nobody’s doing what you told them to do. They’re all in their forties and their fifties and they think I’m way too young to be in charge. They don’t respect my authority at all.”
Gloria exhaled. “I know it’s stressful. I’m the owner, and it took them a while to respect my black ass too. That’s how it is around here. There are precious few of us in this town, and plenty of them, and they know it. That’s why it can’t be us versus them. I won’t allow it at any business I run. But some people? That’s all they know. I’ll have another meeting. They’ll come around I promise you.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then they’ll be getting up out of here,” Gloria said firmly. “They will either respect you and your authority, or leave. Those are their only choices.”