Page 211 of Dark Love

Where normal people just kind of flop down, Stella floats down until her body meets the couch without causing any kind of indention at all.

“No, he won’t. We can’t get married.” Why did I say that? Now they’re going to be rabidly seeking details.

“Who can’t get married?” Fiona steps in with Daria right behind her.

“It doesn’t matter.” I fold my arms and give everyone a no-nonsense glare.

“There’s a story there. But first Daria has something she’d like to ask the group.”

We all turn to Daria. She lifts the tablet that she rarely uses to speak for her up and types. “I invited a writer friend to join us.”

Daria has a friend outside of us?

“That’s wonderful.” Juniper takes the words right out of my brain.

Daria’s fingers fly across the screen. “But I need all of you to say yes to him joining the group.” She stares at each of us.

Our group has always been all women. It’s slowly grown over the years as people invited friends to join in. How will the dynamics change?

But Daria has a friend.

Does it really matter if things change a tiny bit? She needs our support. “I think he’d be a wonderful addition to our group.”

Dylan gives me an eyebrow raise. “Me too.”

All the rest of the women chorus our response.

Daria opens the door and holds a hand out to the man waiting by the threshold.

A man of Middle Eastern descent steps in. He’s classically beautiful if a bit too lean, though there’s a strength about him that would make most women think twice about approaching him. But it’s his eyes that tell the tale of why this man is holding hands with Daria.

He’s broken, just like all of the women sitting in this room.

Each one of our stories seems to be worse than the next, but they’re all bad. And they’re what drew us together. We all write for various reasons, but each of us uses our words to cope with what’s broken inside of us.

“This is my friend Colin Knight.” Daria smiles at him with pride. “He’s a poet and an author.”

That’s another tie. Daria writes poetry, but she never shares it with anyone. They say her poems are the rarest of gifts, and that she only gives them to a person when that person needs them.

How can a person truly ‘need’ a poem?

But if she’s shared her words with Colin, he has to be someone very important to her.

“What do you write, Colin?” Savie comes to the rescue, breaking the tension in the room.

Daria and Colin move to the couch as he answers, “I write historical fiction.”

“How many books have you published?” Dylan asks.

“My tenth comes out next month.”

“Are you traditionally published or indie?” Garnet takes a sip of her wine.

The doorbell rings, and Dylan walks over to open it.

“Sorry, I’m late.” Harper steps in. “My flight got in late. Can you believe that they switched us to this hotel? I’ve never been in a place this fancy. Did you know there’s a butler? I just about fainted when that sweet man told me to follow him up to your rooms.”

Harper’s sun-kissed braids bounce as she walks. She’s already slipped off her shoes. There’s always something joyful about her, even though she has the hardest life out of the bunch of us taking care of her siblings in some small town in the middle of nowhere with barely two pennies to rub together. She first came on a scholarship from the event, but Dylan and I put money together every year to ensure she ‘wins’ again. Otherwise, there’s no way she could afford it.

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