SEX THERAPY «d.s.»

Chapter Thirteen

"What is happening right now?" She asks.

"This is Simon." Diggy says. "You've seen him before, but I told you he was one of my patients. That was mostly a lie."

Justine still has that same, now ridiculous smile on her face. "Diggy." She says his name like it's a warning, like he better not say what he's about to say.

I feel Diggy tense up even more next to me, but he doesn't remove his hand from my waist. "I don't have a girlfriend, Ma."

"Diggy." She warns again, holding her hand up to try to stop him. "Don't."

"Simon is my boyfriend. And I love him." Diggy says. "I'm in love with him."

Finally, the smile from Justine's face fades away, just as her hand drops uselessly back down to her side, and she stares at us in disbelief. We all stand there in awkward silence, Justine staring at Diggy, a look of disappointment and anger in her face.

"I can't." Justine finally say, and he's voice sounds broken. "No. No. I can't."

She turns around, walks out of the room, and a few moments later we here a door slam closed. Then, after a few moments of silence, and loud cry.

I look at Diggy, who stares down at the floor, tears filling his eyes.

"Diggy," I say softly, moving to stand in front of him.

Diggy looks at me, fixes his face, and then turns to my mother. "Well, we can't let the food go to waste. Come on. Let's eat."

With that he walks to the dining room. I turn to look at my mother, who gives me a worried look. She walks over to me.

"Give them some time to work this out on their own. Don't push him to talk about it too much okay?" She says, squeezing my shoulders, and then leading me into the dining room where Diggy is already seated.

«•»

After a very silent dinner, my mother and I walk to the door. Diggy leads us there. I stop and turn to face him.

"I asked Aiden if he would take you two home." Diggy says. "I think I better stay here tonight and try to talk to her."

I nod my head. "Okay."

"I'll call you tomorrow." Diggy says.

I smile at him. "You better."

We share a kiss.

"I love you." He says, resting his forehead against mine.

"I love you, too."

We turn and walk out of the door. I look over my shoulder, give Diggy one last smile, and then walk away. For some reason, I can't shake this feeling in the pit of my stomach, this feeling of ominousness.

No matter how hard I try to ignore it, I just know that something terrible is about to happen.

"Simon," My mother says as we ride down the elevator.

I look at her.

"Why do you have a bodyguard?" She asks. "Diggy isn't some celebrity, sure he's rich, but why would you need one? Why would he need one? And don't lie to me."

I sigh. I know that if I tell her the truth, she's going to have something to say about it, it's going to change her entire opinion about my relationship with Diggy. But if I don't, she's going to be angry, because she knows when I'm lying.

"You got two seconds to open your mouth and tell me what's going on, Simon." She says.

"Aiden is my bodyguard, true. Diggy hired him because Diggy's father went to prison because he was a big drug dealer in Atlanta and murdered one of Diggy's friends. Diggy is the one that snitched on him. So, now he's broken out of prison and probably trying to find Diggy to get his revenge." I say all at once, blurring it out fast, and my mother just stares at me, dumbfounded.