Chapter Thirty-Four
RHYLAND
“N o,” I announced simply, slamming the door to my penthouse.
It was eight o’clock—too early for anything that wasn’t morning sex, finding out you’d won the lottery, or both. I hadn’t even had my first coffee yet. I wasn’t equipped to deal with this shit.
I strolled casually toward my open-plan kitchen, flicking the expensive espresso machine to life and withdrawing my MacKenzie-Childs mug. The doorbell chimed once, twice, three times in urgent succession. This time, I dutifully ignored it. I grabbed my phone from the quartz countertop and shot Dylan a quick message.
Rhyland: Hi, it’s your favorite dick owner. Just checking in to see that you feel better.
And because Dylan was mom to a toddler and those fuckers tended to wake up at six in the morning like they had some busy, hot shit to do, she answered immediately.
Dylan: I feel so much better. Thanks. Grav and I are enjoying bagels and cream cheese on the patio if you want to join us.
Rhyland: I’m good. I’ll check in later though.
It was a good idea not to waste all my time with someone I was hardly going to see in a few weeks. And it was cruel to let Gravity keep forming an attachment to me when I had no intention of sticking around in her life in any serious capacity. Besides, I had to draw the line somewhere. When I found out Cosmos was sick, I dropped everything and ran to her. While it was nice in theory, it was a disaster in reality. I didn’t do relationships, monogamy, or loyalty. I was a hot fucking mess. Thanks to the people on the other side of my door, who were now banging on it with their fists, refusing to get the hint.
“Rhyland!” my mother chided in a rage. “Open up!”
The coffee machine tutted, and I slipped the mug inside, fixing myself a macchiato. I readjusted the elastic of my low-hanging gray sweatpants, saying hello to my morning semi, and scrolled through the headlines of the Financial Times on my phone.
“Rhyland.” It was my father’s turn to reproach me sternly from behind the door. “This is ridiculous. Not opening the door is not going to stop us from telling you the news. We’re just going to send you a long text about it.” Pause. “Worse, we’re going to voice message it to you. In five parts. Each three minutes apart. I know how much you loathe voice messages.”
True story. People under eighty who left voice messages were not fit to join polite society. We needed to banish them without parole. Who even did that?
Still, I wasn’t sold on the idea.
I sipped my coffee, sliding my ass onto a counter stool.
“You know.” My mother’s cunning tone arrived next, and God, I’d forgotten how much I hated her. How much her presence in my vicinity made my skin crawl. A coping mechanism after spending half my lifetime trying to get her to hug me, to say a good word, to accept me if not validate me. “A journalist person called me the other day. Someone from Tech World—”
My head snapped up from my phone. It was the biggest tech site in the world, frequented mainly by industry insiders.
“She told me you’re about to launch a huge app and asked if I’d be willing to talk about my soon-to-be-billionaire son. I said I respected your privacy.” She took a strategic, deliberate pause. “I might not remain so respectful, though, if you refuse to even open the door for your own mother.”
I checked the time on my watch—Apple, the absolute lowest of the lows—and groaned. Yup. It was not even 8:30 a.m., and I was already being blackmailed by the woman who birthed me.
I hopped off the stool and made my way to the door. Flung it open. My parents were standing exactly where I’d left them, my mother wearing one of her hippie tunics with leggings and a criminal number of bracelets and chains and my father wearing whatever the fuck she told him to wear. The control she had over this man had him in a choke hold. It was another reason why I was allergic to relationships. I liked my balls where they were, thank you very much.
“What do you want?” I asked tiredly, sipping my coffee.
“Aren’t you going to invite us in? Offer us some coffee?” My father glowered.
“No,” I said evenly. “Now answer my question.”
Then I noticed something. They were holding a dog each in their hands—one of those insufferable breeds that was tiny and loud and cost about the same as a luxury car. A Pomeranian, I think. The canine version of Farrah Fawcett, if you will. The minute my gaze landed on the two canines, I knew. I just knew. Suddenly, the reason my parents had sought me out in recent months finally made sense.
“No,” I said, resolute. “No way. I’m not doing it.”
To their credit, my parents didn’t even attempt to deny what this was about. “Oh, come on, son! We have nowhere to put them,” my father chastised.
“They’re not fucking accessories, Dad. You’re not supposed to put them anywhere. You’re supposed to take care of them.” My voice rose, and I hated that I was showing emotion. I never did with them. There was no point. “What made you think you’d be fit to become a dog owner? You did a shit job with your only son.”
“Here we go again.” My mother slapped her own thigh, shouldering past me and stomping into my apartment. My father followed suit. They put the tiny dogs down, letting them roam my living room unsupervised. One immediately ran to the kitchen island, raised its tiny leg, and took a piss on the leg of my Italian stool. My teeth slammed together, blood boiling. I closed the door, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
“You always seem to be complaining about the job we did with you, but you turned out fine, didn’t you?” My mother fixed herself and my father some coffee, making my place her own without asking. “Nice job, beautiful apartment in Manhattan, lots of friends. You want for nothing, Rhyland,” she huffed with a shake of her head.
I folded my arms over my chest, leaning against the counter. “What’s my job?” I asked tonelessly.
My parents exchanged blank looks. My teeth dug into my inner cheek. Even though I knew damn well they’d never made an effort to get to know me, this was next-level shocking.
“Don’t start,” my mother warned, aiming a teaspoon at me.
“No, I’m serious. What’s my job?”
“You studied business,” my father provided cautiously, as if this in any way showed they’d been involved in my life in the past decade—or before it. “You work in…finance?” He stared at me helplessly.
“Yes, finance.” My mother nodded, oozing bitter elegance. “And now you have this app thing going on.”
“I’m a whore,” I lied. Well, half lied, really. Maybe quarter lied. I was retired now.
My mother choked on her coffee midsip. My father shot me a horrified glare. The damn dogs jumped up on my leather couch, and by the smell of it, one of them was in the midst of taking a shit.
“Rhyland,” my mother warned, clutching her pearls in a death grip.
“It’s true.” I shrugged. It was the first time I’d verbalized my previous profession for what it was. I dated for money. I romanced for money. I fucked for money. I sold my body, my heart, my soul, for a quick buck. This was the truth. And every day I didn’t do that was a healing process. So fuck the money. Or, in this case, the lack thereof. “It’s the honest-to-God truth, Mother. I worked with Row for a few years, back when my escort business was just taking off, but this is my main gig. Being a male prostitute. Business is booming. Thanks to you, I guess.” I gestured to my sculpted six-pack, to my height, to my face. “This apartment was paid for by one of my clients.”
Again, not a lie.
There was silence for a moment before my mother collected herself and sat up straighter on the stool. “So what?” She pouted haughtily. My mother was a classically beautiful woman, but she didn’t have that glow that came from within. She looked like a lifeless symmetrical drawing. “Men aren’t sensitive about such things. So what if you have sex for money? You’re probably having fun doing it. You’re right—you should thank us. Not many men have the opportunity to do this. We gave you the good genes to have a successful gigolo career.”
“Genes were the only things you gave me,” I seethed. “And even that only because you didn’t have a choice. Nothing else, Mother. Nothing at all.”
Her words aggravated me, and I wasn’t even sure why. None of this was news to me. But somehow, even after all these years, it still cut deep to see them completely disregarding my life, my choices, my feelings.
“Listen, son, we’re not here to judge you.” My father raised his palms. “We only want to make sure you’re doing well for yourself. You are doing well for yourself, right?”
I had a feeling they were about to break some more bad news, which I didn’t think was possible, since they were already here with a task. My mouth curled in annoyance. My nostrils twitched. Yeah. That damn dog had definitely taken a dump on my designer couch.
“I’m doing all right. Why?”
“We sold off the house, the cars, and all our possessions,” my mother announced laconically, but the quirk of her mouth gave it away. She wasn’t neutral about this at all. She was having fun breaking the news to me. “I’m sorry, Rhyland, but we won’t be in a position to offer you anything inheritance-wise.”
I’d never counted on their inheritance money. The Staindrop house was worth about $400K, give or take, and the cars, furniture, insurance maybe another $200K. In the grand scheme of things, if I got my way, $600K would be small-fry for me. Still, it was the thought that counted. They were now explicitly going to leave me penniless.
“Yeah?” I yawned, taking another sip of coffee. “What happened? Sold it all off and joined a cult?”
“My goodness, how did I create someone so crass?” My mother pressed her fingers to her mouth. “For your information, we decided to sell all our possessions and go travel the world. Enjoy our retirement money instead of hoarding it. You only live once.”
“And in some people’s cases, even that’s too much,” I muttered under my breath.
“This is why we need to leave Fluffy and Mittens with you.” My mother ignored my sarcasm but looked eager to leave now that she’d finally unloaded the news off her chest.
“Fluffy and Mittens?” I snarled. “Who the hell are they?”
“Our little doggies.” Mom made a baby sound. She smacked her lips together cooingly, and they ran to her, barking happily, wagging their tails. She leaned down to kiss them, and they licked her nose enthusiastically.
A scream lodged itself in my throat, because they’d had more affection in ten seconds than I received in my entire childhood.
“Well, your dogs now, really. We’re leaving tomorrow. That’s why we’re here.”
“I’m not taking your dogs.” I shook my head.
“We have no one else to turn to,” my father said in an accusing voice.
“Sounds like you could’ve done with making a few friends instead of drowning in each other and ignoring the world.”
“We don’t have the heart to put them in a shelter.”
“I will then.” I shrugged, meaning it. I was not getting one dog, let alone two. I traveled a whole fucking bunch and wouldn’t be home regularly once App-date launched.
“What you do is on your conscience, sweetie, not mine,” my mother tutted—which, in her warped mind, was true. She really thought this cleansed her of all responsibility. She was a narcissist. And most likely, so was I.
She started for the door, and my father followed her, coffee mugs still on my kitchen island, poop still on my couch. They didn’t even tell me where they were going.
I knew the dogs were staying—until I dumped them in a shelter.
“Hey,” I called out to their backs, internally acknowledging how deeply messed up it was that they’d barged into my life after years of radio silence, discarding their dogs with me and telling me my inheritance was gone. This wasn’t neglect. It never had been. It was abuse. It was the systematic action of breaking your child’s heart and spirit. “When can I drop by your house and collect my boxes?” I had some stuff left there that I wanted. High-school sports trophies, diplomas, certificates, school photo albums. Basically, my entire history before I moved to New York four years ago.
“Oh.” My mother halted but didn’t turn around to look at me. She didn’t turn around to take one last look at her so-called beloved dogs either. Her hand fluttered over the doorframe. “Pity you didn’t tell us. We got rid of everything while we were cleaning up. The house sold so fast. We had to.”
“You threw away my shit?” My breath caught in my throat. How many more times could she make me feel like I was nothing to her? How many more times could I be surprised and fucking gutted by it?
“Don’t judge us.” She swiveled toward me swiftly. “It’s not like we didn’t try to reach out to you. We tried for months.”
“You could’ve texted,” I clapped back.
“Why would we?” She jerked her nose up snootily. “You didn’t even take our calls. You ghosted us. Why should we be held to a higher leve—”
“Because you’re the parents!” I snapped, completely losing it. I was shaking now, my heartbeat out of control.
Suddenly, I wasn’t Rhyland Coltridge, twenty-nine, a playboy and soon-to-be billionaire; I was Rhyland Coltridge, five, a boy who desperately wanted to know what he’d done wrong and why his parents couldn’t love him.
“Parents are held to a different standard. Parents understand. Parents show up. Parents let their kids make mistakes. They let them learn, try, feel. You and I are not the same. Our roles are vastly different. And recently, I had a front-row seat to an actual healthy relationship between an incredible parent and her child.” I thought about Dylan, how she prioritized Gravity over anything else—including herself.
My mother stomped. Actually stomped. “I was never good enough for you. So what if I’m not a lovey-dovey person?”
“You are.” I pointed at the dogs. “Just not to me.”
That sobered her. “You were a mistake, Rhyland,” she said quietly. “You came after we were married, but…you weren’t in our plans. I wanted to complete my degree in art. Your father wanted to become an architect. We never could recover from having you…” Her eyes crinkled sadly. “And yes, we were young. And angry. We shouldn’t have been. But ever since you were a teenager, all you wanted was to leave the house. You acted like we were hitting you or something! Like we were abusing you in some way.”
“You were,” I said flatly. “You can destroy someone without lifting a finger at them, and you did that to me.”
And then, because there was nothing more to say, I finished with, “Anyway, this is not goodbye.”
“Why, thank yo—”
“This is good riddance. I don’t want to hear from you ever again.”
“Son—” my father started.
“Never.” I held up a hand. “Not if someone gets sick, not if someone dies, not if someone needs help.”
My mother shook her head, looking disgusted with my existence. She finally had the audacity to let her true emotions play on her face. “Have a good life, Rhyland.” She slipped through the door. Before she banged it behind her, she stuck in her head. “By the way, Fluffy has a liver disease and needs an important leg operation. Make sure you tend to that.”
After I cleaned up dog shit, gave the two dogs water and some pastrami, and ordered harnesses for them both on Prime, I crouched down in front of them. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, staring at me with urgency, like I was Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with an update from God.
“Okay, assholes, which one of you is Fluffy?”
One of the dogs cocked its head sideways, opening its mouth in a smile and showing off a pink tongue. This was Fluffy, I supposed. I looked between its legs. Male. Well, barely.
“So you’re Mittens.” I glanced at the other dog, peering between its front legs. Female.
She barked her approval.
“I’m sorry, folks, but you can’t stay here. It’s not personal. I’m just not built for responsibility.”
Fluffy whimpered as though he understood me.
“Yeah, I know.” I ruffled his fur on a sigh. “They screwed up my life too. But you’re expensive, good-looking dogs. You’ll do fine. People’ll line up to adopt you.”
Fluffy and Mittens exchanged doubtful looks. “C’mon. I got thrown out too, and I turned out all right.” Pause. “Okay, I didn’t. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
The harnesses arrived. I took them down for a walk to do their business—there was nothing quite as humbling as picking up tiny dog shit with a plastic bag and hunting for a trash can on a busy New York street—then I packed them up into my car and drove to the nearest no-kill animal shelter.
The closer I got to the shelter, the more nauseous I felt. My mother had mentioned Fluffy had some health issues. What if he couldn’t find a home? And what if they split these motherfuckers up? They seemed close, constantly giving each other tongue baths and chasing each other.
I remembered growing up how bummed I was about not having a sibling. Someone to confide in and lean on. Row came the closest to it.
And you’ve been fucking his baby sister on the down-low for over a week now. Some friend you are.
But this was exactly why I couldn’t be with Dylan: I was a narcissist, like my parents.
By the time I’d parked in front of the shelter, my head was a mess. I grabbed the leashes from the passenger seat and twisted around to clip them onto the dogs’ harnesses. They complied without complaint, hanging their dumb, innocent gazes at me.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I scowled.
They blinked in unison.
“You don’t fit my lifestyle. I didn’t choose this. Not any of this crap.”
Silence.
“God dammit.” I unclipped the leashes, dumping them on the passenger seat and rubbing my face.
By dropping these little shits at a shelter, I was becoming my parents. An emotionally stunted, self-centered human without one redeeming bone in his entire body.
I knew lots of people. I could get them rehomed somewhere nice, with people I trusted. Tossing them in a shelter was the easiest, coldest, most immoral option. It was the wrong thing to do.
I blew out a breath, dropping the back of my head to the leather seat. “Fluffy?”
He whimpered in response.
“I’m sorry, buddy, but we’re going to have to hit the vet next. But first, there’s something I need to do.”
I called Dylan. She answered on the first ring. I tried not to read too much into it.
“Do you want me to grab Grav for a couple hours? I’m heading to the vet, and I’m sure she’ll like this experience. Figured it’d give you more time to recoup from that flu.”
“Did you catch what I have? I know I called you a horndog, but I did not mean that literally.” Dylan sounded skeptical.
I grinned. “My parents dropped their two dogs with me earlier today when they came to tell me they’re fucking off to travel the world and that they sold the house, burned my inheritance money, and got rid of all my childhood memorabilia.”
“Jesus,” Dylan hissed out. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could’ve been there to give them a piece of my mind.”
“You’d have given them a piece of your fist too. Admit it.” I immediately felt lighter as I pulled off the curb at the shelter, talking to Dylan.
“I’d never lay a finger on an elderly couple. I’d have insulted them to their demise, even if it took days.”
I laughed.
“Just, you know, as a homage for my brother, of course. Not because it’s you or anything,” she added.
She was trying to keep this below surface level, the way I did when I rearranged Tuckwad’s face.
“Yeah, we both care for your brother so much. So how about that vet?” I asked.
“Yeah, she’ll be excited, and it’ll give me some quiet time to look for work.”
Five hours later, I was eight thousand dollars poorer thanks to the vet fees I’d paid for Fluffy’s upcoming cruciate ligament repair. I also had to get them both shots so they were up to date, chip them, and pay for blood work, dental cleaning, and a ton of other shit to make them good candidates for adoption. The vet said they appeared to be between two and three years old, and although they were in good health, they had been obviously neglected. No surprises there.
Grav was a trooper throughout. I told her I’d buy her ice cream if she helped the vet. The vet gave her mundane tasks like cleaning the same spot on the metal counter over and over again, throwing things into the trash, and washing her hands a thousand times. I treated her to three scoops afterward and taught her to drink the dregs of the ice cream like a milkshake through the tip of the cone. I considered it my contribution to humanity.
By the time I brought her back to her mom, Gravity was pooped. Dylan opened the door looking like my favorite meal, and I was glad when her kid ran to her room to do something that wasn’t asking us five hundred questions a minute about doggy heaven. The dogs were upstairs in the penthouse, but their scent clung to me.
As soon as Gravity was out of our way, Dylan crushed me with an all-consuming hug. “I’m so proud of you,” she murmured into my neck.
“That makes one of us. I spent almost ten thousand dollars on a pair of pets I don’t even own.” I disconnected from her, waltzing over to the wine room to grab myself a drink.
“You’re becoming a person you’d want to befriend.” She followed me.
I poured us both generous glasses of wine. “What about you? How was your day?”
“It was good. I…” She bit down on her lower lip as her cheeks stained scarlet.
“You?” I tilted one brow up.
“Looked into some premed programs around the city. But before you get all excited, they’re all pretty intense. It’s not even about the money. I’d need constant help with Gravity, and I’m not sure either of us is ready for something like that.”
“Your kid’s a rock star,” I said, realizing I meant it. Grav was a bad bitch, just like her mom. Well, a bad puppy, really. “She’ll do well at that preschool.” It was on the tip of my tongue to offer my own services, but I bit the words back. I couldn’t commit to this. I couldn’t.
It was in this moment it dawned on me that if the deal with Bruce Marshall fell through, I was basically homeless. I had no income. My apartment was mortgaged. I’d already sold most of my valuable stuff. My parents’ house was gone, so I couldn’t crash there—even on the off chance they’d have let me. Row would give me a roof for a few weeks—unless he found out I was screwing his sister—but I would never ask.
I couldn’t offer more of myself to Dylan even if I wanted to, for the simple fact that there wasn’t much to give.
“I don’t know that I can do it without any help.” Her upper teeth sank into her lower lip. “I mean, maybe if I found somewhere cheaper. Or…or if Cal moved back here for a while.”
I pursed my mouth shut to keep from offering my help. Could I take Grav to the office with me a couple times a week or come home a little earlier to babysit her while I worked remotely? Probably. But the truth was Dylan’s presence in my life meant more complications and inconveniences.
“I was thinking.” Dylan tucked a raven lock behind her ear. “Maybe if we—”
My phone buzzed.
It was Bruce Marshall, the man of the hour. Of the day. Of my century, really.
I held a finger up. “Sorry. I need to take this.”
She clamped her mouth shut. I pressed the phone to my ear. I didn’t want her to witness it in case he came bearing bad news.
“Coltridge?”
“Yeah?”
“I signed the papers. App-date is a go.”
Dylan must’ve interpreted the good news on my face, because hers lit up like a Christmas tree, and she started jumping and clapping excitedly, swallowing down whimpers of happiness.
It was happening.
I was launching the next dating app.
Only on a bigger, better, more lucrative scale.
I was going to trick people into making their fake relationships real.
And I was falling into the same goddamn trap in the process.
Bruce was spitting out some details at the speed of light. It took everything in me to process them. The money. The fucking money. I was about to become filthy rich. The kind of rich my friends were.
When I hung up, I was too stunned to speak. Dylan, however, kept cheering for me. The noise drew Gravity out of her room.
“What’s going on?” she grumbled.
“Uncle Rhyland got good news from work!” Dylan announced. “We’re taking him out for tacos and margaritas.”
And before I knew what was happening, they were both hugging me.
Kissing me.
Melting me.
I was so screwed.