There’s a car parked outside my dorm that looks very familiar. I slow, not believing it’s my stepbrother’s truck until I’m close enough to decipher four shapes inside the vehicle that make my heart race.
I look a mess. I didn’t dress nicely for my lunch date with Maisie, and I couldn’t find the enthusiasm to put on make-up either. In my leggings and varsity t-shirt, I look like I’ve just been to the gym.
But that doesn’t seem to bother them.
My four stepbrothers emerge from the car in unison, and it’s a sight that steals my breath. Jefferson is wearing a black baseball cap, so his eyes are shaded, but I can see the hurt in the expressions of the rest of my boys and the hope too.
My boys.
Even though I walked away from them, I can’t stop thinking of them as mine.
‘Sara,’ Anderson calls. I guess it’s because I stopped, frozen on the sidewalk with too much fear in my heart to propel me forward.
I’m trapped here. I can’t move forward, but I can’t run away. Not with them watching me. We stand facing each other like a scene from a Western, except there are no guns here, just racing hearts and trepidation.
It’s Carson who breaches the stalemate. He strides toward me, the fighter that he always is. I can see the determination in his eyes. They’ve come this far, and he’s not going to back down. I’m expecting him to be angry at me, but he isn’t. When he’s close enough, he pulls me into a fierce hug, mashing my face against his chest as he breathes me in. ‘Fuck. Why did you do that?’
I start to cry, the tenderness in his question too much. My shoulders hitch, and he’s tipping my face up, stroking away my tears with his thumbs. ‘Don’t cry,’ he says. ‘We’re here, and we’re not going anywhere until we figure this out.’
The rest of my stepbrothers surround me; my north, south, east, and west. Their hands reassure me, their words calming my emotions until I remember where we are, out in the open for everyone to see. ‘We should go inside,’ I say, fumbling around in my purse for my keys.
I can feel curious eyes watching us as we make our way inside. Maybe more curious because Maisie and the J’s and K’s are open about their relationship now, and this certainly doesn’t look innocent. It’s there in the way they stand close and touch me easily with that familiarity that comes with intimacy.
All the way up the stairs, I’m dreading getting to the top. I’m the pied piper, leading my group of men, but scared of what will be said when we reach the privacy of my room.
When the door closes, it’s so damn awkward. I swipe at my face, trying to remove any trace of the surge of emotion I felt outside. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What are you doing here?’ Jefferson bites back. ‘You weren’t supposed to leave yet.’
‘I had to get back.’
‘What for?’ Brayson asks. I can tell he doesn’t believe me at all.
‘For all of our sakes,’ I say. It’s the truth, after all.
‘You walked away for us?’ Carson shakes his head. ‘That’s bullshit, Sara, and you know it.’
‘At least admit it,’ Jefferson says.
‘Admit what?’
‘That you’re scared.’ His hand reaches out to touch my arm, but I flinch away.
‘And you’re not?’
‘Of course I am,’ he says. ‘You think I wanted any of this?’
‘You think I wanted this?’ I spit. ‘I wanted fuck buddies, not boyfriends.’
‘Really?’ Anderson says. His voice is smooth as silk, and calm, as he always is. ‘Because it didn’t feel like that, Sara. It didn’t feel like that at all.’
‘Tell us that you want us to leave,’ Brayson says.
‘And we’ll go,’ Jefferson adds. ‘We’ll leave you alone, and that’ll be it. You can forget us, forget everything that we were together.’
‘Or tell us that you want us the way we want you,’ Carson says firmly. ‘Tell us that you feel the same way, and we’ll be yours. Do you understand? This thing might have started as fuck buddies, but that isn’t how we feel now. We want you, baby. We want everything from your huge heart and fierce protectiveness of the people you love to your fear of opening up and everything in between.’
‘We won’t let you down,’ Anderson says. ‘You have to know that. We want this…all of us. We want this and everything it can do for our family.’
‘What can it do?’ I say, my hand coming out to my sides to illustrate my hopelessness. ‘Destroy my sick father. Make your mom hate me. Splinter a happy family until nobody is happy.’
‘No.’ Jefferson steps forward, his hands coming out to grab my arms. ‘We told Steve how we feel about you. We told him everything. We had to.’
‘You told my dad about us?’
‘We told him that we’d fallen in love with you, and that you were the one that paid for his treatment.’
‘You told him what?’ I throw his arms from mine and step back, my hands covering my face with mortification. There’s no going back now—no way to change anything. I walked away to avoid this and they’ve undone everything. ‘You told my dad everything that I didn’t want him to know…You…What have you done?’
I flop to the bed, as everything around me falls apart. The only family I have now hates me. There’s no coming back from this. I cry into my hands, feeling the overwhelming loss that I should have felt for my mom for a father who has only just come into my life. He must be disgusted with me and furious too. The shame is enough to redden my face and send a wave of mortification through me.
‘Hey…’ Jefferson flops to his knees and takes hold of my chin, forcing me to look at him. ‘We had to. We couldn’t all come up here without being honest.”
‘You risked everything I care about.’
He shakes his head. ‘You took away what we care about without even asking how we’d feel about it.’
‘And you don’t need to be upset, honey,’ Brayson says, dropping to the bed next to me and putting his arm around my shoulder. ‘Because everything is okay.’
‘What?’
‘It’s okay. Steve…well, he was mad as hell that you were the one who paid for his treatment. Mad but then proud. He wants to talk to you about where you got the money, though.’
‘Lottery,’ I say softly. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
Eyebrows raise, but they don’t ask me any questions. I guess that’ll be a discussion for another day.
‘And he was confused about how we could all be in love with you at the same time until we showed him that show on TV and explained that it’s what we want.’
‘You told him you want…’ I trail off, totally overwhelmed by what they’re saying. Love. Can this be real?
‘We told him that we want to be with you…all of us. Together. Forever.’
‘Forever?’ My voice sounds so small and pathetic, like a child asking if an amazing toy is really theirs.
‘Forever,’ Jefferson says.
‘You want it too, don’t you?’ Anderson asks. Always the one to check that they’re not bulldozing my feelings.
I gaze around at the hopeful expressions on my stepbrothers’ faces, and I can’t believe that any of this is something that could happen to me. I fought feeling anything at all for so long, and now I have not one but four men who have filled my heart. I have four men who have fought for me, who have driven hours to come and make me theirs.
And I can’t believe it, but I want to do this. I want to be theirs, and I want them to be mine. I want all of what Maisie has. Unending love and security. Someone always there to stand by me through life.
One amazing partner would have been great, but four…well, I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it.
‘I do,’ I say, then blush profusely at the words I chose. They feel very formal, but maybe that’s right. This isn’t an easy commitment for any of us to make. There’ll be push-back our whole lives from strangers who’d like to believe that four men and one woman is a sordid arrangement. They’ll never feel what I feel inside—the purity of our bond and the savage way I love these men or the fear I’ve had to let go of, even to admit that to myself.
Jefferson pulls me into an embrace and it’s the sweetest thing. He’s had his own journey to this point that I guess we’ll talk about in time. There is so much to share now. The intimacy that I feared and more…just more of this. His big hands stroke over my hair, and he kisses my forehead. My insides melt, and more tears slide from my eyes. Maybe in time, the tenderness they show me will feel easier. I want to be able to enjoy it without feeling unworthy.
‘My dad’s really okay? And your mom?’
Brayson takes my hand. ‘They’ve seen firsthand how short life can be, and they just want us to be happy. I’m sure they’d prefer that we all went off and found partners for ourselves, but this has happened, and there’s no undoing it. At least, that’s what we told them.’
‘So, we’re really going to do this?’
‘Yes. For sure. I know we’re living far apart right now, but the drive isn’t too bad. We can make it for weekends and holidays. We could meet halfway,’ Anderson says.
‘Jefferson’s already marked out the suitable motels,’ Carson laughs.
‘Well, I needed something to do to keep me from going nuts,’ he admits.
‘You thought I was going to say no?’
There are shrugs all round. ‘We thought you’d try to push us away. We weren’t sure we’d be able to get through to you.’
‘Maybe I should have made you work harder?’ I laugh through my tears.
‘Harder than this?’
I look around and see what Carson means. They look wrecked from the journey and the discussions they had before they left. Now they’re here there’s no way I’m letting them leave.
My bed is too small for all of us, so I suggest a motel. I’ve never seen them look happier.
And it’s different between us now—still the same passion and raw need. Still the same desperation, but it’s all laced with tenderness and awe that makes everything sweeter.
As I lie between my boys, I say a silent prayer. I’d always felt like the universe had forgotten me. I was an unnoticed child in a vast world. Something changed on my eighteenth birthday. The lottery win was a turning point, a stepping stone to happiness.
And I’m going to keep taking brave steps wherever this new and exciting path is going to take me.
