“Maggie thinks we pity her.”
“Nah, Maggie,” Daryl says. “You got that wrong.”
“No pity here,” Dwayne adds.
“You’re all good,” Donovan finishes. I guess the triplets all think with one mind, but what about the rest?
“We loved your dad,” Hunter says.
“More than our own families.” Trey shuffles his feet as though admitting that fact was hard.
“We have a connection with you, Maggie. We promised your dad we’ll take care of you. Now, there are two ways we can do that. You can be our sister. We can help you like real brothers would… step in like fun uncles for your kid…” Reggie trails off as though he’s happy considering that scenario and less happy considering the alternative.
“Or we can try what your cousin has,” Logan says with a wink. “We want to stay together in this house. It’s been the only home we’ve ever felt happy in. If we don’t find a way of doing that, there’s a danger we’re going to end up all over the country, with different priorities. Plus, you’re hot.”
Gordon clears his throat as though he’s disappointed with the way his brothers are articulating this important thing.
“We know you don’t know us very well,” John says.
“And this isn’t anything that we need to rush…” Harley adds. “But is it something you’d consider?”
Wow. They’ve seriously managed to outline their plan and put all of the pressure back on me. I thought they’d deny the vote. I thought that when push came to shove, they’d fumble their words and confuse their intentions and talk themselves out of it, but that hasn’t happened at all.
In a way, as they congregate together to tell me I have two options, they’ve shown how tight they are.
Brothers or lovers. Either way, they want to look out for me.
In a few days, I’ve gone from having no one to support me through this pregnancy to having eleven amazing men.
The question is, what do I do next?
12
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.
Eleven men stand around me, waiting for a response, but how can I make this decision? They make the options sound so easy. Either way, I’ve got support, but they don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for. Me with my big mouth. Me who went behind my best friend’s back to sleep with her ex-boyfriend, knowing deep down they had unfinished business but wanting to taste just a little of the life she had. Me who knew my mom was tired but created more burden for her anyway. I’m not the kind of girl they need in their lives.
Life is so much more complex than they make it seem. Maybe this is what comes of having stability and happiness growing up. Maybe the life these men had with my father was so good they can’t imagine things not working out. I know they must have been through hard times, but they had their “happy ever after” family. They’ve created what seems like an impenetrable bond with strangers, so now trying to do the same with me doesn’t seem like such a big deal.
It is a big deal.
But as much as I know it’s foolish, I think about my cousin and her pure contentment. I think about all the challenges that Danna must have faced on her journey with the Jacksons, but they didn’t give up.
I think about the feeling of John’s lips on mine, his strong body cradling me, and I want to give up holding myself as tight as a clamshell. I want to pretend so much that I’m the kind of girl who could make a man happy. That I have even a tiny chance of making eleven men happy.
Danna knew what she wanted, and she went for it. She allowed herself to be open to falling in love in a way that is so alien to normal society, but it worked for her. I’m not naïve enough to think that these men are carbon copies of the Jacksons. I’m certainly not on a par with my cousin. She’s warm and bubbly and fits into the rancher’s wife role so easily it’s practically sickening.
But that doesn’t mean things can’t work out for me, does it? I glance around, finding so many eyes on me that it’s overwhelming, but I have an idea. There are so many of them and only one of me. Maybe I don’t have to be the one who works out what to do. Maybe I should just leave it to these big, capable men. They want to take care of me… maybe they should start now.
“Brothers or lovers. That’s quite a choice.”
“Which would you prefer?” Sean asks. I can see which one he’s hoping for by his sexy smile and the way he’s leaning forward with eagerness.
“I want to know how you voted,” I say. “All I could hear was what you were voting about and then who you wanted to help me with Dad’s room.”