Zach was suddenly in front of me, blocking my vision of the other two men in the room. I stared at his collarbone for a handful of seconds, too afraid of what I would see on his face, before I forced myself to look up into his eyes. “I enjoyed kissing you,” he said sincerely. “I’d like to do it again sometime. Soon.”
Oh. Warmth spread through my stomach. “You should,” I said.
Zach smiled. His fingers touched my cheek, soft and quick. “I will,” he said, and it sounded like a promise.
From behind him, Jake cleared his throat, and I jerked, having nearly forgotten their presence. “Let’s take this in my office,” Jake suggested. “I’m not sure when Natalia will be back.”
Taking his lead, we all trooped into his office, which allowed us a little more privacy. When the door shut behind me, I felt their eyes on me again. “You were saying that we needed to talk,” I said, eyes locking on Jake. “So, talk.”
“We want to date you,” Jake all but blurted out.
It was the literal last thing I had expected to hear. “What do you mean, ‘we’? Like... all of you?”
Thomas scowled. “We haven’texactlyworked that out yet,” he bit out.
“But,” Zach rushed over him, “we didn’t think leaving you out of the conversation would be helpful to anyone.”
My brain felt like it was buffering. There was no way they meant it. “I told you we would scare her,” Thomas muttered. He took a step toward me and made to touch my arm but seemed to think better of it at the last minute. “Look, you don’t owe us anything, and you can honestly tell us all to go to hell. We would deserve it.”
He was trying to be kind and give me an out. I knew that logically. But it felt like a rejection. “I’m not scared,” I said, trying to breathe through the weird pain in my chest. “I just don’t understand.”
“You do,” Jake said, drawing my gaze to him.
Theyallwanted to date me. My mind conjured up images of Tinsley, happily dancing with each of her grooms at the wedding, smiling so big that her face could barely stretch to fit. “Oh,” I breathed out. I looked at each of them. “Are you... are you sure?”
Thomas shook his head. “No,” he said. “We have no idea what the hell we’re doing... but we all agree that we’re attracted to you, and it didn’t seem right to fight about it. You’re not a prize for us to win.”
His words were comforting. I had never been interested in anything outside of a monogamous relationship, and I had no idea what the rules were for something like they were proposing, but it was good to know that I wasn’t the only one stumbling in the dark here. “None of you have shared a woman before?” They all shook their heads. “So, why now? Why risk your friendship and your careers like this?”I’m not worth it, I added in my head.
It didn’t make sense for them to try something that could ruin their lives for me. Sure, I knew that I was attractive. I’d never wanted for dates or attention from men. But I’d never been the type of woman who got a man to stay, either. The last relationship that I had been in had ended because my boyfriend didn’t realize that he was, in fact, my boyfriend. I’d found him in bed with a Tinder hookup.
“We like you,” Zach said simply, as if it were that simple. “We want to get to know you.”
“What about being jealous?” I asked.
Jake winced, and I knew without another word that it was something that they’d talked about— maybe fought about— before they brought me in. “It will be an issue that we’ll have to work through,” he said.
“But you’re willing to do that?”
“Why do you sound so surprised?” Thomas asked. “I’d say that you’re being coy, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening.”
Without meaning or wanting to, my hackles raised, and I went on the defensive. “None of you know anything about me,” I said, more harshly than I really wanted. “It seems like you’re risking a lot, and I just don’t understand why you’d even want to try when it could be a complete disaster for your professional lives.”
“That’s our risk,” Zach said. “We get to decide to take it if we want. You get to decide whether any of this sounds appealing to you. We’re not here to convince you to do something that you don’t want. We just wanted to present the option.”
My chest was tight. It was all a little overwhelming. There weresomany things that could go wrong... but it didn’t change the way my stomach clenched when I thought about them. Both Tinsley and Adrianne were in relationships with more than one man, and they seemed happy. Blissfully so, in fact. Would it be the same here?
Or would it crash and burn and leave nothing but ashes?
“Did you have a plan for how this would work?” I asked. “An idea?”
“More... a reason behind it,” Jake said. “You’ve seen how it is here,” he said, gesturing to the closed office door. “Even first thing in the morning, it’s busy. It isalwayslike that. Not one of us has been able to have a healthy, thriving relationship since becoming partners because the work doesn’t stop.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. The office had been practically humming all day. There was an endless stream of clients to see, briefs to file, and court appearances to make. “That makes sense,” I said.
“So, if you were dating the three of us, then someone would be available to you when you wanted. You wouldn’t have to wait days upon days for a trial to end or for there to be a break in clients.”
He was giving me the hard sell... and goddamn me, but I liked it. Standing in front of them, I wanted them to convince me that we could do this. That it would work. “Say that it works,” I said. “We figure out how to not ruin your friendship and get you fired, but what then? What’s the end goal here?”