I wanted to bring it up. But I had never said something like that to a woman before. It wasn’t the kind of thing you just blurted out to a girl, either.
But if there was ever a time to tell her, a blissful post-coital moment might be it. I certainly didn’t think I could say it at any other time.
So I took a deep breath—which caused her to rise and fall on my chest—and said it.
“Taylor and Derek don’t just have crushes on you. We kind of had a plan toallask you out.”
She furrowed her brow. “Like, all ask me out at once? And see who I picked?”
I hesitated. “Not quite. We wanted to see if you would go out withallof us. At the same time.”
She stared at me, so I kept talking.
“We were going to ask if you wanted to date all of us at once. We would share you.”
She stared at me some more.
“Our shift schedule makes it tough to date normally,” I explained. “The last girl I dated complained that it was like datinghalfof a man, and the other half was married to the firehouse. So, Taylor and Derek and I talked it out. We figured that maybe if we all date the same girl, we can give her the full attention that she needs. That shedeserves.”
Again, that vacant, shocked stare.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said.
“I doubt it,” she said, deadpan.
“You’re thinking that we all have the same schedule right now,” I said. “What’s the point in sharing a girl if we are all busy at the same time? But shifts changes often. It won’t always be that way. The next time things are shuffled around, we’ll be perfectly set up for… Yeah. What I just told you.”
Clara stared at me for so long that I began to wonder if she had been transformed into a wax statue. She didn’t even blink. She just kept staring at me with those big, round eyes.
Finally she sat up into a sitting position. “The three of you… want to share me?”
I gave her a shaky smile. “That’s right.”
She let out a nervous laugh. “Is this a joke? Am I being punked right now?”
“I’m serious.”
She shook her head and began blinking rapidly. “This doesn’t make sense. Three guys like you should haveno problemfinding Tinder dates. I didn’t have a fireman fantasy before tonight, but I know for a fact that plenty of women do.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said. “Sure, women want to hookup with firemen. But dating us is another story, through the crazy schedules and long hours.”
She cocked her head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I’m as serious as a five-alarm fire,” I confirmed. “Weare serious. All three of us. We’ve been toying around with the idea of sharing one woman, and, well… We wanted to see if you would be interested in that.”
“Okay. Wow.” She swallowed. “This is, uh…”
“I know it’s a lot. If you’re not comfortable with it, then we’ll understand. But I promised Taylor and Derek I would bring it up to you. So you could at least consider it.”
I saw the internal struggle in her eyes as shereallythought about it. Weighing the pros and cons.
Before she could give me a response, the LED light on the speaker next to the door began to flash red. There was no sound in here since Derek had disabled the audio alarm in the roof, but I knew that the siren was going off through the rest of the firehouse. I felt a heavythudas Derek—or Taylor—jumped down from one of the bunks in the room next door. Vibrations sensed through the floor rather than audibly heard.
“I have to go.” I kissed her goodbye, grabbed my clothes, and hurried to the door. With my fingers gripping the doorknob, I couldfeelthe pulse of the siren through the wall. I waited three seconds, then timed it perfectly so that I ran out into the hall and closed the door between siren blasts, so the baby wouldn’t be disturbed in the room.
Derek and Taylor were running down the hall. Derek did a double-take when he saw me in my underwear, but then hurried toward the engine room. I hopped into my clothes while following them.
Despite coming from the bedrooms, we were only about thirty seconds off our typical response time. I shimmied into my gear and jumped into the passenger seat of the fire engine a heartbeat behind Derek, and before Taylor jumped onto the back.