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Aiden
I wipedown my brow as I grab a water from the kitchen. The house feels like a wasteland when the rest of the guys aren’t around. Most of them are with Henry getting lunch at some bar he likes.
Ryan and I skipped that. We played some tennis, where he proceeded to dismantle my game bit by bit, but we weren’t really playing for sport anyway. It’s good to get some physical activity in the middle of all this drinking and debauchery, and I could tell he needed it, too.
I lean up against the kitchen counter. I haven’t seen Emily yet today. She was still in bed by the time Ryan and I headed out. I’m guessing she’s still nursing a hangover from last night, and I don’t blame her. Henry’s been throwing one crazy party after another, each one trying to outdo the one before it. The superhero party was a couple days ago, and last night was a black and white party. Emily was wearing this black dress that hugged her hips like crazy, sent shivers down my spine. I spent the whole night flirting with her, got a chance to kiss her once, but nothing more happened.
Now she’s on my mind more than ever. The rest of the guys are getting more and more wrapped up in her, and I can’t blame them. She’s gorgeous, so fucking beautiful, and I can’t help but need more of her.
It surprises me that the thought of the other guys having her doesn’t bother me. I’ve always been something of a jealous guy, but I guess that’s been wearing off as I get older and older. I mean, I’m not exactly old, but I’ve lived a little bit. I’ve seen some shit.
And I can guarantee that there are more ways to love than there are ways to hate, except we’re so good at shutting those down. People are so much more willing to fight, get angry, blame and yell. That’s not fucking fun, though, never was. When I was a younger man, maybe I liked to get in fights, yell a little bit, drink a little too much, but I’m mellowing out.
And I’m finding that love is so much more complicated and interesting. Not just physical love, but emotional, too. I truly believe you can love more than one person equally, or that more than one person can love you equally. There are millions of different ways to love, to build a life, to have whatever you need, and I find myself more and more willing to try something different.
And this thing with the guys and Emily, it sure is different. I’m not interested in any of them, of course, I’m only into Emily, and I know the same goes for them. But I do want to taste her, and I’m okay if she wants to have the other guys at the same time.
It’s strange. I can’t get over it. I’m almost obsessing about how natural all of this feels, even though it’s incredibly strange. We’re taught that the only natural way to love is between one man and one woman, but I don’t totally believe that anymore. People are so much more complicated in almost every single aspect of their lives, why not be complicated in romance, too? The complexity, the uncertainty, it all just makes it so much sweeter.
What am I even thinking? I grab my water bottle. I don’t understand this man I’m becoming. I always thought I was conservative, liked simple things. I always assumed I’d have a family, children, a dog, that sort of shit. A house in the suburbs. But as my twenties slowly turned into my thirties, I realized that maybe it’s not going to happen for me.
Now, though. Now I’m thinking about something completely outside of my character. I don’t even know how to explain it. I don’t know how this even came to me. But watching Emily, watching the others, I could see it all so clearly.
And I wanted it.
I walk up to the glass window and look out toward the pool. I smile to myself when I spot Emily lying there on a chair, sweating slightly in the sun. I push open the back door and step outside. She turns her head toward me and smiles slightly.
“I was wondering where you all went,” she says.
“Most of the guys are out at lunch. It’s just me and Ryan here.”
“You two weren’t hungry?”
I shrug and sit down on the chair next to her. “Felt like playing tennis.”
She grins at me. “You played tennis with a professional athlete?”
“I didn’t say I beat him,” I say, laughing. “It was just for fun. Something to do other than drinking and lying around.”
“I hear you.” She sighs. “Drinking and lying around takes a lot out of me.”
“I bet. You look positively exhausted.”
She gives me a mock-horrified look. “How rude.”
“Please. It’s not my fault you can’t handle it.”
“I can handle it,” she says, indignantly. “I’m in college, remember? You guys are the old men.”
“Thirty isn’t old,” I say, laughing. “But I see your point. Still, you’re working harder than everyone else.”
She raises an eyebrow at me. “How?”
“I hear you have more than one suitor,” I say slowly, a smirk on my lips.
Her eyes go a little wide. She looks like she’s about to say something, but she blushes instead. “I guess you all talk,” she says finally.
“Of course we do. You know we’re okay with this, right?”
