Deep 6 (Multiple Love)

“She loved me once,” Tyler says. “Last night, it felt like she still does. I don’t know for sure…I don’t really know anything for sure, but I need to know what y’all think before I even think about broaching the subject with Sandy.”

“You’re asking us if we want to bring Sandy into our lives as our girl. One girl and six guys?” Arden says. His expression is strangely serious in a way that confuses my eyes. It’s like looking for your reflection in a funfair mirror. What you see is only half what you expect.

“One girl. Six guys.” Tyler nods.

“Fuck,” I mutter, flexing my hands.

“You got something to get off your chest, D?” Tyler asks me.

For a moment, I contemplate retreating into my reserved shell and holding everything back like I usually do.

When Dad’s fists were raining down on my mom, and I was too little to help her, I’d sit in silence with my brother. Silence was a safe place.

It would make this simpler to stay quiet. I could just follow the crowd. There are four other guys getting invited into this situation. I don’t need to be at the forefront of the response. Except I can see what this is costing Tyler to say.

For whatever reason, he’s opening up this vulnerable part of himself. He’s telling us his biggest fears, his greatest weaknesses. If he can do that, then I should be willing to step forward too.

“I get you, T. I get where you’re coming from. You guys are my brothers. I never want anything to come between us. The family shit we’ve all been through…well, it’s enough to tell me that what should work sometimes doesn’t. This might all sound crazy, but maybe you’re right. Maybe we could be something good for Sandy, and she could be something good for us.”

Tyler nods at me, and a flicker of a smile tweaks the left side of his mouth.

“You’ll get jealous,” Andrew says. “Fuck, if I was you and I had Sandy, I’d go fucking crazy if another guy tried to lay their hands on my girl.”

“She’s not a steak, Andrew. She’s not something you can consume and there will be nothing left for me. She’s a person with so much love in her heart, and she’ll have enough for us all. I’m sure of it.”

“Look at us,” Arden says, the grin firmly back in place. “A girl who crushes on Tyler isn’t going to crush on Damien. And one who likes Greg isn’t going to look at my blond-haired, blue-eyed brothers and me and want to jump our bones. We’re all too different to appeal to one woman.”

“Maybe,” Tyler says. “Maybe Sandy will think I’m crazy and leave, and I’ll be back to where I was yesterday before she blew back into my life. Maybe I’m just a fucking coward for not trying to get her to forgive me and keep her to myself. But I don’t think I am. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’ve got it all figured out.”

“This is going to end in tears,” Andrew says, hefting the tire back off the floor.

“But you’re in?” Tyler asks of his retreating form.

“I’m in,” Andrew shouts, not bothering to turn around.

The smile that lights up Tyler’s face is like pure satisfaction. “If he’s in, we’re in,” Able and Arden say at the same time. If it was going to be easy for any of us to share, it would be them. More than one woman has staggered out of our house after getting in the middle of that triplet sandwich.

“What about you, D?”

I shove my hands into the pockets of my bright blue overalls. When we started this repair shop together, we couldn’t land on a name. Nothing seemed to fit. It was me who came up with Deep, and it was because, for the first time in my life, I had my people around me. I wasn’t on my own anymore. Together we were rolling deep.

No man is an island. We need people around us to be content. Six deep, and I was happy. Adding another, well, that could make us the lucky seven.

“I’m in, T,” I say.

“Good man.” Tyler picks up his phone. “Good man.”

The next hour passes like I’m walking through quicksand. Tyler is on fire, laughing and joking like he threw off that cloak of exhaustion and let it float away on the wind. The rest of the guys seem their usual selves but occasionally, our eyes meet, and something passes between us.

Anticipation.

Nerves.

A feeling that things are never going to be the same again.

Can I be the kind of man that Sandy needs?

I don’t know. I never loved a woman the way you see in the movies, but it’s what I want.

As I shut the hood of Mr. Doncaster’s truck, knowing I fixed the unfixable, I think maybe I have it in me to do anything I put my mind to.