"And..." Karter says with a shrug.
"I hog the covers, and I snore when I've been drinking wine, which is a lot."
"Join the club," Harris says with a wink.
"I live miles away from you, and long-distance relationships never work."
"That could change," Holden says.
Further up the beach, someone squeals and laughs, and my eyes find two girls as they fling off their shoes and start wading into the sea. This conversation is twisting and turning, and I can't follow their quick answers or reconcile my thoughts. "How?" I say, at a loss.
"Come and live with us," Karter blurts, his eyes wide and hopeful.
"What?"
"What my brother is trying to say is that you hate your job, and if you wanted to, you could move in with us and start over."
"Move in? Like, live together?" Am I crazy for thinking they're crazy? I know pretty much all the single women at the party would probably jump at this offer. I mean, look at them. It's like sitting surrounded by a Calvin Klein advert made flesh. They're not here to offer me more sex. They're trying to lure me into starting a relationship with four men.
Four men whose dad would fight tooth and nail to keep them away from me.
"You don't know me well enough to want that. What if I packed up my life and landed on your doorstep, and after a week, my terrible cooking and annoying singing in the shower made you want to scream. What then?
"We're not looking for a chef, Connie," Karter says patiently. "And the singing would definitely be more cute than annoying."
"Okay, forget all that. What if all the happy vacation vibes just colored everything you think you feel right now, but the reality is different?"
Holden shakes his head as though I'm talking the most foolishness he's ever heard.
"You're suggesting that we don't know our own minds."
"I'm suggesting that amazing sex and vacation happiness might have clouded your minds."
Holden stands and puts his hands behind his head, frustration radiating. "Connie. Can we just cut the bullshit? What the fuck have any of us got to lose?"
I want to scream, our hearts! I want to tell them that they're asking too much of me, but are they? Just the thought of going back to work on Monday makes me want to dig a hole in the sand and bury myself. And my heart? Well, that has been battered by its separation from these men. Could it get any worse?
I want to tell them I'm scared. Scared that this kind of relationship is too difficult in a world that wants one man and one woman to live happily ever after and that anything that diverts from that is wrong and sinful.
But none of that leaves my lips. Instead, the tears that I've been bottling up for four weeks spill from my eyes, and Karter is there to tug me onto his lap and wrap his arms around me.
"Shit, Holden. You never know when to stop," he hisses. "I told you we need to go easy on her. There are four of us, and she's just one person. It's not easy to constantly have to face so many demands."
"I'm not demanding anything," Holden says. "I'm not, Connie. I just want you to see that the things you think are issues aren't anything to us."
"Tell her about the job," Harris says.
His brothers are silent, and I swipe at my face, glancing around questioningly.
"There's a job recruiting that we think you'd love. It's in our town, working to drive literacy amongst the five-to-sixteen age group. You'd be working between the city council and charities. It's everything that you spoke about." Holden's expression is so hopeful that more tears fall.
He doesn't realize what else is at stake.
I need to tell him about the conversation I had with his father so that he can understand all the layers that make this decision difficult, but if I do, maybe it'll cause more problems.
This situation is just impossible.
"What do you think?" Karter asks softly. I run my finger over his bicep, trailing the warrior tattoo he has there. Shield held high beneath the fabric of his polo shirt. The figure appears to be grasping for something that is just out of reach.
"Who is this?" I ask.
"Achilles," Karter says patiently.
"Why do you have it?"
Karter smooths a strand of hair away from my damp cheeks. "To remind me that even the greatest, most invincible hero has a weakness. To remind me that we're all fallible."
What is Karter's weakness? Maybe it's that he's too selfless. He feels too much. He reaches out too easily.
And what is mine? That for all my bravado, I so rarely ever trust myself.
"What if I don't get the job?" I ask Holden. It's tantamount to letting him know that I'm considering their suggestion, even as I'm finding barriers to it.