Sharing Hannah

We drank again, and again af

ter that. The place was ours, had been since college. It had changed hands so often, none of us were even sure if it was a college bar anymore. But they served cold beer and hot wings. They played all the major sports on a bunch of flat-screen TV’s, and the crowds were sparse enough to hold an actual conversation without shouting.

Adam filled our glasses from the pitcher in the center of the table. I called for the waitress to order another one.

“So she’s a journalist,” Trey sighed. “She said she did freelance work, typesetting, editing.”

“She probably still does those things,” Adam noted.

“Yeah, but neglecting to tell us you’re a writer?” Trey went on. “And for Cosmo of all places?”

I shrugged and cradled my beer. “She was protecting her lie,” I shrugged. “Keeping us in the dark by only telling a partial truth.”

Trey scowled at me. “Are you actually defending her?”

“No,” I said quickly. “No, I’m not. I’m only explaining her reasoning behind the lie.”

“The lies started the second she made up a fake profile,” said Adam. “The minute she told us she was into trying a poly lifestyle, then met up with us under false pretenses.”

I drew absently against my beer with one finger. Little circles, in the condensation of the glass.

“Technically she was into trying out the poly lifestyle,” I said. “And try it she did. Shit, she got the whole enchilada.”

My comment actually elicited a chuckle from Adam. Trey however…

“You guys don’t get it,” Trey said. “This article comes out, and people figure out who we are? We’re finished. All of us. Me, you…” he pointed at me. “Our professional lives are over. Even if we’re not outright fired, we’d be ridiculed and poked fun at for the rest of our lives. Passed up for promotions, and—”

“Hang on a second,” Adam interjected. “We’d have to face those things anyway. At some point, no?”

Trey frowned. “What the hell do you mean?”

“He means this is our choice,” I offered. “To date one woman. To make her ours, and share her between us. This is what we want, correct?”

For a second or two, Trey looked uncertain. Slowly he reached for the last of the chicken wings — his first of the night. Adam and I had already decked three dozen of them.

“We’re asking one girl to date all three of us,” Adam continued. “Exclusively. Nobody else.”

Trey looked up as he chomped down. “So?”

“So that’s a relationship,” said Adam. “So far we haven’t found a serious one. Not since Alex, and that was college. We were all fucking around. But this? This could’ve been something. An actual, full-blown, four-way relationship. And if we took things to that level, how long would we still hide it?”

Trey took a moment to finish his wing. He washed it down, then dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin.

“As long as we wanted to,” he finally said.

“And do you think that’s fair?” asked Adam. “To Hannah, or Brooke, or whoever it is we end up dating?”

Trey’s eyebrows came together. “Fair as in… what?”

“How long do you think any girl wants to stay our dirty little secret?” I asked, seeing where this was going. “She dates us and what? We never bring her anywhere too public? We never bring her around our friends, our co-workers, our families?”

Trey dropped the napkin and stopped. His look had changed to one of actual consideration.

“Eventually, all this would come out anyway,” Adam said. “You’d have to come clean, or at least not lie that you’re sharing a girlfriend. And if things got even more serious? If we wanted to make her forever ours? Get a place and have children with the same girl together, like we sometimes talk about?”

“We’re usually drunk when we talk about it,” Trey pointed out.

“That doesn’t make it any less of a conversation,” I replied. “We all know who tells the truth. Drunks and children.”