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“It’s okay,” he rumbles eventually. “It’s going to be okay.”
And even though what he says is impossible, a part of me dares to hope it could be true.
41
STEFAN
The tension in the car on the drive back to the beach house is palpable. Theron looms in the back, choosing to sit in the middle seat like a giant block of granite in my rearview mirror. His jaw is set like concrete, his eyes narrowed like lasers. Every so often, I catch him looking at Oliver as though he wants to tear my friend’s brain out through his nostrils.
I’m primed to step in if he starts to rail on Oliver. While he should have been open about his involvement with Allie’s company, the rest of us were all there and participated in the risky activity that got press attention. Theron, of all of us, engineered the situation. He’s the puppet master in all this, and he needs to acknowledge that before he says anything to anyone else.
We don’t talk much.
Anything I have to say to Oliver to assist with him finding a route out of this tangled mess will have to be done back at the beach house, where we can talk in private.
But when we’re thirty minutes from there, Theron surprises me.
“It’s my fault,” he mumbles. “Allie was a good girl and I…” He stops as though what he was planning to say next hurts to force through his lips. He clears his throat. “I wanted her, but I knew that trying to seduce her with all you guys around wouldn’t work, so I came up with that stupid fucking proposal. I was selfish and stupid. I was a dick-driven asshole.”
I glance at Oliver, who still seems folded in on himself. Neither of us expected any kind of responsibility from a man like Theron. “We were all there,” I say. “Allie didn’t do anything she didn’t want to. You were just the catalyst.”
“If a kid eats too much ice-cream and gets sick, who’s to blame, the kid or the parent who supplied the ice-cream?”
Oliver turns in his seat. “Allie is a grown woman. You’re not her parent, and you were upfront about what you wanted and what you were offering. This is all on me.”
“Fuck.” Theron, who had leaned forward with his confession, now slumps back against the seat back. “She looks so broken…and I just…I can’t fucking take that she wouldn’t let us in.”
“I know.” We all understand Theron’s frustration. “We have to trust Russell to be her rock.”
Oliver nods in agreement. “Russell can be that for her.”
“The man couldn’t be more rocklike if he tried,” Theron says.
We all laugh to let out a little of the pent up agitation.
“That’s what’s great about there being so many of us.” I leave the sentiment hanging for a moment. “For Allie, I mean. Between us, we have everything she needs.”
“How many men does it take to make the perfect boyfriend?” Theron says it dryly but there is something in his statement that I can’t ignore.
“You know Allie has a friend with nine boyfriends. And that woman, Natalie, from next door, has three husbands. You ever thought about that kind of arrangement?”
“You mean for more than just hot, kinky sexy?”
“Yeah.” I meet Theron’s eyes in the mirror, trying to gauge his reaction. It isn’t outright rejection. If anything, there’s a spark of interest there.
“I always thought I was a traditional guy,” he says, rubbing his stubbly chin. “My parents have talked about the day I’m gonna get married to a nice Greek girl since I was just out of the womb. It’s like a mantra they hope they can embed so that my future is mapped out for me.”
“And now?”
“Now, I don’t know. I’ve gone this many years without finding someone like Allie. And I don’t think I realized how good it would be to have male company…you know, other dudes around to discuss things with.”
“Yeah. The guy-company has been surprising," I say.
Oliver doesn’t jump into the conversation, but I can tell he’s listening intently. I take it as a positive sign that he’s not displaying any disagreement.
“Ten men who’ve been thrown together shouldn’t get along as well as we do.” Theron glances out of the window at the sun that is starting to blink brightly at the horizon. A new day is coming, but what it will bring is unknown.
“What happens next will have a huge impact on Allie’s life. If we all disappear and leave her to deal with the fallout of those pictures, it will make things worse.”
