by Cassie James
I think hell froze over, or I accidentally ingested drugs and I’m hallucinating. Because it sounds like he just asked me in a roundabout way if I’m interested in any of the guys on the team.
A long silence hangs between us.
The longer I go without answering, the more pinched Cyrus’ face seems to get. What the hell does he expect me to say?
“I expect you to say whatever you feel. The truth,” Cyrus answers, answering the question I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud.
My stomach is doing somersaults as I try to come up with some answer that won’t end up getting me thrown under the bus if I say it. I can’t very well tell Cyrus how many nights I’ve spent fantasizing—and then feeling guilty—about the guys on the team. Or how many times I’ve worried I was freaking drooling because one of the guys stepped into my office half-dressed.
I try to come up with the most diplomatic answer I can.
“It means a lot to me that you all treat me like one of the team.”
Cyrus snorts.
“What are you running for office? That’s the worst non-answer I think I’ve ever heard.”
I feel my cheeks flush. “I think you’re treading dangerous waters, asking a question like that.”
It’s meant to be a warning but my words spark a glint of pleasure in his eye. Somehow, this seems to be a better answer to him than the one I actually gave. He seems to take pleasure in knowing I’m too nervous to give him the real answer.
“You know what I think?”
I shrug, helpless to do anything but wait and let him run this show.
“I don’t think you’re a part of the team at all.”
“What?” My chest feels ready to collapse in on itself.
“I think you’re the heart of the team. The person we rally around. The center of everything.”
I shake my head. “No, that’s you.”
“No, Gemma. It’s you.”
His eyes are softer as he seems to search my face for something. I’ve never seen Cyrus look as vulnerable as he does right now, and it stirs something protective in me. I’d do or say anything right now if he would stop looking at me with his lost little boy eyes.
“We—the guys and I—we want more from you.”
“More?” Okay, now I’m really confused. Because what else do I have to give? They get damn near all of my time as it is. “What do you mean more?”
“We want you, Gemma. We stayed away because you were with someone, but now…”
He’s serious. I can see it in his eyes. Plus, he’s never been the kind of guy to joke around, especially not about something like this.
He keeps saying we, as in him—but also more than just him. I wipe my sweaty palms against my jeans under the table. It feels like he’s about to ask me to tear the team apart. If multiple people feel the way Cyrus is saying they do… I would never choose between any of these guys. Not in any way.
We’re a team. Something like that could ruin everything.
“We’re friends. We’re all good as friends,” I force myself to choke out the words.
He lets out something that sounds like a growl that makes me jerk in surprise in my seat. I hadn’t anticipated his response to be so visceral, but sure enough he’s practically staring a hole through me with how intense his glare is.
“You’re telling me you’ve never thought about it? How easily you’d fit into our lives? We all feel it. Every goddamn one of us. But you really want to tell me you don’t?”
I swallow—hard.
“You’re asking me to sacrifice friendships that are really important to me.” My voice is quiet and uncertain. He’s blindsiding me with this.
“Oh get off it, Gemma. What’s really the difference between friends and more anyway?”
I snort, his short tone putting me on the defensive. He’s certainly trying his damndest to get under my skin right now.
“There’s the obvious thing: sex.”
“Yeah, I was hoping you’d say that.”
I suddenly get the impression I’ve walked right into a trap as Cyrus leans back in his seat and slings an arm casually over the back of the booth. One side of his mouth tilts up into his signature grin—the one that got him his spread last year in Sports Associated.
“The team has a proposition for you.”
“The team does, or you do? Because I don’t know if you noticed, but the team is nowhere to be found.” I gesture around us at the nearly empty bar.
His eyes flash with amusement. He doesn’t care that I’m giving him a hard time. He’s a man on a mission, and apparently that mission is me.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous when you’re getting an attitude.”
My mouth hangs open like a fish as my mind struggles to come up with some semblance of a response.
As if he hasn’t just hit me with a debilitating compliment, Cyrus continues, “But if you don’t stop with the attitude, I’m going to find a whole slew of interesting ways to otherwise occupy that smart mouth of yours.”
A full chill makes me shiver in my seat, a movement that Cyrus definitely notices as his lips turn up into a smirk.
He has never, in the two years we’ve known each other, made an innuendo directed at me. Especially not this blatant or framed by his insistence that the guys want more than friendship from me.
“Just… tell me what the proposition is.”
Preferably before I combust.
“Twenty-five dates. One with each of us.”
A date with every single one of the Strudford Storms rugby players? I think I’m going to freaking faint.
I shake my head profusely, denying him even though certain parts of me are begging me to reconsider. “And then I… What? Choose? You’d be asking me to single-handedly destroy the team we’ve worked so hard to build the last couple years.”
“No,” he answers slowly, “I don’t want you to choose. I never want you to choose.”
“I don’t understand what you’re proposing then.”
He leans forward, hand reaching out for mine across the table and tugging me forward so we’re both leaning over the table towards each other.
“Hear me out, Gem.” I wrinkle my nose—I hate that freaking nickname and he knows it. But then he squeezes my hand, and I forget about the stupid nickname entirely. “If you feel even a fraction of what we’ve all been feeling…”
His words trail off, and I only belatedly realize it’s because I’m squeezing his hand so tight it’s got to hurt. I try to let go altogether, but he holds fast to his grip on me.
“We could treat you real good, Gemma. Much better than the loser you were with before. But you’re right, we don’t want to tear the team apart. We don’t want you to pick one of us, we want you to want all of us.”
“All of you,” I echo softly.
My mind mentally catalogues each of the guys, all twenty-five of them. What he’s proposing is preposterous. I’ve heard of polyamroy, people dating more than one partner, but what he’s suggesting—a relationship of that magnitude—I just don’t know how he could believe it’s really possible.
“I don’t know how it would work.”
“All you have to do right now is agree to try.”
I squeeze his hand again. “Why would you all want to… share a girlfriend?”
“Why not? We share everything else,” he answers with a smirk.
I kind of hate that he’s making a joke right now. It makes me hesitate, wonder if he’s just fucking with me after all. He must sense that because he wipes the smirk off his face and looks so deep into my eyes, I think I might need an exorcism to ever rid myself of him again.
“If it’s the one thing that makes the difference between having you or not having you… then yeah, we’re going to fucking share.”
Maybe it’s the lack of attention I got from Colin or maybe it’s that this is a dream come scarily close to true, but I catch myself melting for him.
“So what do you say?”
> The answer I give is going to change everything either way. There’s no going back from a request like this. Even if I say no, the team dynamic will never be the same now that I know. Know that they’ve been thinking about more.
“Maybe,” I say carefully, still nervous to let on just how much I want to jump in feet first.
“Maybe’s not good enough.” His face looks pained, like if he doesn’t get the answer he wants he might not actually survive it. I squirm in my seat as I picture what it would be like to be sitting across from this man on an actual date instead of this weird, confrontational, confusing meeting we’re having. “Tell me you’ll really think about it, Gemma.”
I nearly choke out the word, “Yes.”
A grin starts to spread across Cyrus’ face as if we’ve just won a championship and he’s ready to accept the MVP trophy. He opens his mouth to say god knows what, but we’re interrupted before he gets the chance.
“Hey.” Shelly sets a bucket of beers down in between us, a sly grin spreading over her face. “I would have brought these over sooner, but I didn’t want to interrupt.”
I feel my cheeks going red all over again, but Cyrus doesn’t look the least bit perturbed by her insinuation. He winks from across the table.
No, he’s definitely not bothered at all.
Eight
Gemma
Cara lets out a squeal when I step into her favorite bar thirty minutes late. I’ve been admittedly plagued by a mental fog that made the idea of getting anywhere on time feel like a big hassle.
Apparently, she used those thirty minutes to her advantage because I can smell the liquor rolling off her breath as she throws her arms around me in squeezes me in a tight hug. I eye the guy she was sitting next to at the bar. He doesn’t look so thrilled to see me showing up.
My best friend gets a mischievous look in her eye.
“Lets go sit over there.” She nods her head toward the far corner of the bar.
“Weren’t you just sitting over with that guy?”
“Yep.” She pops her p. “But he’s got another thing coming to him if he thinks buying me a couple drinks is a one-way ticket to my panties. He had to ask me my name twice, Gemma. It’s only four little letters!”
She gives me her best drunk-girl pout, and I can’t help but laugh.
Some of the tension I’ve been carrying around the last few days finally starts to thaw.
“So where have you been hiding?” Cara asks as we maneuver our way through the crowd. Unlike Midtown, this place caters to a more hard partying crowd—as evidenced by the fact that I’m pretty sure there’s a line of cocaine lined up on one of the tables we pass.
I’m pretty sure this is Cara’s favorite bar only because she can get close to the danger without actually participating in it.
It’s not my scene, at all.
If it weren’t for Cara blatantly begging me to come out and meet her, I’d still be at home wrapped in a fuzzy blanket on the couch… And maybe or maybe not hosting myself a Sandra Bullock marathon.
Why is The Proposal so freaking good?
Cara glances back at me, her eyebrows raised as she waits for me to give her an answer.
“I’ve been getting some R&R at home.”
She laughs so hard she nearly chokes. “What on earth could you possibly need rest and recovery for?”
I don’t laugh along with her. The truth is, these last couple days have been hell as I’ve turned Cyrus’ proposal over and over in my mind. After I said yes that I would really think it over, he changed the subject and said nothing else about it. And now I’m stuck stressing over whether he really meant it or if maybe the team changed their minds.
And, of course, I’m way too chicken shit to just call Cyrus up and ask.
“Oh, shit. You’re serious?” Cara shoves herself into a seat at a bar top table. “Spill, lady. What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing, I promise.” I wave her off.
She tries guessing anyway. “Work stuff?”
“Something like that.”
She scrunches her nose as her eyes start to wander, and I know I’m off the hook. She doesn’t want to be out sitting at a bar talking about work. Then she’d have to acknowledge that she still hasn’t found a real full-time job of her own yet and how that needs to happen sooner rather than later the way she’s been blowing through her savings.
Something causes her eyes to light up, and I shift in my seat to see what’s caught her eye. Two guys casually stroll through the bar. It takes me a second to realize they’re on a path straight toward us.
My stomach twists—not with excitement but with dread. The thought of trying to play Cara’s wingwoman when I’ve got a twenty-five man proposal hanging over my head just feels exhausting right now.
“Ready for a rebound?” I swear I hear Cara mutter under her breath.
I don’t get a chance to respond because the guys reach our table way too fast. I shift uncomfortably in my chair so I can lean away from the one closest to me. He smells like he bathed in his cologne, and I don’t think I can sit here without gagging and hurting his ego. Cara narrows her eyes as she realizes the same thing.
“Thank you, next,” she says right to their faces, waving them off.
The guys hesitate like they think maybe she’s joking.
She’s definitely not.
I almost admire how brash Cara is, not caring that she’s offended these poor guys by instantly waving them off. “Men in bars are not entitled to our attention just because they exist.” It’s my favorite thing she’s ever said, and I remember it now even years later.
As the guys trail off with their tails between their legs, Cara sits up straighter and arches her back slightly as if her boobs are desperate to pop out and say hello.
I raise an eyebrow at her, and she grins.
“Those guys were duds, but a group of three real contenders just walked in.” She looks like she’s got stars in her eyes, but she’s neglecting one little detail.
“There’s only two of us,” I remind her. I consider adding I’ve got enough guy problems as it is, but I hesitate and then it’s too late because they’re headed our way.
“I wouldn’t mind being the filling in that sandwich,” she purrs, and I splutter as I’m sure my face turns bright red. Not only were her words totally inappropriate, but they also feel a little too on-the-nose for my current dilemma.
Luckily, these guys have enough class not to get so close they could chest bump me—and no overpowering cologne, either, which is a plus.
Still, I feel uncomfortable as a slim man in a nice suit edges his way over so that he’s essentially standing between me and the other two guys. Not that either of them seem to mind as Cara brazenly bats her eyelashes up at them.
Suit guy makes idle chit-chat for not nearly long enough before he oh-so-casually comments, “You’ve got gorgeous hair. You ever wear it loose?”
I self-consciously run my hand over my ponytail as Cyrus’ words come back to haunt me. “You look good with your hair down.”
“Sometimes,” I offer with a shrug.
And even though I know I sound standoffish and not all that interested, the guy takes it completely in stride. It’s not long before suddenly they’re buying us a round of drinks, and I’m doing my best to put on a smile and just bear it for Cara’s sake.
Easier said than done. The longer we stand here, the more I start comparing this guy. To Colin. To the team.
And unfortunately for him, he’s a lot more similar to one than the other.
The wrong one.
Still, no one would ever accuse me of being a bad wing-woman. I stop letting the guy buy me drinks after the first one, but I play nice. I even manage to ask him about his accounting job without yawning.
I’m starting to get antsy when Cara glances over and openly eyes the distance between me and the guy. The space is there completely on purpose, whereas she’s practically hanging over her two new friends.
She tosses the guys one more flirty comment before she smiles over at me and asks, “Bathroom?”
There’s no need to ask me twice. I’m out of my chair before she’s even finished getting the word out. The guy—Matt? Mark?—looks forlorn as I put a few feet between us, but I breathe a sigh of relief.
He’s a nice guy that… Mark-Matt, but I’m just not interested.
He’s not a Storm.
Cara whirls on me the second the bathroom door closes behind us. I study myself in the slightly foggy mirror over the sinks as she claps her hands together excitedly.
She’s in that special stage of drunk where she’s still one-hundred percent herself, but also giddy and having the time of her life. I catch myself envying the freeness she’s feeling and remind myself I didn’t drive here tonight. I could stand to have a few more drinks myself.
“Soooo what do you think of them? I’ll let you have first pick.”
Cara’s eyes sparkle like it’s the best offer she’s ever made. I’m sure in any other circumstances it would be. Though, it feels like the game’s kind of rigged already since Mark-Matt was doing his best to keep me separated from his two friends and Cara’s definitely already put in some leg work with the other two.
Pun absolutely intended.
I shrug and avoid looking at her.
She seems to forget she asked me a question as she leans close to the mirror and starts studiously wiping away smudges of makeup that have formed near her eyes. “Damn raccoon eyes,” she mumbles to herself.
I suddenly can’t hold it in any longer. Even though she’s drunk and I’m well on my way there, I need to tell her about the team’s proposal.
I’ve never been any good at secrets.
“Cara?”
She meets my eyes in the mirror.
“Yeah, babe?”
“Cyrus asked me to start dating the team.”
She blinks slowly at me, her alcohol-fueled brain struggling to make sense of my words. I can see the confusion clouding her eyes as she shakes her head.
“The whole team?”
I nod.
“Well,” she continues, “That’s a lot of wieners.”
I let out a long groan, half tempted to fall to floor and bang my head against it… or I would, if I wasn’t terrified I’d somehow accidentally inhale a secondhand something down there.
