Nothing and everything.
“Tyler’s good now. He’s in a good place. I just want to make sure it stays that way.”
“I would never hurt him,” she says. “Not like he hurt me.”
“Sometimes things happen…sometimes we do things we never thought we’d be capable of and regret them forever.”
“He regrets leaving me?” she asks.
“He never left you,” I tell her. “He just couldn’t find a way back.”
She frowns, and her head moves quickly from side to side as though she doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say. I wish that I could talk openly, but none of this is mine to share. I’ve spilled enough.
Seconds tick past and Sandy seems to be wrestling with what to ask next but in the end we’re interrupted. Arden appears at the door, and I snatch my hand from Sandy’s shoulders too late. My brother’s eyebrows practically hit his hairline. “There you are.”
Sandy stands, smoothing her hands over the silky fabric of her dress, still clutching her purse like it’s filled with gold bullion. “Is Tyler done?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” Arden says. “I was looking for Andrew.”
Standing, I make sure to put some distance between this woman, who is effectively a stranger, and me. A stranger that my friend has loved for most of his adult life. “Why don’t you come and hang out in the den?” I ask her. “I’m sure Tyler will be tidying his mess, and believe me, that will take a while.”
Sandy snorts lightly. “I remember he had a preference for storing his clothes in a pile on the floor.”
“Not much has changed,” I laugh. “But at least he’s learned to keep his mess in his room. He’s housetrained in the communal areas.”
We follow Arden into the den, and when Greg, Damien, and Able see Sandy, they all scramble to sit up straighter, turning the TV volume down from its usual epic level.
“It’s okay,” Sandy says, perching on the couch next to Damien. “Don’t worry about me.”
“You like football?” Damien asks hopefully.
Sandy shakes her head. “I’m more a baseball girl. It’s what my dad liked to watch.”
“Baseball is cool,” Greg says. “But there’s nothing like the sheer brute force of football to get a man’s blood racing.”
“I can think of something else that gets a man’s blood racing,” Arden says.
“Not in the presence of a lady,” I say in a warning tone that has my brother chuckling.
“And who are you, Prince Andrew?” He tosses a pillow at me, which I catch and return with way more speed. We’ve been playing this game since we were kids. There were times, when we were in the group home where we met, that tossing pillows was our only entertainment. It’s hard to think back to those times without getting a knot in my stomach. They were painful and we were all filled with the anxiousness of kids whose adults were failing to be there for them. But there were happy times too, which I don’t want to banish from my memory.
I would never have met these guys if it wasn’t for that set of circumstances. I wouldn’t have this stable life with these men who are more than friends to me. Sometimes, out of the darkest time, we find light.
Sandy watches our back-and-forth with a small smile on her face.
“Do you have brothers, Sandy?” Greg asks her.
“No. Just a sister.”
“Chill out, boys,” Greg barks. “Sandy’s not used to this shit.”
“It’s okay. I used to get into it with my sister sometimes, too, although she is nine years older than me.”
“Nine?” Greg says.
“He’s an only child.” Damien points his thumb in Greg’s direction. “He still can’t hack all the sibling behavior shit in this house.”
“I’m used to it now,” Greg says, cutting his friends a dark stare.
“Used to what?” Tyler appears in the doorway, surveying the scene of comfortable domesticity in front of him. Sandy stands immediately, turning to face Tyler. The change in his expression when his eyes meet hers is like nothing I’ve ever seen from my friend before. It’s like he goes from ice to melted butter in a second.
Shit.
This is bad.
I hate always being the one who sees disaster coming. I know my boys think of me as too responsible. They don’t realize that I wish I could shrug off my sensible nature sometimes, but I just can’t. It’s too deep-rooted—a childhood response born out of needing to grow up too soon. Feeling in control keeps me safe, but it’s as though Tyler is teetering at the top of a rollercoaster that is only heading down.
I like Sandy, but she has no idea what trouble she could cause if she makes a wrong move. Tyler’s heart is in her hands, and she’s completely unaware of the power she has.
I think back to what he said upstairs about the polyamorous relationships he witnessed today.