And I knew one of us had to marry her.
It was then that I also felt just a pang of sadness, aware we couldn’t both marry her, but if one of us did, that would be good enough. I knew it then. I knew it early on. But it was too soon to scare her with my intentions or a proposal.
Instead, I sat back with my buddy and watched my twin and another friend do obscene things with the woman I adored.
Kay had a great attitude. She was all for no man left behind, and an always up-for-it woman, I thought she’d be good for nothing when those dudes had finished fucking her in two holes at once. And I was perfectly content being a part of something bigger. Ethan and me, we’d get our chance to do everything we ever wanted to do with our girl over time. No hurry.
I was the happiest, luckiest man alive.
EPILOGUE
SIX YEARS LATER
There it was, the sign to our new bar.
The Charging Swan.
It was a nice little establishment, a good location. Bigger than The Ugly Duckling, but more modern obviously due to being built later.
“I... I still don’t get it,” Dad said. “Swans don’t charge.”
“Birds are dicks,” Jake was quick to reply. “You provoke any of those big birds, and they’ll charge you something fierce. They’re all kinda scary, and people seriously underestimate the ferocity of those birds just because they look all elegant and graceful on the water.”
“Still doesn’t make sense. Aren’t geese the birds known for being massive assholes?”
“I guess, yeah, but swans too.”
“Originally, Ty suggested The Elusive Ferret and that name received a big fat no from me.” Ethan stepped in between them, ever the peacekeeper. “We wanted something to reflect where we came from. Since we all met Kay at The Ugly Duckling, it being something about a swan made sense.”
“Elusive Ferret, I like it.” Barry rubbed his chin. “But the swan, why is it charging?”
“Birds are dicks,” Jake reiterated. “Total, absolute dicks. A swan will charge you in a second.”
“Even if they are,” Dad fired back. “Why do you want to invoke charging swans?”
“Goddamnit, seriously, you fucks overthink everything,” Tyler shouted, sitting far back from the rest of the argument. “It’s a bar attached to four famed football legends and the Onion Ring Queen of Arlington nights. We could name it The Shitty Barn, and it’d do well.”
I put my hand over my mouth to cover my smile, but my shoulders and breast bounced up and down with my stifled snickers.
Seeing my amusement only encouraged Ty to elaborate: “What about, The Shitty Barn full of Charging Swans and Elusive Ferrets. In my opinion, that name’s a winner.”
The boys and my father didn’t comment. We were sitting outside the site of our future bar. It was still being built. Construction workers moved about, shouting at one another, and drills blared in the distance. But it was nice sometimes to come by and look at what we were creating.
My father still owned The Ugly Duckling along with the other two bars, but he was more hands-off and gave himself more free time now he was older and happily married.
As for Gill, well, that’s another story. Every woman gets a happy ending, eventually.
The boys didn’t win the championship six years ago. They came damn close, but something about that next season truly fired them up.
Our relationship had settled into our everyday lives at that point, and well... It was sort of wonderful.
For me, I always had a man to turn to and fulfill my needs. Even individually, they were all fulfilling, personally and intimately.
For them, they said it was nice knowing that they had a woman there for them. Someone loyal they could trust and depend on. And they said they could count on my loyalty because of all they gave me. According to them, where else would I get four strapping athletes who wanted to share me and shower me with affection every day? And were rich. Did I mention modest too?
I replied I could pick up groups of guys to rival them any time I went to Costco; they were on a shelf at the back of the store, buy two, get two more. Somehow the guys didn’t believe me, but they’d always insist one of them accompany me to Costco, so it was good to keep the guys on their toes.
All joking aside, for football players and athletes and famous people away from home in general, it was hard to maintain a relationship. One side forever lonely, waiting for the other to come back. It worked for us; it wouldn’t work for everyone.
It was no wonder the divorce rates among such people were so astronomically high versus the common population.
They’d achieved a hat trick of championships, but over the years, they’d acquired injuries upon injuries.