Page 2 of The Partner Quandary

“We’re having a barbeque. Reconnecting with everyone.” He smirks. “You should join us.”

Dumbfounded, I stare at him as I try to comprehend the words coming out of his mouth. I was never part of the popular crowd growing up, never invited to anything. Hell, if I’m being honest I was never part of any crowd. Dax and his friends were the kings of our little town, handpicked to become something great, trained to fight for our country and our way of life. I was just the nerdy girl always hiding my nose in a book and keeping my head down.

Instead of waiting for me to answer him, Dax grabs my cell phone off the counter and starts typing. His cell rings in his back pocket before he hands mine back to me.

“There. Now you have my number and I have yours,” he says and smiles again. “I’ll text you the address.”

He leans over the counter and places a kiss on my cheek before sauntering out. My mind goes on the fritz, and it takes a moment for me to understand what the heck just happened. But when I do, I can’t help the massive smile spreading across my face.

I just got invited to a party.

****

Dax

“Damn,” I huff out as I walk out of Little Letters and run my hand through my hair.

“So, is she coming?” Holden asks as we start making our way down the street, Ford walking behind us.

“I don’t know,” I reply sullenly. “Maybe.”

“Well, that’s better than a straight no,” he muses.

“I didn’t really give her a chance to say no.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Ford asks as we pile into my truck.

“The plan is to get her to our house and spend some time with her,” Holden interjects. “We all know her well enough to know we need to take this slow.”

“Knew her,” I say.

“Meaning?” they both ask at the same time.

“It’s been seven years. Things change and people change.” I sound sullen even to my own ears.

“We’ve asked around town. She doesn’t have a Partner,” Ford says.

“That’s not what he meant,” Holden says while lookingout the window. “What Dax is saying is that we may have lost our window.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no, Ford?” I ask while waiting for the light to change. “We knew it was a possibility when we came back.”

My heart hurts just thinking about it. In high school, we all knew we wanted Blair. She is the perfect girl for the three of us. It never mattered to us what her Proving Test results were. It’s easy to know even when no one says a word. The girls that remain in school after the age of sixteen are clearly infertile. Neither of us cares about the fact she will never bear children, we only want Blair.

The real problem back then was the fact that she was too young. So, we joined the army as we had always planned and served our country. None of us expected to be away for seven damn years but it is what it is. Now we’re back and it may be too late, but we are still going to try to get our girl. We can’t just give up.

I rub at the center of my chest. The thought of not being able to have the girl all three of us have been in love with for years, is enough to cause physical pain. But we don’t simply want her for a single night or a weekend. We want her as our Partner, and we will do whatever it takes to get her.

Dax already got permission from the government for the three of us to claim her together. It was tough going for a while, but they finally conceded. We have all been tested and none of us stand a high chance of procreating so the government would rather not risk giving any of us a fertile female as a Partner.

“I mean,” he says as he casually sits back in the passenger seat, “that I saw the way she looked at you. A blind man could have seen that.”

“Being physically attracted to someone is fine,” Holdenpoints out. “But that doesn’t mean she wants to spend the rest of her life with the three of us. Or even one of us. She could want a single Partner, or none at all. We don’t know.”

It would kill me if she only wanted one of us, but we agreed to do whatever made her happy. We spent many nights talking about her while the war raged around us, putting our dreams and desires into words. It was the only way for us to remain sane in a crazy situation. We already discussed what would happen if she couldn’t accept the three of us as a unit. None of us would stand in her way if she chose only one of us, but the dream is to have her as ours. To love. To cherish. One Partner for the three of us to share.

It will be hard to see one of my friends with the woman I love, but I will do it for her, just like I know they will as well. The rest of the drive home is done in uncomfortable silence as we each digest the fact that this may not go the way we have planned.

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