Chapter 10 Thomas
I built the fire myself because Maren was in the editing bay until late and the three of us had agreed, without saying much, that tonight was ours.
Brady was on the deck with a tray of burgers he had been seasoning like they were going to be graded. Damian was across the patio with three beers, and I watched him set one down near Brady and keep two for himself, which told me everything about the beer.
"How's the cucumber wheat beer?" Brady called.
"It's great," Damian said.
"So you hate it."
"I'm developing a taste."
"You're going to switch it for an IPA the second I turn around."
"I would never," Damian said, already holding the IPA behind his leg.
Keith was on the lounge chair, watching us, which was his main hobby. He had decided the three of us were a show that comes on every night, and he had a good seat for it, and he intended to keep it.
I waited until the first burger hit the grill. Then I said the thing I had been carrying around for a while.
"I want to put something on the table," I said. "Before it gets weird and we all pretend it isn't."
Brady did not look up from the grill. "Okay."
"I've seen what's happening in the house.
With her. With us." I kept my voice even.
"I'm not going to act like I haven't. I don't need either of you to tell me anything.
I'm not asking you to confess. I'm just saying out loud that the conversation has started, so none of us has to wonder if the other two are having it without him. "
Brady flipped a burger. Then he set the spatula down, which for Brady was a serious act.
"Fine," he said. "I'll say it, since saying things is the one thing I'm good at.
" He turned around. "We're all falling for the same woman.
All three of us. I'm not going to sit here and decorate it.
And here's the part that actually matters.
This thing has two endings. There's the ending where it breaks us.
Where it turns into three guys who used to be brothers, keeping score across a woman.
" He paused. "And there's the other ending.
And I'll tell you right now, I refuse to be the man who picks the first one.
I'd give her up before I'd give you two up.
I just need to know I'm not the only one. "
For a second nobody said anything. The fire popped.
Damian was quiet the way he gets quiet before he says something he has actually thought about. He turned the IPA in his hand and stopped pretending it was the cucumber wheat.
"I didn't have a brother before you two," he said.
"You know that. You know it better than anyone.
" He did not look up. "I had nine foster homes and a duffel bag and a list of people who decided I wasn't worth the bedroom.
And then there was you, and your mother's table, and the four chairs.
" He set the beer down. "I'm not going to have a brother again after you two, either.
There's no third act where I go find more of this.
This is the only version I get. So no. I'm not losing it over a woman.
I don't care how extraordinary she is, and she's the most extraordinary person I've ever met, but I'm still not losing this. "
I moved the burgers. "Then here's where I land.
Whatever she decides, the three of us survive it.
That's the rule. Not a hope. A rule." I looked at them both.
"If she picks one of you, the other two don't make it a wound.
If she picks me, same. And if it comes to it, I'll step back.
I mean that. I'll walk if walking is what keeps the three of us whole.
And I expect the same from both of you. The rule's the rule whether the math works out in my favor or not.
We don't get to follow it only when we win. "
"You'd really step back?" Brady said.
"In a second," I said. "I built this with you two out of nothing. I'm not setting it on fire for anybody."
Brady was quiet a moment. Then he asked the thing I had not let myself ask. He’s always been braver than me about questions. I was brave about everything except the ones that matter.
"Okay," Brady said. "But what if she doesn't pick one of us? What if she picks all of us?"
I did not have an answer.
Damian broke the silence that followed. "Then we figure out how to be worthy of that."
He said it simply. But I’d known Damian since he was sixteen and refused to eat Thanksgiving dinner until everyone else had gone back for seconds, because some foster home somewhere taught him to wait and see if there was enough before he took any. So I heard what was under it.
"I've spent my whole life," Damian said, "being told I wasn't worth much…
by systems, by families, and by people who filled out a form and decided.
And for a long time, I believed them." He looked up, and his jaw was tight.
"I'm done believing them. I decided that just now, on this patio, in front of you two.
If a woman like that wants all three of us, then the answer isn't that we're not allowed.
The answer is that we get to work, and we get to deserve it. That's the whole answer."
I nodded. "Burgers are done."
We ate standing up, the way we always do, plates balanced on the deck rail, Keith watching from his chair like a king reviewing his guards.
The relief in it was real. Because the thing I had been afraid of, the whole reason I built that fire, was that this would change us.
That she would get between us without meaning to.
She had not. If anything we were more ourselves.
"These are dry," Damian said.
"They are not dry," Brady said. "You eat like a man who's mad at flavor."
"They're dry. You overworked the meat. You handle a burger like you're mad at it."
"I season with love. Thomas, are they dry?"
I took a bite. They were a little dry.
"They're great," I said, because some things you protect, and a man's burgers on the night he agrees to share his whole future are one of them.
"Coward," Damian said, and reached for another one.