Our Own Way 6

CHAPTER ONE

This was it.

This was the last five minutes of peace that Gabe was going to get for the next nine days.

Frowning as he stared out the window of his office at the pale gray skies that he was presently willing not to rain, sleet, or snow, he thought about that again.

Nine days.

Nine. Days.

Straight.

He sighed softly. When he had started dating two women, the notion had not occurred to him. Nor when he had started dating three. If it had occurred to him then, he must have forgotten it, or been too distracted.

Probably having sex.

That was particularly distracting, and there was more of it in his life recently than he could ever have realistically dreamed of.

Perhaps a smarter man would have pieced it together sooner. And evidently Gabe was not a smarter man, because when it occurred to him, it wasn’t one of those ‘ah-ha!’ moments where you realize a notion has been dawning on you slowly over the past few days or even weeks, in bits and pieces.

No, this was a ‘HOLY SHIT!’ moment when he’d been checking something online not long after they were officially settled into their new house and the words VALENTINE’S DAY had popped up in an ad his blocker had missed and it had slapped him in the face like a punch from Liz for licking her abs one too many times.

It did vaguely worry him how tempted he was to do that again.

Gabe was deeply grateful than none of the women had come to check on him during the half an hour or so of absolute panicked terror he’d had to endure. Mostly because he had made a lot of plans and he wanted them all to be surprises.

His panic attack had actually been an escalating cascade of surprises.

First, he had thought to take them all out to dinner somewhere.

Or perhaps to just make them all dinner.

But then he had immediately rejected that, because he realized that, even if they were okay with it, he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to live with himself unless he had one for each of them. And that had tightened the screw.

Just a little, but enough that he noticed.

Then, as he opened a fresh document with slightly shaking hands and frantically began trying to assemble a bullet point list of ideas to help him out of this hole he had abruptly discovered himself in, he found himself thinking that at least it was only five.

And that’s when the next one hit.

Harder, actually. Much harder.

He couldn’t just do this for his five actual girlfriends...

wives...well, fiances and wives, sort of...

no, he couldn’t do it for only them. He had to do it for several other women as well.

He just had to. Because, in his own way, he did have feelings for each of them.

Perhaps he even loved one or two of them in the way he loved Ellen and Chloe and the others in his home.

He wasn’t sure if he could tell Sadie to her face that he loved her, especially when he hadn’t admitted it to any of his wives...except that he had. He’d had this discussion already, with everyone. He had said ‘I love you’ to Sadie’s face, during intensely passionate sex.

But…

It wasn’t the same.

Now that more time had passed, Gabe suspected that he did, in fact, love love Sadie. That he was, in fact, in love with Sadie.

And he...just couldn’t cope with that right now. Because loving Sadie was going to be different from anyone else. Not precisely because she was so much older than him, but more simply that there existed such an intense age gap.

Maybe it could work, though…

But all of this had gotten flushed away as the true reality of his situation slapped him once more: nine. He had nine dates to plan.

Over a week.

Because there was just no way this was going to be a Valentine’s Day. No, it wasn’t even going to be a week, but that’s what he was calling it.

Perhaps the most comforting thing to come out of this whole experience, Gabe reflected as he stood in the shadow of the tsunami, was that he apparently was a good husband.

A very good husband. Because most of the plan that he was right now, he checked his phone, two minutes away from enacting, had been slammed together in about thirty minutes.

It had all just come to him. He hadn’t needed to sit there and agonize about where to take Ellen, what to get Liz, how to handle Holly.

The moment he reached for the information, it was there.

Always. And that felt fucking incredible for nine women, especially given how little he actually knew Kim or Stacy.

He felt a stab of guilt as he briefly considered Isabella.

She was the one he was leaving out of the plan, though he did intend to make it up to her once he had recovered.

Although he imagined she might be embarrassed, but he also suspected that she would be hurt if he didn’t do it.

She also would never tell him, nor actually blame him, she’d just be sad.

And he didn’t want that.

But he also knew that nine was his limit.

It might even be beyond his limit, but he wasn’t so sure about that now.

If this was last year? Definitely. This would be too much.

But since getting with Ellen? Now it didn’t feel like a bridge too far.

He’d built up his endurance, his stamina, both literally and emotionally.

Still, though...nine days did feel like a bit much.

With this in mind, and one minute left to spare, Gabe walked over to his desk and pulled it open.

He had a small stash of those little energy shots locked away for emergencies like this.

He was going to drain his reserve, and it probably wasn’t going to be enough.

Oh well, that was a problem for the near future. One he would try to solve if he could find an extra five minutes, but that might not be realistic.

The days were packed.

That was it. Time was up.

Gabe pocketed his phone and looked down at himself, at his clothes. He wore a long-sleeve black shirt with a glaring white skull emblazoned on the front, and some heavy cargo pants. It would be in the fifties out today, a hoodie should be able to handle that.

There was no time to go to the bathroom and check himself in the mirror. He made do with looking in the reflection of his laptop screen. He looked good, or good enough. Holly would like it, that’s what mattered.

It was time to do this.

It was time for Valentine’s Week.

…

“You doing all right, babe?” Gabe asked as he drove Holly along the highway.

“What? Yeah. Yes. I’m fine,” she replied.

“...clearly.”

She sighed, giving him a quick glaring glance. “Fine, Mister. I’m not fine. I’m feeling...a little jumpy. I mean, it’s good, mostly. Just…” She made a worried sound.

Uh-oh. This might actually be a problem.

So far, it seemed to him that Holly’s big problem that was most impeding her life (he could see it manifesting more often now) was depression. But, he’d been doing research on that, and he knew that anxiety could be a side effect of depression.

It did make sense. If you were having the ability to feel pleasure systematically sucked out of your soul on a regular basis, it made sense that that would stress you the hell out. He had at least a passing familiarity with what that felt like.

“What’s specifically on your mind?” he asked.

Had to do this carefully. It was way too easy to get caught in a feedback loop where he got kinda stressed, which made her more stressed, which made him more stressed because his deescalation wasn’t working and he couldn’t help but show at least a little, and on and on.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted.

“Take a moment to think about it. Look out the window at the clouds. We’ve got time. Still maybe fifteen minutes away.”

“All right,” she murmured, turning away from him and looking out the window.

Today was Holly’s date day. She was the first one.

One of the things he had decided early on was that he would decide the order by not deciding it.

He put everyone’s name in a bag and blindly drew the names one by one.

The only thing was that he’d done it in two batches, because there was no way he was letting anyone outside the house go before anyone inside the house.

He still wasn’t even sure if Kim was coming. He’d sent her the message, but she had yet to respond. Gabe knew he was truly stressed because he was halfway hoping she’d say no or just not respond, and he’d get a day off.

But no. In the end, he always came back around away from that thought.

He’d put up with a lot to get a date with Kim.

He found that funny. Given his current relationship situation, it seemed unlikely he’d still be getting seriously excited for another new girl. And yet, here he was. Maybe it was because there was something special about Kim…

But, for God’s sake, there was something special about them all. And that included those not in his ‘harem’.

Focus. Stay focused.

Holly was still silently staring out the window.

Gabe had hope. Really, he had hope for all of them.

Each of them, in their own way, struggled with communication.

Liz, bizarrely, was the best. Though he supposed it made more sense after meeting her mother.

The woman just exuded confidence. If you’d had that raising you from the beginning, well, it made sense why you yourself would end up strangely confident despite some awkwardness.

They had all come a long way in a short time, though.

It was still weird, and he knew that Chloe and Krystal were going to struggle for a while yet.

Ellen too, in her own way. But Holly was doing well.

She was taking the help they gave her to heart in a pretty straightforward way.

She often seemed to do that, and it was something he encouraged.

It seemed to make life easier.

“Okay,” she said at last, turning to face him again. “I think I know what it is. I’m anxious because I’m the first. But also because you put, like, a lot of effort into this.”

“You don’t even know what’s on the menu,” he replied. “I mean, you’re right, but...don’t go building it up too much in your head.”

“I’ll try not to, but, I don’t know, you just seem so freaking impressive now. It’s hard to imagine this being a dud. And I’m worried I’ll fuck it up somehow. You’ve got like this perfect day planned out and what if I...why are you smiling?”

“Holly...come on. I mean, seriously. If there’s one thing I’ve learned to do, it is to adapt, and to plan for things to go wrong.

Or even just in a different direction. I’ve got a plan, and I’ve got contingencies, but mostly I trust my ability to adapt, and I trust your reasonableness.

If either of us screws something up, we both know the other will forgive them. Right?”

“...right. I guess I’m still a little weird about that.

I’m still a little paranoid. Like I’m missing something.

I don’t know, it’s weird. I’m really confident in the relationship most of the time, but sometimes it’s like the anxieties and insecurities and worries all come rushing at me out of nowhere, and they feel just as strong as before. ”

“I understand that. I actually know what you’re feeling, to a certain degree. We pretty much just have to hedge against those feelings, and believe in the relationship. In the other people.”

She regained her smile. “I do. I choose to, but also I do. And that’s stronger than my anxiety.”

“Exactly.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“I think…” He struggled for a moment, then stumbled upon something. “You should choose to give yourself permission to enjoy this. If it goes wrong, then it goes wrong. It going right is what we should aim for, but...we’re here for the experience of being with each other.”

“I really like that. So I agree. I’m going to do that.” A moment passed. “So...what’s happening on my date day?”

He sighed. “Why do you all do that? Is it just...a natural thing girls do, or did you all get together on it?”

She laughed. “I dunno. I guess it’s fun to annoy you.”

“I actually cannot escape brats,” he muttered.

She giggled a little maniacally now. “No. No, you cannot. You’ve got five of us now.”

He sighed and drove on. They were about five minutes away now.