with all three of them.”
“All three? Who's the third one?”
I forgot she didn't see Dayne.
“Dayne,” I say.
“So you're basically fucking the entire wedding party? Fabulous. Don't save any good guys for anybody else, Livia, it's fine. It's not like the dating pool isn't totally fucked up for all of us as it is,” she says sarcastically.
I go around to the driver's side and knock on the window. She grudgingly unlocks the door, and I slip inside. The keys are in the ignition, and the AC is running on full blast.
“Are you going to tell anyone?” I ask. “You know people won't understand. And it would kill my father.”
She looks away out the window again. “Liv, we've been best friends since we were five, since the day in kindergarten when you yelled at the kids who were bullying me and invited me to sit at your table for lunch. You know I'm not going to say anything. You know I have your back.”
I bite my bottom lip and look out my own window. I can't tell my mother the real truth, but maybe I can tell Macy? I wonder if the risk is too great to have a single confidant outside of my official arrangement.
I risk it because Macy could already destroy everything if she wanted. She's seen too much and knows too much and already has the power, but I know she won't because she's still that little girl I rescued when we were five.
“I didn't intend on being with three men. You know how things were after I broke up with Robbie? How depressed I was because guys could just string women along and keep them as girlfriends, even live-in girlfriends without really giving them a life or commitment or any protection or security?”
Macy nods, turning more fully toward me. She's stopped crying at least. It's as if she knows I'm about to drop something big on her.
“Well, I discovered a way to stop them from doing that. My plan was to date multiple men casually while getting to know them well and seeing who was the most compatible and who was willing to offer me marriage. That way I wouldn't get overly invested in the wrong man or waste a lot of time on someone who couldn't give me what I wanted and was just stringing me along and playing with my heart. It put the power back in my hands. The plan was to end up with one man. The right man.”
Macy just stares at me like I'm a complete stranger, which makes me feel more than a little defensive.
“Men date like this all the time! You know how it is... the confirmed bachelor playboy who plays the field indefinitely until he randomly decides to settle down, taking his sweet time about it. I was doing the same thing. Except I wasn't sleeping with them. I was getting wined and dined. You know this is fair.”
“But you ended up settling down with three.” She practically shrieks that last word at me.
“Not by my choice,” I say.
Her eyes widen. “What do you mean by that? How is it not by your choice? Did someone make you get together this way with three men?”
“Soren did. I was dating all three of them, and they found out about each other. It turns out they already knew each other. Fraternity brothers, if you can believe it. I mean I knew it was a small world at the top but... wow it really is. They decided they were sharing me, and if I said no, Soren said he would... Macy he knows about spring break.”
Macy's eyes grow huge, and I know she knows exactly which spring break I mean. It wasn't like we were disposing of bodies every year in our free time. “H-how could he know about that?”
“I don't know. He had an investigator look into me... and... I have no idea how he could have found out. I've tried and tried to piece it together, but I can't. Somehow he did. He's smart. There must have been some tiny odd thing that sent him down a rabbit hole. I don't know. But he said if I didn't marry them, he'd destroy both of us.”
I can see she's deeply conflicted. Her anger has shifted from me hogging all the men in the world to Soren. I know she wants to kill him, or report him to the police, or something.
“We have to find a way to get you away from him,