That actually seemed a lot more likely. Naimh had made clear that nobody would be forced to do anything they didn't want to do, and I could easily see a future where four of the girls each took their turn and Sam blew me off instead.

Unless... I was like... in some kind of emotional turmoil and her maternal instinct kicked in to Florence Nightingale me back to health.

I could maybe even invent something.

‘Now you're talking crazy. Get your shit together, dude,' I told myself.

I lost track of how many times I'd circled the yard. I was on the far side of the empty swimming pool when I realized for sure that I was going to go ahead and try Naimh's plan. At the very least, I welcomed the opportunity to get to know each of the girls better. I always spent so much time trying to keep all of them ‘in balance’, and seeing to the needs of six beautiful young girls WITHOUT making any of them feel neglected was exhausting. Being able to focus on one at a time, even if the rest of them were around, seemed like it would be so... easy.

"Dude, you did not just jinx yourself by calling this ‘easy’, did you?"

Shaking that thought from my head, I finished my loop around the backyard, opened the sliding door, and returned to the family room. The girls were still chatting, but their conversations went silent when I came in.

“So?" Naimh asked expectantly.

“Are you in or out?"

I took a deep breath, nodded, and replied, “I'm in."

There was a Lot of nervous energy in the room that got released when I announced that I was "in". All six of the girls conspicuously exhaled at the same time, everybody noticed, and everybody started chuckling or giggling or otherwise relaxed quite considerably.

Sam had joined Zofi and Alice on the big couch, so I walked over and stood in front of the TV. When everyone settled, I remarked, “So I gather that the rest of you already decided to go with Neevie's plan?"

Sam nodded.

“Of course, none of that would've mattered if you were out.

So there was a Lot of discussion about what we'd do if you said 'no'."

“Well if I know you girls at all, and I'd Like to think that I do, some of you would've been fine with it, and others would claim to be fine with it but simultaneously be a little hurt that I shut down an opportunity to at least try."

There was a little more nervous laughter as the girls exchanged Looks.

“But at the end of the day," I continued, "I'm ‘in' not because I'm trying to avoid hurt feelings, but because I want to experience this with all of you as much as you want to experience it with me. For years it felt Like The Rule was specifically designed to stop me from developing feelings for any one of you over the others. Now after all that time of getting to know each other as friends, I'm being given permission to let those feelings flow, to explore what love means to each of us. Becoming boyfriend/girlfriend is the next stage of evolution for each of our relationships, and in normal circumstances would be impossible to do with all six of you.”

Mari said quietly, “I would've never gotten this chance otherwise.”

Belle was already misty-eyed and she wrapped up her bestie in a fierce hug, mumbling, “I would never have stopped you."

Mari gave her a shy smile and patted her BFF's forearm. "Team Belle."

“Just... please..." I hedged, taking a deep breath.

“Please remember that I'm not perfect. I've already proven I can screw things up just as much as anyone, and feelings can get hurt even if we're only doing this a week at a time. I don't want to hurt anyone, and I'm still terrified the seven of us doing this is going to result in some serious jealousy between you."

“We talked about that too," Alice chimed in. "We obviously can't make promises there won't be any hard feelings, but we're at Least going into this with eyes open. Ultimately, we're running out of time before we all go to college, so it's now or never anyway."

The girls nodded collectively.