After a minute, she asked, “Chad?”
“Yeah, hun?” Here came that deeper conversation.
“Were you serious when you said you wished you could have married both of us?” she probed.
I answered, “It was love at first sight, for both of you, the moment we met. If Shannon had not already been dating Paul back then, I don’t know if I could have chosen between you both. If I had known then what I just learned tonight, I would have tried dating both of you the minute she and Paul broke up. How that would have worked out, I don’t know.”
“And now?” Carol asked.
“I still love you both, although our life together certainly gives you an edge in the amount of time we’ve had to demonstrate that love. Are you headed somewhere with this?” I asked.
“I want Shannon to move in with us once her divorce is final. I want to share you with her. If you’re willing, that is.”
I turned to Shannon and asked, “Is that what you want, Shannon?”
She smiled sweetly and said, “I realized over the past few weeks that my happiest times were when I was with the two of you. For ten years, I’ve been measuring every guy I dated against you, and they fell all short. I settled for Anton when he proposed, because he came close, until even that proved to be a lie, a facade for a fucking cheater to hide behind. I don’t want second-best any more, even if means I’m only getting half of you, although it also means I get half of Carol, too.”
Carol said, “What you walked in on tonight was the result of Shannon asking me if she could marry us. I think it’s a perfect answer to where our hearts are, where they’ve always been, don’t you?”
Without any hesitation, I said, “Since it appears you proposed to us, Shannon, my answer is ‘Yes, we’ll marry you.’ I guess I didn’t just walk in on a tryst, I walked in on love.”