-Sang's POV-

Victor opened his office door for me and told me I could stay in here while I called Nathan. I thanked him and braced myself for the phone call ahead. I wanted to believe Victor so much that I lost touch with what I actually felt. Did I truly believe that Nathan would turn around and be comfortable with all of this or was it just what I wanted to believe?

Nathan picked up on the first ring.

"Peanut? Are you okay?"

"I was much better before Victor told me what happened between you and Gabe."

"I know, I know. Peanut, I am so sorry. I don't know what happened…" I cut him off before he could say more.

"You punched Gabe Nathan. That's what happened. And you did it because he was trying to stop you from interrupting my date with Kota, just because we were out longer than you thought. You told me you would try this, you said if it is what I want than you will do it. You didn't even make it through one of my dates without breaking your word." Was I being too harsh? As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back.

Nathan was silent for a few seconds. When he finally spoke, it was barely above a whisper and I had to strain to hear. "I didn't break my word to you Sang. I know I made a mistake, but that mistake was not breaking my word. I told you I was having trouble coming around to this idea. I told you I would try. I did try. It killed me to know you were out with Kota. Why was it Kota of all of the guys to be your first date?"

"Would it have been different if I had gone out with Luke or Gabe first?"

"I don't know." His voiced raised a little when he said this. He heard him take a deep breath before he continued. "No, it probably wouldn't have been different. I am still going to try though, please tell me you want to keep trying Peanut."

"Of course I do Honey. But now anytime I am out with someone else I will be wondering who you will be punching."

"I am not going to punch anyone again." He grumbled this sentence and I thought it sounded like he had been looking forward to punching some of the other guys.

"I know it is hard for you to imagine Nathan, but I do care about all of you. For this to work though, you all have to trust me not to take advantage of your feelings. I may be out with Kota, but I will come back to you, all of you. But when I am out with Kota, he is the one I am focused on. I think that is the only way it can work. I can't go out with one of you but be constantly thinking of another. Can you handle that? I need you to be honest with me."

"Don't you see it is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that you want to date all of us?" I was about cut in, reminding him that we have already had this conversation, but I let him continue. "And I don't mean the basic fact about you dating nine guys. I mean we are all so different, how can you say you care about me enough to date me, but then turn around and go for someone that has to be the exact opposite of me, like Gabe or Silas? Not to mention Mr. Blackbourne."I opened my mouth to respond, but what he said made sense.

I had thought about it before, how different they were from each other. They may have different personalities, likes and dislikes, but somehow they clicked. Somehow they made all of those differences work to form a team, a family. This was my chance to show Nathan what I saw.

"I know most of you went to elementary school together, but how did you become friends?"

"What?" I must have caught him off guard, because he kind of stuttered it out. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just humor me Honey, just because you went to the same school doesn't mean you had to be friends. So how did you guys become friends?"

He took a breath and let out a breathy laugh. "Um, ok. Well Kota and I were friends for forever, I don't remember when we weren't friends. So we did everything together. One day, we were probably 8 or so, Kota saw something happening in the cafeteria that he didn't like, that he wanted to fix I guess. Of course, wherever Kota went I was right there with him. Victor was the one that we thought was the victim, but it turned out he was trying to set himself up as some sort of bait, to distract from the real victims. The three of us formed a plan and Kota saw Luke practicing his swiping skills on the girls in class. Stealing pencils from their desks and book bags, stuff like that. Kota…uh…recruited him, I guess that's best way to phrase it, to help us."

"What about Gabe? He was there too right?"

This time he let out a full laugh. "Ah well, Gabe was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn't really have a choice after that."

"What happened then?"

"That is a story for another day Peanut. It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's just that I think it will be a better story coming from all of us. The next time we are all together, we will tell you." I couldn't argue with that, even though I wanted to know more. "But, I do understand what you were getting at Sang. And you're right. We probably seem like an unlikely team to everyone else. We make it work though and I can't imagine not having one of the other guys on the team, or even trying to have someone else join. We have tried before and it didn't work, for lots of reasons, but mostly because we didn't need someone else, I think. Not until we met you. You fit so perfectly with us. It's been the nine of us for so long, who knew that we were waiting for our tenth. You are our tenth Sang. I am sorry about what happened. Please believe me when I say that I will make this work."

I did believe him. "Thank you Nathan. I trust you, I believe you. But it is not only me you need to apologize to. Gabe is the one you punched."

Nathan laughed. "O, don't worry about Gabe. He could never stay mad at me."

After saying our goodnights we ended the call and I went off to find Victor and Gabe. I felt a lot better after talking to Nathan.