The Life You Stole (Life Duet 2)

He pursed his lips to the side, giving me a slight squint. “Lila is still seeing a physical therapist. I don’t think knocking her up is the best idea, but thanks for your concern. We’ll keep practicing.”

“Why do you treat me like a locker room buddy? Do you really think I want to hear about the details of your sex life with my best friend and hear you use degrading terms like knocking her up?”

“Details?” A sly eyebrow quirked up his forehead, conveying too much pleasure in my misstep of words. “I haven’t given you any details. Do you want details? I trust you more than anyone you’re supposedly referencing as a locker room buddy.”

“We love Lila more,” I whispered with the reverence and true love she deserved.

“Yes!” Graham turned away from me, running his hands through his hair and tugging it, a very uncharacteristic move from my perfectly put-together governor friend. “We love her more. I married her, didn’t I?”

I had no clue what he meant by that. Did he think marrying her was some sort of sacrifice? I couldn’t imagine Ronin talking about me like that, even if he had trouble showing his affection for me the previous night.

That still bothered me. I was sure it ate at his ego, his manhood, but it chipped away at my ego too.

Did he no longer find me attractive?

Did he think of someone else … a perfect match like Va-ness-uh? I still thought about her, in weak moments, even though it was many years ago and she moved to Utah the following winter. There would always be another version of her. A good skier. Someone who liked ruffling his hair. Maybe someone who could turn him on, even after a long day and a possible pulled groin.

Fuck … I hated the insecurity. As much as I loved him beyond words, especially those actual words, I wasn’t immune to feeling inferior to made-up thoughts in my head. We had the perfect life with our kids, but we didn’t always have the perfect marriage.

We experienced rough times, like his opioid addiction. On a few occasions, we argued about money, and he would mention moving to somewhere more affordable, seemingly uncaring that I owned a business in Aspen and lived in the house my grandfather built.

“We would have been disastrous together, right? You wouldn’t have given up your job like Lila did to take on the role of the First Lady.”

I shook my head. “W-what are you talking about?”

“Had I not chosen Lila … if I would have fought for you … it would have ended in disaster, or I would have had to choose a simpler life—running the family business while you raised the kids.”

“Jesus, Graham. Seriously? What the hell are you talking about? Fighting for me. Are you delusional?”

He pulled out his phone, giving his attention to the screen instead of answering me, deep concentration etched into his forehead. “I have to go. My assistant will send you copies of the deed to sign as well as all the rental agreements of the other tenants. She’ll also notify them of the transfer of ownership.” He grabbed the back of my head, his signature move, and kissed my forehead for a second time. “Say hi to Ronin. Tell him I’ll call him about golf next week.”

Ronin wasn’t going to play golf with Graham, not if I told him about all the things he just said to me, and more specifically, how he said them. Then again, that was Graham. That had always been Graham—sweet one moment, like gifting me an entire building, and inappropriate the next moment, eluding to ridiculous what-if’s when we were both happily married to other people.

My ability to make sense of it seemed impaired, at best. Lila and I joked about that night in Vancouver, how her tongue ring may or may not have been a little arousing. That didn’t mean we planned to cheat on our spouses or do anything inappropriate. Right? That was because we were friends, but so was Graham. We had sex many years earlier. We joked about it. That didn’t make it less of a mistake.

The ridiculous what-if road led to a disaster. Lila and I didn’t discuss the what-if-we-were-lesbians scenario. We didn’t sit around wondering what our lives would be like had we chosen to be together.

Graham left me with the urge to call Lila. It had been several days since I last talked to her. I needed to hear her voice—gauge her happiness.

“Evie,” she answered on the third ring.

She made my name sound lifeless.

“Hi. How are you?”

“Fine.”

Her “fine” showed no signs of a pulse either.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing.” She sighed so heavily I swear I could feel her breath through the phone. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you sound like someone died. Did someone die?”