“Truly what?”
“Trustworthy.”
No. He was not to be trusted. The voice in my head screamed, “RUN!” Then another voice started listing the things he’d done for me and my family.
That Porter-Taylor scoreboard flashed in neon.
His whispered threats.
My pregnant sister.
My father with a kidney that would not last forever.
The Clean Art building.
“What don’t you trust about him?”
“He’s just different. I mean, we’re all different. Older. Married. Kids. Different jobs. Responsibilities get in the way. We don’t shut down the bars anymore. I don’t get to Aspen as often to make soap with you. You don’t watch games with Graham anymore. But you’re still you. And on good days…” Lila gave me a half smile “…I’m still me.”
“You don’t think Graham’s still Graham?”
He wasn’t. I questioned not only his loyalty to his wife and friend, I questioned his sanity. But while my best friend remained married to him, those words sat nervously idle in my gut. Approaching the “your husband may be a psychopath” subject required absolute proof. Loving me, desiring me, didn’t necessarily make him a psychopath, just a terrible husband. Sniffing me … that rode the line, but it also fit into the pervert category. Not all perverts were psychopaths. The worst part? I would have told Lila about his inappropriate behavior had it not been with me. As ridiculous as it sounded, I felt like I could rehabilitate him, steer him back on course. Avert an affair that would have happened had it been anyone else but me whom he pursued.
“Sometimes he’s Graham. Sometimes he’s unrecognizable. One moment he’s kind and his amazing self, but other times I feel like he wishes he hadn’t marry me. And please, please don’t tell him I said that. I know you’ve always felt responsible for our happiness together, but you’re not. And after last night, I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize his generous mood. I’m just expressing my thoughts … my fear that it won’t last.”
I nodded slowly. “W-what has he done to make you question if he really wanted to marry you?”
Lila shook her head. “It’s nothing. Silly actually.”
“It’s not silly. Just tell me.”
Her nose wrinkled as her gaze met mine and several pregnant seconds passed. “Occasionally, I think he wishes he would have married you instead of me.”
Those words evoked strong nausea. Had she seen something? In the Hamptons, did she see one of the multiple occasions that Graham crossed that line by the length of an ocean? “Me?” I laughed a little, as much as I could with my scone churning in my stomach, pushing bile up my throat. “He’s made it his life’s goal to remind me how imperfect I am compared to you. He encouraged me to pursue Ronin. He knows our drunken mistake in college proved we would never work well as anything more than friends—”
“But what if …” Her nose remained wrinkled.
I couldn’t blame her. Graham’s feelings toward me fell into the cringe-worthy category. My grimace tried to claw its way to the surface as well. I held it back.
“What if you thought it was a mistake, but he didn’t? I know … I know it sounds crazy, but what if he’s secretly been pining for you all these years? And what if his insults were high school antics, reverse psychology to get you to like him … to encourage you to prove him wrong by getting him to like the very things he said he didn’t like about you?”
My jaw dropped, feigning shock. How could I expect anything less from my best friend? She noticed guys eyeing me before I spotted them in a room. Her intuition was right nine out of ten times. Lila graduated with honors, navigated the world by herself for years, started her own company that she later sold to be the governor’s wife. Beyond her endearing traits of kindness and loyalty, my friend possessed a wicked intelligence and razor-sharp intuition. When Lila seemed blind to something, it wasn’t because she didn’t see it; it was simply because she purposely turned a blind eye to it.
“I don’t know what to say, except, if there’s any truth to your theory, if Graham had feelings for me beyond friendship, he knows I’m happily married. In the pining scenario, he has no chance of being with me in that way. So it makes no sense to ruin his marriage for … misplaced feelings from the past.”
No lie.
It didn’t make sense to risk his marriage for a fantasy. Graham had no chance of ever being with me.
“I know. Trust me, I know it’s ridiculous. But sometimes the ridiculous is real. Have you ever sensed it? Even a little bit?”
Yes. When he rubbed his erection against me, sniffed my crotch, and announced that I was his endgame or challenge in life, I sensed a bit of pining.
“You know I’m oblivious to little signs, subtle gestures. So, if there’s any truth to it, then I don’t know what to say. If it were the case, I’d feel terrible. Devastated even.”
I did. I felt terrible. And the times he crossed that line, I felt complete devastation.
“And if you knew it for sure or could prove it, what would you do? I mean … what do you do if your husband longs for something he can never have? Clearly, he won’t ever cheat on you with me. But you also have to know that I support you and your happiness without preexisting conditions. I told you to love you first. And that hasn’t changed. We are forever, even if you and Graham are not.”
She scraped her teeth along her lower lip several times, pointing her gaze to her teacup. “I’m not leaving him. And if you ever told him about this conversation, he would never forgive me.”
“Lila, I will never say a word to him.”
“I just need …” When she glanced up, tears filled her eyes.
“Your friend,” I whispered.
She nodded.
I set my tea on the table and moved to her side, giving her a gentle hug and a kiss on the cheek. “It killed me to keep the truth about Ronin from you for so long. I needed to tell my friend, but it’s hard to tell your friend if that friend is then put in the position to feel responsible. I get it, Lila. I understand completely. But we have to always remember that this is more than friendship. We are family.” I released her hand and knelt on the floor beside her chair, resting a comforting hand on her leg.
Lila relinquished a sad smile. “I know. But sometimes family hides the truth to protect the ones they love for as long as they can.”
I wanted to say, “Not us.” I wanted us to swear we would never keep anything from each other, but I couldn’t. And Lila didn’t suggest a complete honesty pact either, which meant I wasn’t the only one holding back a piece of the truth.
Sometimes we loved with lies and protected with sins.
“Yes.” I returned a single slow nod. “Sometimes we start wars and throw ourselves into the line of fire to protect the ones we love. But let’s try to avoid starting a war and stay out of the line of fire.”
Lila rested her good hand on mine and squeezed it. “Agreed.”
On my way back to Aspen, I called my mom.
You’ve reached Corey and Madeline. We’re too lazy to answer your call. Please leave a message.