My Husband’s Best Friend Wants Me

Elara

On the morning of my thirty-first birthday, my husband didn't say happy birthday.

I stood at the stove in my robe, flipping pancakes I had already decided he wouldn't eat. The kitchen smelled of butter and coffee. Upstairs, the shower shut off.

Lucien came down ten minutes later in a navy suit, his eyes fixed on his phone. He didn't look at the plate I set in front of him.

"Is something burning?" he asked.

"No. It's just the edge of the pan."

"It smells burnt." He pushed the plate away with two fingers. "I'll get something at the office."

"I made them the way you like."

"I said I'll get something at the office, Elara." He spoke slowly, like he was talking to a child. "Do you ever listen?"

I put the spatula down and straightened his napkin, just to give my hands something to do. "Are we still on for tonight?"

His thumb kept scrolling. "What's tonight?"

My stomach dropped. Then he glanced up, and something flickered across his face, so fast I almost missed it.

"Dinner," he said. "Right. Just us. I'll be home by seven."

"Really?"

"I just said so, didn't I?" He stood, grabbed his keys, and kissed my forehead on the way past. It was dry and quick, like stamping a form. "Don't make a thing of it."

His phone buzzed as he reached the hall. He flipped it face down against his chest, and I heard his voice change as he walked away. It went low and warm and amused. I hadn't heard that voice aimed at me in years.

The front door closed. His cologne hung in the hallway. It was a new one. I hadn't bought it.

My phone rang on the counter. I answered without looking.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOU ANCIENT WOMAN!"

I laughed before I could stop myself. That was Mara. She had been doing this to me since we were nine, when she showed up at my door with a lopsided cake, a plastic tiara, and a bloody knuckle. She had punched Danny for pulling my braid. She was suspended for two days and told me it was worth it.

"You're loud," I said.

"I'm festive. Thirty-one, Ellie. You're practically a fossil." Something crunched in the background. Mara ate fries for breakfast and called it balance. "So what's the plan? I've cleared my whole day. Spa, cake fight, small crime, you pick."

"I can't do the whole day. Lucien's taking me to dinner tonight."

The crunching stopped.

"Lucien," Mara said flatly.

"He promised. Just us. Seven o'clock."

"Uh huh." I could hear her jaw working. "Did he say happy birthday?"

"He was in a rush."

"Ellie."

"He was."

"That man has never been in a rush to do anything except leave." Her voice was climbing now. "I swear, if he ruins today, I'll key that stupid car of his. In daylight. I'll wave at the neighbors."

"Mara, please."

"I'm just saying. You give the word and I'll show up with a crowbar and a getaway driver."

"I'll be fine."

"You always say that," she said, softer. "And you're always wrong. Text me if you need me. Even at midnight. Especially at midnight."

---

By seven o'clock, the candles had burned down to half.

I had lit them at six, when the table was perfect and the lasagna was still warm. I sat at the head of the table in the green dress Lucien once said made me look like trouble. I had curled my hair twice because the first time hadn't felt right.

At eight, I called him. Straight to voicemail.

At nine, I called again, then texted.

Running late? No rush. I deleted No rush and typed it again, because I was the kind of woman who made it easy for him to disappoint her.

At ten, I stopped pretending the candles were romantic. After that I lost count of the calls. They all went to the same recorded voice.

At eleven, four hours after he'd promised, I blew the candles out one by one and watched the smoke curl toward the ceiling.

My phone lit up. Not Lucien. Mara.

I picked up, and before I could say a word, she said, "Let me guess. He stood you up."

I tried to laugh. It came out thin and cracked. "He's probably stuck at the office."

"Ellie."

"He is."

"It's eleven o'clock on your birthday. Where is your husband?"

I looked at the two plates and the two glasses. I looked at the cake I had hidden in the fridge so he could pretend to be surprised. "I don't know," I said, and my voice broke on the last word.

She was quiet for exactly one second. Then I heard keys, and a car door slam. "Are you dressed?"

"Yes. I wore the green one."

"Of course you did. Okay. I'm coming."

"Mara, I don't want to go anywhere."

"You want to sit in that dining room and cry into a cake. Not happening."

"I'm not going to a club."

"Who said anything about a club?"

"You did. You have the club voice."

"I don't have a voice. But if I did, it would say you deserve one night where you're not the one waiting. One drink. Then I'll drive you home myself."

"Mara..."

"I'm already in the car. If you don't open the door, I'll stand on your porch and beg. You know I have no shame."

She didn't. She was on my doorstep in nineteen minutes, in a leather jacket over her pajama top, gold hoops swinging, and she took one look at my face and pulled me into a hug so tight it hurt.

"I'm going to kill him," she said into my hair.

"You are not."

"I'm going to kill him a little."

She held my hand the whole ride, her thumb rubbing over my knuckles like she was smoothing out a wrinkle. At red lights she muttered under her breath. I caught pieces of it. Useless. Coward. Bury him.

"Mara."

"What? I'm working through my feelings."

I laughed again, and this time something wet slid down my cheek. She reached over and wiped it away with the back of her finger and didn't say a word about it. That was Mara. She fought like a cornered cat for me, and she never once asked me to explain why I needed protecting.

---

The club was called Obsidian, all black glass and low purple light, with a bass line that rattled my ribs. Mara steered me past the line like she owned the place, one hand wrapped around my wrist.

Halfway to the bar, she stopped and cursed under her breath.

"What?" I asked.

"Corner booth. look. Ice King."

I looked.

Cassian Rooke sat alone with a glass in front of him, jacket still on, face carved out of stone. Lucien's oldest friend. For six years he had made it clear that I was something unpleasant he'd been forced to put up with. At every dinner he looked at me like I was a stain on the tablecloth. When I said hello, he nodded at the wall. When I laughed, he left the room.

His eyes landed on me for a second.

Then he looked away, jaw tight, like he'd smelled something bad.

"Lovely," Mara muttered. "The one person in this city who could make tonight worse."

"He doesn't matter."

"He really doesn't. That man hasn't smiled since the Bush administration." She squeezed my wrist. "One drink, Ellie. That's the deal."

I took the drink. Then a second. The alcohol warmed the hollow place under my ribs, and for a few minutes I almost forgot to check my phone.

Then Mara went still again.

"Ellie." Her voice had turned cold. "Don't look at the VIP section."

Of course I looked.

The booth sat raised above the dance floor, ringed in velvet, and Lucien sat in the middle of it like a king. His tie was gone and his sleeves were rolled to the elbow. His head was thrown back in laughter, the easy, careless kind I hadn't heard at home in a year. A woman in silver sat pressed against his left side, her hand high on his thigh. A second woman, in red, leaned over his right shoulder, whispering in his ear while he smiled.

Around them, his friends raised glasses and shouted over the music.

He had never been stuck at the office. He had never been running late.

He had forgotten me.

"Right," Mara said. She set her drink down very carefully. "I'm going to tear that girl's hair out."

"Mara, wait."

"His too."

"Please." I caught her arm. My whole body had gone numb. "Let me talk to him first."

"No. We leave. We get burgers and I help you write the meanest text in history."

"I need to hear him say it."

"Say what?"

"Anything."

She stared at me. I watched her fight with herself, her hands curling and uncurling. "Fine. But I'm standing right behind you. And if anybody laughs, I'm not responsible."

I don't remember crossing the floor. I only know that suddenly I was at the foot of the steps, and a man in a black suit tried to block me, and Lucien looked up and saw me.

For one second, I watched it cross his face. Not guilt. Annoyance.

"Let her through," he called, lazily.

I climbed the steps on legs that didn't feel like mine. Mara was one step behind me, close enough that I could feel her heat on my back. "Lucien."

"Elara." He said my name like I was a delivery that had arrived at the wrong address. "What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" My voice shook. "It's my birthday."

The woman in silver made a small sound, half laugh, half breath. Lucien glanced at her, then back at me. He didn't look stricken. He looked bored.

"Right," he said. "That's today."

"You promised me dinner. I waited four hours. I called you eleven times."

"My phone died."

"Your phone didn't die. You turned it off."

The woman in red straightened, and I saw her properly for the first time. She was beautiful in the deliberate, expensive way that takes effort. She looked at me with slow, appraising pity.

"Oh, sweetheart," she said. "Is this the wife?"

Something inside me went very still.

"Ivy, don't," Lucien said, but he was smiling.

"I'm only saying." She tilted her head. "It's sweet, really. Waiting at home in a nice dress. Some women just don't understand when a man needs space."

"Excuse me?" Mara stepped up beside me, her voice low and shaking. "Say that again. Slowly. So I can remember it."

Ivy looked her up and down, from the pajama top to the hoops. "And who is this? The help?"

"I'm the person who's going to break your nose."

"Mara." Lucien put his glass down. "Of course you brought her. The loyal little guard dog. Take your friend home. She's embarrassing herself."

"She's embarrassing herself?" Mara's voice cracked like a whip. "You forgot her birthday, you spineless..."

"Mara, stop." I gripped her wrist. My own hand was shaking so badly I was afraid she'd feel it.

I turned back to my husband. "Say something. Anything. Tell them who I am."

Lucien leaned back and spread his arm along the top of the booth. He looked at his friends. Then he smiled, slow and cruel.

"Everyone," he said, loud enough for the tables around us to hear. "Meet my wife. She's very sweet. She cooks, she cleans, she waits. She waited four hours tonight, in fact, and now she's here to tell me off in front of my friends."

Someone laughed. Then someone else.

"Lucien, stop," I whispered.

"What? I'm being honest." He tilted his head. "You know what coming home to you is like, Elara? It's like sitting in a waiting room. Everything's clean, everything's quiet, and nothing ever happens. Even Cassian can't stand being in the same room with you. Ask anyone. He leaves every time you walk in."

Laughter rolled through the booth. It burned all the way down my throat, because it was true. It was the one thing everybody agreed on.

The woman in silver covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Two of his friends stared into their drinks. Nobody told him to stop.

"Let's give the birthday girl a proper party," Ivy said brightly. She stood, smoothed her red dress, and began to sing. "Happy birthday to you..."

The woman in silver joined in. Then one of the men. Then another, until half the booth was singing and clapping off beat, and down at the tables I saw phones lift into the air. Small bright squares, all pointed at me.

Lucien didn't sing. He took Ivy's hand and pulled her into his lap. He kissed her, deep and slow, right in front of me, and when he finally broke away, he looked at me over her shoulder.

"There," he said. "Now you've got a show."

My knees started to give.

Then Ivy leaned toward me and said, low enough that only I could hear, "He's been sleeping in my bed since March. Happy birthday."

I stopped breathing.

I never saw Mara move. One second she was beside me. The next she had grabbed the nearest glass and thrown it, whiskey and ice and all, straight into Ivy's face.

Ivy screamed.

"You evil..." Mara lunged. She had one hand in that red dress and the other in Ivy's hair before two security guards seized her from behind. "Let go of me! Ellie! Ellie, don't listen to them! Don't you dare listen!"

"Get that animal out of here," Lucien said, wiping a splash of whiskey off his cuff. He didn't even stand.

"Let her go!" I cried.

"You did this." He finally looked at me, and his eyes were flat. "You dragged that deranged woman here. You come in with your tears and your pathetic little dress and you make me look bad. Thirty-one, Elara. Grow up."

The song had died. Someone in the crowd was still filming. I heard a woman whisper, That's his wife? and another answer, Poor thing.

Poor thing.

That was what I was now. Not a wife. Not even a woman. Just something people felt sorry for.

Mara was still fighting the guards with everything she had, her jacket half off, her hoops swinging wild. "Wait for me! Ellie!"

I couldn't wait.

I turned and ran down the steps, and I didn't look back.