1 Everyone told me I’d struck gold with Lauren.

She was brilliant, driven, and possessed the kind of effortless grace that made people stop and look twice when she walked into a room.

But whenever our friends raised their glasses to toast our good fortune, a quiet, bitter ache tightened in my chest.

Lauren was ambitious—so ambitious that every time I brought up marriage, she found a way to slip out of the conversation. "Things are just too crazy at the firm right now, Luke," she’d say, smoothing down the lapel of my jacket with that gentle, reasonable smile. "Let’s get the company through this funding round first.

Career comes first." She was also generous to a fault.

So generous that when her exboyfriend moved back to the States, she enveloped him in a cocoon of unreserved devotion. "I broke his heart when I left for grad school," she’d explained, her voice heavy with an old, lingering guilt. "He ended up moving overseas all by himself, and he had a miserable few years out there.

I owe him, Luke.

I need to make it up to him." She needed to make it up to him, so the moment she heard he was couchsurfing and looking for a place in Chicago, she offered him our spare room.

Travis doesn't really have family left here, she’d told me. Finding an apartment takes time, and our guest room is just sitting empty. It’s temporary, just a landing pad.

She needed to make it up to him, so the afternoon I was discharged from the hospital after a threeday bout of acute bronchitis, she asked me to stand over a hot stove and make the bourbonglazed short ribs he loved.

Travis told me he missed your cooking more than anything while he was in London, she’d said, pressing a kiss to my temple. Nobody makes them like you do.

Just a small batch for dinner?

She needed to make it up to him, which was why it was nearly one in the morning, and she was still curled up on the sectional downstairs, watching the playoffs with him.

I lay in the dark of our master bedroom, staring at the ceiling, listening to the muffled bursts of their laughter drifting up through the floorboards.

When Travis’s voice rose in a triumphant shout followed by Lauren’s familiar, breathless giggle, something inside me finally snapped.

I threw off the duvet, walked downstairs barefoot, and stepped into the glow of the television. Without a word, I reached down and yanked the power cord straight out of the wall.

The screen died. The room plummeted into silence.

I turned and looked directly at Lauren. "Yesterday I asked you to come with me to the market, and you said you were drowning in work.

You didn't have twenty minutes for groceries, but you have all night to watch basketball?" Lauren blinked, startled, then let out a slow, weary sigh as she stood up and crossed the rug toward me. "Luke, that’s completely different." Her tone was measured, the voice she used to deescalate difficult clients. "I told you, Travis is a guest.

He won't be here forever, and the least we can do is make him feel welcome. We can go to the grocery store anytime. We have the rest of our lives for errands." "He’s right, man.

Don't be mad at her." Travis leaned back against the cushions, peering out from behind Lauren’s shoulder.

His voice was laced with an apologetic tremor, but the look in his eyes was unmistakable—the exact same triumphant, predatory gleam he’d worn eight years ago when he took my first love from me.

I took a slow, deliberate breath.

I looked at Lauren—at the sharp line of her jaw, the slight arch of her brow, the striking features that bore a haunting, fiftypercent resemblance to Sienna. "Enjoy hosting," I said quietly. "I'm done playing along." I didn't wait for her reply.

I walked back upstairs, pulled my duffel bag from the top of the closet, and began tossing shirts into it. Seconds later, Lauren came in.

She caught my wrist, pulled the clothes from my grip, and threw them onto the unmade mattress.

Her face was etched with deep, unyielding exhaustion. "Luke, can you please stop acting like a child?" she pleaded, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I was in backtoback pitches all day.

I have an executive board meeting at eight tomorrow morning. I physically do not have the energy to fight with you tonight." No energy. She never had energy when it came to me.

For me, she had deadlines, migraines, and depleted reserves. But for Travis, she had infinite reserves of patience, latenight camaraderie, and warm smiles.

I turned my head away, scooped the clothes back up, and shoved them into the bag. "Then don't fight.

I'll get a room downtown." "Luke!" She grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to face her. "What is this really about?

What are you throwing a fit over?" "A fit?" I looked down into her eyes, my voice rising despite my efforts to keep it steady. "Travis is your ex.

You moved another man into the house we bought together.

You spend every spare second catering to him, and you're asking me what I'm throwing a fit over?" Lauren’s jaw tightened. "That was years ago. We are friends, Luke. Just friends.

I am trying to help someone who is having a hard time." I let out a harsh, humorless laugh. "You're just a saint, aren't you?" Her brows knitted together in wounded frustration. "Why are you being so cruel?

You know who I am. You know how I operate." She wasn't lying about that part. Lauren was generous to everyone.

When a friend was in trouble, she threw herself into the fire without hesitation.

Two years ago, when a college friend was being threatened by an abusive loan shark, she had inserted herself into the middle of it, ending up in the ER with three cracked ribs and a lacerated arm.

She treated my family, my friends, and total strangers with the same boundless, reckless charity. But with Travis, was it really that simple?

The bedroom door clicked, opening an inch.

Travis hovered in the doorway, looking small, remorseful, and entirely out of place. "I'm so sorry, guys," he whispered, his eyes darting between us. "This is my fault.

I’m the reason you're fighting. I'll pack my bags right now. I'll find somewhere else to stay tonight." Lauren’s expression softened instantly.

She took a step toward him. "Don't be ridiculous, Travis. It’s one in the morning, and you don't even have a car.

In a few days, when we look at that place in Lincoln Park—" "Let him go to a hotel," I cut in coldly. "Luke!" Lauren snapped, glaring at me with genuine reproach.

I didn't yield an inch. "Either he walks out that door tonight, or I do." The tension in the room thickened until it felt difficult to draw breath.

Lauren stared at me, her jaw set, before she grabbed her purse and car keys off the dresser. "Fine," she said through gritted teeth. "I'll drive him to the Marriott downtown.

Go to sleep." The front door clicked open downstairs. A sudden, visceral memory flared in my mind, cold and sharp.

I dropped my bag and sprinted down the stairs, catching them on the front porch. "Lauren," I called out, my voice tight. "You take the car. You stay at the hotel.

Travis stays here." Lauren spun around, her eyes widening in disbelief. "You don't trust me?" I bit the inside of my cheek and stayed silent. It wasn't that I didn't trust her.

It was that I knew Travis. I knew the architecture of his games.

Eight years ago, I had made the mistake of being the accommodating boyfriend, letting Sienna drive a drunk, weeping Travis back to his apartment while I stayed behind to clean up after the party.

By sunrise, they were in his bed. Seeing my silence, Lauren took it as an indictment. A dark, bitter flush crept up her neck. "Fine," she spat out, nodding once, twice. "Fine.

Have it your way." She snatched her jacket, marched past me down the driveway, got into her Audi, and slammed the door.

The engine roared to life, tires crunching over the gravel, and she was gone. Silence rushed back into the house, suffocating and vast.

Travis stood by the door, watching the taillights disappear down the street.

Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face. "Not bad, Luke," he said, chuckling softly under his breath. "You actually learned something." I looked at him, feeling a hollow, icy numbness settle into my bones.

I walked over to the credenza by the couch, reached into the hidden seam beneath the bottom shelf, and pulled out a battered pack of American Spirits.

I tapped one out and lit it with a shaky hand. Travis strolled over, sank onto the couch beside me, and slipped the pack from my fingers.

He pulled out a cigarette, struck a match, and took a long, leisurely drag, watching the blue smoke curl toward the ceiling. "All these years," he murmured, his gaze sliding toward me with heavy, deliberate intention. "Still smoking the same brand." I didn't look at him. "Aren't you?" 2 Travis and I grew up on the same block.

For fifteen years, we were the kind of friends whose names were spoken in a single breath. If you saw Luke, Travis was two steps behind.

We shared bikes, split cheap burgers, and covered for each other when we snuck out past curfew.

We had promised, more times than I could count, that we would take a bullet for each other. And then, a woman tore that brotherhood into jagged pieces.

The morning I walked into Travis’s bedroom and caught him with Sienna was the day the axis of my world permanently tilted. I hadn't yelled at Sienna.

I hadn't even looked at her as she scrambled for the sheets.

I had simply reached down, grabbed Travis by the collar of his tshirt, hauled him off the mattress, and demanded to know why. He hadn't flinched.

He had casually pulled on a pair of boxers, grabbed his lighter from the nightstand, and shrugged. "No grand mystery, Luke. I liked her.

So I slept with her." That was the last time I saw him. Eight years of total, unbroken radio silence followed.

At first, my parents would ask around the holidays, Have you heard from Travis? Why hasn't he come around for Sunday dinner?

Our old college buddies would ask over beers, What happened between you two? You guys used to be attached at the hip. I would just offer a tight, empty smile and change the subject.

Eventually, the questions stopped. I thought our paths would never cross again.

I certainly never anticipated that during those missing eight years, he would spend two of them dating the woman who was now wearing my promise ring. "Why did you come back?" I asked, watching the ash on my cigarette burn down. "You trying to pick things back up with Lauren?" Travis gave a lazy shake of his head. "Lauren?

Please. She was never that interesting to begin with. I didn't come back for her, Luke.

I came back for you." My head snapped toward him. "Me?" Travis crushed his cigarette into the glass tray, turned sideways on the cushions, and propped his chin in his hand. "The second I heard you two were together, I booked a oneway ticket back to the States," he said, his voice dropping into an easy, intimate cadence. "We really are brothers, aren't we?

Our taste in women has always been identical. Last time, I took Sienna, and you vanished for eight years.

If I take Lauren this time... how long will you hide from me?" A cold rage flared in my chest.

I reached out, grabbing his wrist with enough force to bruise. "What the hell is wrong with you? What did I ever do to deserve this from you?" Travis didn't pull away.

He just smiled, a strange, fractured emotion flickering behind his eyes—something brittle, possessive, and deeply warped. "What did you do? Nothing, Luke.

You've always been my best friend." "You're out of your mind." I shoved his arm away. "Stay away from Lauren. I'm warning you, Travis.

I am not the naive kid I was eight years ago." Travis didn't answer.

Instead, his gaze drifted lazily around the living room. "Reclaimed white oak flooring from Oregon," he murmured, his voice conversational. "Custom recessed lighting.

Ninefoot ceilings.

The kitchen has that open waterfall island, and down the hall, the master bedroom faces east for the morning light." I froze, staring at him. "How do you know the floor plan?" "Because she and I drew it up together," Travis said smoothly, meeting my eyes. "Three years ago, when we were talking about buying a place in London.

We picked out every single detail. Even the layout of the guest suite." The air left my lungs in a sharp, painful rush.

We had completely remodeled this house right after Lauren and I moved in together. At the time, I had begged her to let us design it together, to make it our own.

But she had brushed it off, telling me she’d already hired an architect to draw up the blueprints and that she didn't have the bandwidth to secondguess the plans.

I remembered standing in the dining room, puzzled by the massive, floortoceiling temperaturecontrolled wine cellar she insisted on installing.

You don't even like red wine, Lauren, I’d said. She had laughed it off, claiming it was standard for resale value. Now, the pieces fell into place with sickening clarity.

Lauren didn't drink wine. Travis collected it. My fingers trembled.

The forgotten cherry of my cigarette slipped against my palm, the redhot ember searing into the tender flesh beneath my thumb.

A sharp, burning shock tore through me, making me flinch. Travis leaned forward immediately, taking the butt from my fingers.

He caught my hand, gently blowing on the scorched red skin.

His touch was familiar, like muscle memory from when we were twelve, but the words that slipped from his mouth were poison. "Tell me, Luke," he whispered, his breath warm against my burned skin. "Every night you lay your head on that pillow, who do you think she's seeing in the dark?" I knew it was bait.

I knew he was unraveling me strand by strand. But the thought took root, wrapping around my throat like ivy.

Had she spent the last two years living in a shrine built for another man? Was I just a warm body filling a space premeasured for him? A faint rustle caught my ear.

The front door, which hadn't fully latched, clicked open a fraction of an inch. A silhouette stood on the dark porch outside.

Travis’s eyes darted toward the shadow, his lips curving into a razorthin smirk.

He raised his voice just enough to carry across the foyer. "Back then, when you walked away from Sienna, you played it so cool.

I really thought she didn't mean a thing to you," Travis said, leaning in close. "Then you turn around and find Lauren. Come on, Luke. Look at her face.

The first time I saw her profile, I felt like I was looking at a ghost. They could be sisters." He tapped my knee. "She's just a standin, man. A replica to keep you warm.

If you don't actually care about her, just let me have her." It was true that Lauren looked like Sienna.

One of my college roommates had pointed it out at a dinner party shortly after Lauren and I started dating. I had always prided myself on being cleancut about endings.

When I walked away, I walked away completely. I hadn't pursued Lauren because of her resemblance to an ex who had betrayed me. But human desire is a stubborn, cyclical thing.

Our subconscious gravitates toward the same contours, the same cadence of speech.

When my friend pointed it out, I had been horrified to realize how similar they were—not just in their dark hair and delicate collarbones, but in their fatal flaw.

They were both hopelessly softhearted. They both lacked the ability to draw a line. Sienna couldn't say no to Travis when he closed the distance, and so she ended up in his bed.

And Lauren lived by an exhausting, opendoor social code that meant no matter how hard I tried to protect our perimeter, the fence was always down.

A stray cat will always find a way in if the door is left ajar. Especially when the prowler outside knows every latch on the gate.

A sudden, suffocating wave of defeat crashed over me. If love always meant this constant, agonizing terror of the fall, why was I clinging to the ledge?

Why fight so hard to keep something that was already slipping through my fingers? It wouldn't be the first time I lost everything.

I looked at Travis, keeping my face completely empty of emotion. "You're right," I said, my voice flat, deadened. "She's just a replacement. And you're my oldest friend.

What wouldn't I give you? If you want her, take her." The smirk vanished from Travis’s face.

He froze, the mock amusement draining from his features, replaced by a sudden, jarring flicker of panic. He quickly turned his head away.

Outside, on the porch, a gloved hand caught the door handle, easing it shut with absolute, trembling restraint until the deadbolt clicked softly into place.