I picked up his abandoned bottle of beer perched on the corner of the pool table and took a swig. “Hey, there. Don’t let me distract you,” I teased, wiggling up against him.

“Oh, you always distract me, Lily. How about you help me with this shot?” He winked. I laughed. Our chemistry sizzled.

Gently grabbing my wrist, he tugged me closer, nesting my body in front of his. He guided me into position to take over the shot while he took over my self-control.

With the pool stick slipped into my palms, I leaned over with an exaggerated butt thrust, aiming the cue ball at a cluster of balls in the corner. I didn’t care about the shot as I felt his hot body against mine. The only balls I thought about at this moment were pressed against my rear.

“You’re going to miss it if you don’t aim right,” he whispered in my ear.

“I’m sure you always hit your mark.” I licked my lips, fully knowing what I was doing. Taunting him. Teasing him. And yet my hands were bound. He was off-limits.

The line was still intact, dull but existent. I could assure myself it was just harmless flirting up to this point. But once we crossed that thinning border between innocent and guilty, there was no going back. After that, I couldn’t forgive myself. Life would shift and shatter into unrecognizable pieces. I’d never be able to glue the shards back together. We could never be, him and I. Not because he was married with a mortgage. Not even because he had kids.

But because he was my best friend’s husband.

Chapter 6

Mackenzie

SUNDAY EVENING

Trapped between Lily and Robin on an overpriced sofa that Robin scoffed at but really loved, I fingered the friendship bracelet on my wrist, frayed, discolored, rather shabby. Over twenty years later I still upheld this youthfully naïve heart-bond, devoted to our friendship and growing old together, regardless of how far Time swept us apart. Our vow made us family; our shared lives mingled our blood.

It hadn’t always been easy keeping the promise while juggling kids and competing work schedules and lacrosse practice and baseball tournaments and PTA meetings. But once a month we sliced out some time together when Robin and Grant hosted a dinner party where the women could gossip over half-empty glasses of Moscato, the men could talk Steelers draft picks over Iron City Beer, and the kids could retreat to the basement game room to binge on chips and pop—the native Pittsburgher’s word for soda. Proving you could take the Southerner out of the South but not the South out of the Southerner, I insisted on calling all soft drinks cokes, and for some reason it cracked everybody up whenever I’d ask for a Co-Cola.