It is a good thing that Lyla doesn’t cook. She is rarely in the kitchen and we have all our meals in the dining room. It is a necessity since the kitchen is just above the basement. If she spent a decent amount of time in there it’s possibly that she would hear Sorkin.
The chef has already expressed concerns about certain sounds but he has worked for me for years and all it took was one look from me, for him to know to never mention anything about it again.
“I think that’s a good idea,” I say and I start arranging the boxes that are ready for takeoff on top of each other. “What are you going to do with the mattress?” I ask and she shrugs.
“Leave it outside in the hallway, I suppose. Maybe some of the new dancers will want it.”
Nodding, I walk over to her bed and lift up the matrass but stop mid-air when a large button rolls down onto the floor.
Picking it up, I ask, “Are you going to need this?”
Lyla raises her brows, walking over to me. “Let me see.” She takes the button between her fingers and a frown crosses her face. “This is Trevor’s...” she murmurs and my muscles go rock hard.
What the fuck is a button of his doing on her bed?
“Are you sure?” I say, my voice rumbling out of my chest and she glances at me. To my detriment she nods.
“It belongs to one of the shirts I gave him for Christmas.”
I tense.
“You gave him a shirt?” I say silkily. She gave him a fucking shirt? She has never given me one. Not that I need it but that is not what matters here. What matters is that my wife and Sorkin might be closer than she has led me to believe.
Jerking, Lyla responds, “Of course, he’s my friend.”
My eyes narrow and I say between clenched teeth. “Maybe even more?”
“Stop that, Alec,” Lyla says in a serious voice and I get a slight flare of relief when she throws the button in a trashcan. “Don’t be jealous. There is no competition or contest between you and Trevor. There never was and there never will be.”
“But you care about him?”
“Yes,” she answers to my torment. “And right now he needs me.”
Wrong. Thing. To. Say.Wife.
“You think I don’t need you. You think I take you for granted? My features turn stony. “I need you.” My eyes harden. “More than he does.”
“But you don’t,” she says softly and I flinch as if she just slapped me. Wincing, she reaches for me, pushing her face up to mine, “What I mean is that he is missing and you are here with me.” She strokes my skin with her lips. “You need to trust me,” she whispers.
I do trust her. What I don’t do, is trust him.
13
Lyla
I’m not innocent in all of this.I’m really not. Sometimes I suspect my husband of keeping secrets from me but I’m harboring a secret too. Every Friday I finish ballet a little earlier but instead of running home and wait for Alec to be done with work, I sit in a therapist’s office.
It’s not something I like doing, but it’s a necessity. And something I especially don’t like doing is keeping it a secret from Alec. The problem is that he would only get upset if I told him I’m seeing someone to talk about Trevor.
He seems to hate everything that has to do with him. His hate for a guy he doesn’t even know, takes me off guard at times. If his feelings for me didn’t run so recklessly wild, I could have talked to him about my friend.
But as it is now I can’t and I have to turn to Mr. Ludwig instead. Sitting in a small chair on the opposite side of me, he crosses his legs, peering at me over his glasses while he scribbles in his notebook.
“How then,” he says in his professionally warm tone, “are we doing today?”
“Good,” I answer, tempted to pull my knees up to my chest but the chair is too small. “I feel better now that I have Alec.”
I started seeing Mr. Ludwig as soon as I found out about that Trevor had gone missing. I did it on the suggestion of one of my dance teacher’s. She could tell I wasn’t feeling well and that my dancing was wobbly and not as sharp as it usually is, so she suggested that I go and talk to someone.