Page 123 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

Charlie has never voluntarily eaten dinner alone in her bedroom because she had stuff to finish. She barely uses her bedroom for sleeping. If she has work to do, I’ve seen her do it on the couch, at the table, on the floor, or once halfway inside a closet because she was testing the wireless signal through three walls.

Charlie starts toward the stairs, then turns around. “The garlic bread needs another four minutes.” Then she disappears upstairs.

When I hear her bedroom door close, I ask, “What is happening?”

Reese draws in a breath. “Can we sit down?”

My excellent mood is shifting a bit to wariness. “Of course.”

She walks over to the couch, and we both take a seat, angled toward each other. Reese’s hands are clasped between her knees, and for several seconds, she says nothing. I don’t push. Whatever this is, she already had to get Charlie to arrange an evacuation from her own dinner.

Finally, Reese looks at me. “There’s something about the cancer I’ve never told you.”

Everything inside me stills. “Okay.”

Her gaze drops to her hands. “The chemo and radiation I had can damage fertility.” There’s a pause before she adds, “In my case, the doctors told us there’s a very good chance I won’t be able to have biological children.”

Silence settles between us.

I don’t fill it. I can’t. Not immediately.

The information moves through my mind, connecting itself to things I know about Reese and things I thought I knew about my future.

For as long as I can remember, children have existed somewhere in the picture I had of my life. Not specific children. Not names or faces. Just the assumption. A wife. Kids. A loud house. Holidays that require too many chairs. My siblings’ children mixed with mine until no one can remember which kid belongs to whom.

Biological children were part of that picture without me ever consciously deciding they would be. Now that part shifts.

I look at Reese. She’s watching me too carefully. Her body is almost completely still, which for Reese means she is holding herself that way.

“I’m thinking,” I say quietly. “That’s all.”

A tiny bit of the fear in her expression eases.

I reach for her hand. “I’ve always pictured having biological kids. So I’m not going to pretend hearing this doesn’t change something for me. It does.” I tighten my fingers around hers. “But it doesn’t make me reconsider you.”

She watches me for a long moment.

“When did they tell you?”

“I was still doing follow-up appointments after treatment. There were tests and discussions and percentages I mostly tried not to listen to.”

“You were fifteen.”

“Fifteen-ish. Some of the more definitive conversations happened later.”

I try to fit that into what I know. I’ve always known Reese had Hodgkin lymphoma toward the end of her freshman year of high school.

I’ve heard stories about losing her hair. Being exhausted. Missing school. Her brother bringing homework home. Annette sleeping in hospital chairs. Reese once told me the nurses learned not to give her oatmeal because she would try to convince them it was a form of punishment prohibited by international law.

She made the stories sound like Reese stories—hard things converted into something survivable and funny.

I knew cancer was terrible. But sitting here now, I realize I never fully understood the extent of hers.

“How bad was your cancer?”

She looks away.

“Reese.”