The Love of Her Lives: A BRAND NEW unforgettable and utterly emotional summer romance (Must-read Rom

June, this year

I’m in the basement at Lake Bluff. It’s dark, aside from the light coming in from the doors under the upper deck, and totally silent. No furniture at all. Hopefully this is another unoccupied version. Which means that the Masons are still dead, but at least I won’t get run out of the house by another family.

I’d caught an evening train back to Lake Bluff — another return ticket, bought with cash given to me by Mom, so that drug-addict me can get back to the city and hopefully make better choices. I managed to creep over the gate without being seen, it being a warm Saturday night, and the family with the teenagers seeming to all be out.

And now it’s Friday evening all over again. This time, the first thing I do is check my clothes. The hoodie and leggings given to me at the shelter have been replaced by shorts, a sleeveless summer blouse, and a light cardigan. I’ve never been a cardigan person, but whatever.

I check the shorts pockets. A phone — thank Christ — in a pink case, as well as a lip balm and a set of keys. Good. This already looks like a more regular life.

I take the stairs up into the kitchen, which is also void of any sign of occupation, and scan the living room. No furniture, appliances, or even fixtures — definitely an empty house. Definitely no Masons.

I lean against the kitchen counter and check the smartphone, which opens at the touch of my fingertip. I go straight to the texts.

And my heart all but stops.

Stephen.

Dozens of texts... God, more like hundreds, going back and back forever.

All from Stephen.

Mundane stuff, mostly. Groceries. Chores. Where he’ll be, and when. A bunch about work client accounts, even though this is clearly my personal phone.

But always with love and affection. Sometimes a sign-off like, “See you then, love you.” Or, “Thanks, honey. xoxo”

“Love you.”

Is this it?

Have I landed in the life where Stephen and I are together? So soon? I mean, I figured it would take a lot more multiverse-traversing attempts than this — I’m only on version... what? Five? Six?

My stomach is somersaulting as I scroll through the texts. Then... Instagram, of course! That should confirm to me what our relationship is like — at least in the public eye.

I flip to Instagram, where my feed has dozens of photos of me with Stephen. On vacation, on a boat, at some work event. A smattering of me with Bonnie, but not as many as usual. Several of me with a couple of women I don’t recognize, seemingly on some kind of spa retreat. Me with Stephen again, and his parents, last Christmas, in front of a huge, decorated tree. “Holidays with the in-laws!” reads the caption. It’s geotagged Grand Rapids, MI.

That’s right... Grand Rapids is where he once told me his parents live. Back when we were first getting to know each other over our desks at Magnolia.

And, in several of the photos, clearly visible... both of us wearing wedding rings.

I look down at my left hand. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I’m wearing it now, along with a slender engagement ring with a small, round stone. Subtle, tasteful. Maybe a bit simple. But pretty enough.

I take a series of deep breaths.

Okay, then. This has to be it. I’m married to Stephen; we spend Christmases with his family. This was what I’ve been looking for. This was endgame.

Time to go live my best life, right?

I step through the echoey house and let myself out of the front door. The keys in my pocket are for a Toyota, which is blue and parked right outside the gate. I set the phone’s GPS to home, and it points me to Aurora, a smaller city to the east of Chicago.

Aurora. I went there once, I think, when I was small, with my parents. Back when they were together, and we were living in Illinois, before Dad’s job had taken us to Indianapolis when I was ten. Mom had grown up somewhere near Aurora and had friends there. I vaguely remember a pub with a terrace overlooking a river that flowed through downtown, and my parents and Mom’s hippy friends were all drunk, and I played with a cat all afternoon and got sunburned.

Mostly, though, the word Aurora makes me think of aurora borealis, the Northern Lights — a phenomenon I know Stephen is passionate about. He was always into space, and stars, and galaxies, and had so much to say about them. I think that was why I fell for him.

Maybe we chose to live in Aurora because of its name.

As I drive the hour or so from Lake Bluff — stopping to get gas, which is weird in someone else’s car, using the credit card in their purse — I’m clammy with nerves. Finally, my life with Stephen is ahead of me.

How did it happen? Did he leave his first wife for me? Or did we simply meet first, at Northwestern? Maybe we met somewhere else, under totally different circumstances. I’ll need to uncover all these answers if I’m going to live here in this life with him. Assuming that’s what I get to do, if I choose never to go through the basement door again.

Of course, I won’t have any memories of our life together, which will likely cause a whole bunch of problems. I’ve been able to get away with it before now, when trying on these alternate lives with Chris and Rufus and Evan — mostly because I didn’t stick around long enough for it to be an issue. But if I’m planning on staying with Stephen, I’ll need to figure out at least the majority of what happened.

Maybe Bonnie can help. A girls’ night with her, fueled by wine, with a bit of nostalgic gossip should reveal some history. Bonnie loves to rehash memories. Although, from the relative lack of photos together, I’m not sure Bonnie and I are as close in this life as we usually are. Something else to figure out.

Right now, though, I’m just itching to get to Stephen, in whatever home we share. Because if I’m married to him, if he’s mine at last, that means I finally get to kiss him. And more... much more.

I mean, I’ve wanted to be with this man for years.

In Aurora, I’m right by the river in the city center when I find the address. The building is not at all what I’d expected. It’s a tall, red-brick-and-stone building, about fourteen or fifteen stories, close to the water by a bridge. It’s a lot taller than the surrounding buildings, and looks more like an Art Deco hotel than an apartment block.

Plus, I guess I had Stephen down as a detached house kind of guy. A family man, I suppose. But then again, it doesn’t look like we have any kids yet, so maybe we’re enjoying apartment living while we still can.

Kids. Now that would be weird, to quantum-leap into a life where I have kids. It’s not like, at thirty, I’m not old enough.

Still, now that I’ve found the Stephen life — hopefully my forever life — it doesn’t look like that’s a risk I’ll have to take.

My phone’s GPS has taken me to the building where we live, and a fob on my keys lets me into an underground parking garage, but it takes a bit more email research to figure out which parking spot to take, and which unit I live in. Twelfth floor... not bad. Views should be good, although Aurora isn’t a particularly spectacular skyline.

But maybe the view of the night sky is good from our place.

I take the elevator and find the apartment on the twelfth floor, pausing at the door. Will Stephen be home? It’s past seven-thirty on a Friday evening, and there was no text from him about having plans tonight, so I should assume he’s here.

And I need to act like this is my home, and that I know exactly what’s going on.

Here goes.

Welcome, Millie, to your new life.

I unlock the door and push it open. I’m in a narrow entryway that opens to a small apartment beyond.

“Hello?” My voice is way too timid. I try again, more confidently. “Honey? You here?”

A metal clang, and then footsteps from around the corner.

Stephen.

Right in front of me, seeming even taller than usual, especially in this small space. Brown hair a little mussed, shirt sleeves rolled up.

He raises his eyebrows and pushes his black-rimmed glasses further up his nose. “Wow. You’re late. Did the Gellermans keep you talking all this time? You must be starving.” He steps forward, puts a hand on my shoulder, and kisses me lightly on my sweat-moistened temple. “I just put an eggplant and potato bake in the oven, but it’ll be forty minutes. I can fix you a snack, if you’re hungry.” He disappears around the corner again, leaving me standing foolishly in the foyer.

I’m really here.

We’re really married. We’re a regular couple.

Beside me is a small console table with a set of keys, some mail, and a phone charger. I act like this is my home and drop my own keys and phone on it, then remove the sandals I’m wearing and place them next to the other shoes by the door.

Around the corner, Stephen is clearing up the counter of a wall of kitchen units that faces out into the modest dining-living room. A dining table with four chairs divides the kitchen from the lounge area, which has a couch, armchair, TV cabinet, and river views from two windows.

It’s... sweet. Cozy. An ideal love nest for newlyweds, if that’s what we are.

How long have we been married? How did we even get together?

“You want a snack?” Stephen asks, turning from his task to me. “Something to keep you from getting hangry? We still have some of that goat cheese.”

My last meal was lunch with my mother in a park in Chicago, about five hours and one universe ago, plus it’s dinnertime in this world and this body is probably hungry.

But I don’t feel hungry. I’m in an apartment, alone with Stephen, and we’re married. My stomach is flipping non-stop.

He lifts an eyebrow at me, and smiles, waiting.

Oh. I haven’t responded to him.

“Sorry. No, I’ll wait for dinner. Thanks.”

He nods. “A drink, then? Let’s open a Friday night red.”

He moves toward a cabinet, and I move toward him. I put a hand on his bare forearm as he reaches for the door handle. His arm is skinny, but soft, with thick hair.

“Maybe with dinner,” I reply. “Come here.”

Come here.

I’m repeating the words Rufus had said to me — also in the kitchen of an apartment we shared in another life. Come here. God, what those words had done to me. That tug between my legs.

I reach my hand up to Stephen’s neck, and pull down gently. Finally, a moment like this with the right person. A good man and the man I wanted. Finally, I get to break the pattern I’ve been in for so long.

He raises his eyebrows, and chuckles lightly. “Not as tired and cranky as I thought, huh? I guess we’ve got some time.”

Stephen lets me pull his face to mine, and our lips meet. Softly at first, at least on his part. Maybe lacking a little passion, but then, for him, it’s not the first time we’ve kissed. Far from it.

I’ll just have to reignite that passion. Remind him who he’s married to.

I kiss him harder, deeper. I slip the other hand under his loose cotton shirt, grazing my fingertips around his ribcage, tucking my hand below his beltline at the back and pulling his pelvis towards mine. I kiss his neck as I take a hand from his face and use it to unbuckle his jeans belt and undo his fly. His rapidly growing hardness is pushing out his white boxer briefs, and he’s beginning to respond to my kisses with more fervor, his long fingers on my blouse buttons.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I like it,” he murmurs into my mouth. “Let’s take this into the bedroom.”

With his jeans halfway down his butt, he shuffles us through a door off the dining area, which opens to a small bedroom with a river-view window, a queen bed in green linens, and a pair of matching nightstands. He pulls off his pants and socks, leaving him in nothing but his half-buttoned shirt, white underpants, and black glasses.

Adorable.

I reach for him again, unbuttoning and removing his shirt, draping it on a chair next to a closet. I’ve never seen Stephen shirtless, not once in all the years we’ve worked together, which has included a lot of summer company events at the lakefront. He’s one of those guys who always keeps a T-shirt on. And sure, he’s pale and skinny, with some uneven dark chest hair, which might make a guy self-conscious around the buff, tan guys at the beach. But he’s always been beautiful to me.

I kiss him again, running my fingers over his chest, and pause to let him take off my top and jeans. My underwear is a sweet, slightly chaste-looking set in white cotton with a tiny floral print.

Stephen guides me slowly, respectfully down onto the bed, before taking off his glasses and setting them down on the nightstand. He kneels forward onto the bed beside me — and once again seems surprised when I grab him and pull his pelvis hard towards mine. Seemingly emboldened, his kisses down my neck become more passionate, and he tugs my bra off with enthusiasm. His tongue lightly flicks my nipples, left then right, and I become desperate for him.

I pull off my own panties, and he takes the cue to down the same with his own briefs. I glimpse his penis for a moment, slender and long, before he rises up the bed and pushes directly into my wetness with a groan. I’m so hungry for him, my legs wrapped around his back, and he glides easily in and out of me, faster and faster. It’s probably only a minute or so when he throws his head back, groans again, more gutturally, and the tendons on his neck strain. He collapses on my shoulder, chest heaving, as I stroke his long back.

“Wow,” he mumbles into my neck. “I feel like I needed that and didn’t even know it.” He raises his head to me. “But you didn’t get there. You want me to... ?” His question trails off as he lifts a finger suggestively to me. I’m still grinding against him, unsatisfied, so I give him a slightly embarrassed nod.

Stephen reaches down and slides a long finger between my legs, nuzzling my neck. “You’re so wet,” he says. “I can’t remember the last time you were this turned on.” He rubs in small circles, slowly gaining speed and pressure, taking his time, moving his mouth down once more to my nipple. His tongue matches the movement of his finger, until I’m starting to moan — then his finger movement gets even firmer and much more rapid as he sucks on my nipple, his teeth and tongue squeezing. I give a small cry as I gently come, and he slows, then stops.

He kisses my shoulder, pleased with me, and resumes his previous position against my neck. He wipes his hand on the sheet beneath us. “Guess we need to change the bedlinens,” he says, a smile in his voice. “It was time anyways. Your turn for laundry this weekend.”

I chuckle a little, although my laugh feels slightly performative. Something Stephen’s real wife might find amusing, that he would say that to her right after an orgasm, but me? Maybe not so much.

It’s weird, though, given that Stephen’s sense of humor was one of the things that attracted me to him. As well as lots of other things. His passion for the stars. His work ethic, his commitment, and how considerate he is.

And maybe — just maybe — that he couldn’t ever be mine.

Still, now he is mine, which is great. Sure, maybe the sex wasn’t quite as spectacular as I had imagined, but that’s doubtless because we’re a married couple who have been doing it for a while. I just need to learn how to be with Stephen as his wife.

Assuming that I get to stay here with him on a permanent basis, that is, which would mean replacing the Millie that was here. And never going back to my original world again.

Then again, I’m increasingly convinced it’s not possible to ever go home. So what choice do I have? This has to be the best option. My only option.

Stephen rolls off to lie beside me, and I snuggle into his slightly bony shoulder. The possibility of alternate realities was always a favorite topic of conversation between us, so maybe he has a theory on this.

“Do you still believe in the multiverse?” I ask him softly. “All the infinite different possibilities of our lives playing out?”

A light huff of a chuckle lifts his chest. “Wow. We haven’t talked about that in years. Not since Astrophysics Society. Uh... sure, I guess so. Theoretically, at least.” He pauses. “What makes you ask?”

Oh, no reason, just the fact that I literally just arrived here from another world, via a bunch of other realities, and I’m trying to figure all this out. No biggie.

I trace a finger across his bare chest. “I still think about it, that’s all. Like, if you could travel across the multiverse, and try out alternate versions, whether you could find yourself in a reality that looked a lot like your own but wasn’t. Maybe only something tiny and unnoticeable was different — a grain of sand in a different position. How would you know what’s truly your home universe? And how would you know which you is really you?”

He shakes his head. “You never could. And arguably, there is no ‘home’ universe, and there is no real you. All those possible versions of reality, some with infinitesimally tiny variations, are... well, infinite, after all. And who’s to say that, at every moment, an infinite number of brand-new worlds aren’t spinning off — and all the worlds where we already existed now have new Stephens and Millies? And all those versions of ourselves... they’re all us. And we are all of them.”

“I guess so.” I pause. “So, you don’t think if you somehow found yourself living in an alternate reality, that you would’ve... I dunno... displaced the version of yourself who was previously there? That you’d be an imposter?”

He shrugs lightly, lifting my cheek with his shoulder. “No, I don’t think it’d work like that. Even if all those versions of ourselves exist and are multiplying constantly, we’re all one being — and we’re each all of those infinite versions of ourselves. Changed by circumstance and decisions, but still ultimately us. In the end, I think home is where you make it — where it feels right to lay roots and commit.” He laughs. “But I don’t think we need to figure this out now. It’s not like it’s something you or I will ever have to worry about experiencing.”

Yeah... I wouldn’t be so sure of that.

Still, I can’t help but feel Stephen has helped justify my search for a new life with him. If the multiverse is truly infinite, it has to be virtually impossible to get back to my home reality. Which, in turn, means I have every reason — and every right — to stay in this new life. The life I’ve been looking for.

Stephen extricates himself from my arms and swings out of bed. His naked body is pale and flushed in the evening light, even skinnier than I had realized when he was clothed, and his butt is cute and toned.

Something he had murmured to me during sex pops back into my head.

I can’t remember the last time you were this turned on.

Isn’t that what he said?

Is it a rare thing that I’m fully turned on by my husband? I sure hope not.

But if that’s true — well, that was before I showed up. This new and improved Millie is hot for Stephen, and he’s gonna love it. And, despite being a new version of myself... I’m still Millie. I may not remember our lives together, but I’m still his wife. I’m sure of that.

It just might take a moment for this world to feel like home, is all.

“Well, thanks for the impromptu quickie,” Stephen says with a chuckle, pulling on his underpants and jeans. “Maybe this time it’ll take. You should lift your legs up, keep it in. I’ll go check on dinner.”

Lift my legs? Keep it in?

Wait . . . are we trying for a baby?