Author Note: Thank you so much for your feedback! Yendys – I'm sorry I had to keep you waiting so long but I'm thrilled you're enjoying it. Barrie – I agree. One of the reasons I started writing this story is that I was sick of stories where everything was always perfect.

R/R

xxxxx

Part of me loves him and the other part of me wants to knock him unconscious.

The major moral debate right now is which one should win?

I'm CJ Seaborn. Josh's "mi amor" and the wife of his best friend. If anyone has the right and jurisdiction to knock him around a bit, it's me, right?

It only took about 12 hours after the letter arrived at the Yates house for Max to call Josh.

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that.

xxxxx

"Josh? It's Max."

"Maxwell! How are ya buddy?"

There was a bit of a pause before Max continued, "What's with the letter Josh?"

I wasn't quite sure how to react to that. Max has a tendency to be blunt but he had never just come out with a cutting question like that. "Well…"

"Because the way I see it, Josh, and this just could be my lifelong jealousy of what you and Donna have, but you're trying to guilt my wife into loving you again."

How was I supposed to respond? I just stayed quiet for a few moments and let him rant and rave. I probably would have responded the same way.

"Josh, buddy, I took the day off work. Do you when the last time I did that was? Three years ago when Meg graduated. I don't take days off work. But I knew that if I walked into that classroom and talked about government my entire thought process would be about the way that my best friend just may be wanting to screw my wife. And I'm not entirely sure I could handle that right now.

WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING GOING BEHIND MY BACK LIKE THAT! I was the one that drove you to get the CT scan. I was the one that kept the secret. You had this planned all along didn't you? You were going to get me to help you and lull me into a false sense of security and make me keep it a secret from my wife so you could then turn around and tell her yourself, later, much later, when all the test results came back and guilt her into falling in love with you again. The two of you have this unexplainable thing that I'll never have with her. She loves you on a level that she could never love me and admittedly, I am insanely jealous of that. But you've never abused that love she's entrusted you with until now. At first, I felt the obligatory sympathy for you. I mean, you do have brain cancer, Josh, and you're probably going to die."

Thanks for bringing that up again, Max.

"And then I started to deeply think about that letter and the motives behind it and what an asshole move that was for you to pull and, so help me God, if you ever pull something like that on Donna again I will kill you myself."

And with that the phone clicked off in defiance. I sat there, in my office, staring at it for a moment. I replaced the receiver and pushed the speed dial button for CJ.

xxxxx

Well, I wasn't an exact fly on the wall, but I might of well have been. Josh has this keen ability to remember conversations word for word, so I know fairly well what went down.

When he called me, he used that voice that scares the shit out of me. The voice that's devoid of all emotion. The voice that tells me he's given up.

He can't fight this thing without Max and Donna and the kids. His body will just shut down and the people of Connecticut will find themselves dealing with an ordinary man instead of Josh. They've been too good to him and they don't deserve that.

So I told him to tell them.

"Josh, don't lie. We traveled down that road before. It sucks. It backfires faster than a supped up car. Tell them."

He took a deep breath and bit his lower lip. "Ceej, I don't want to tell myself yet."

I think he honestly thought that telling Donna so secretively would work. I think he thought it would make it all better and that she would come and make it all livable for him. She's always been his Florence Nightingale.

Meg told me once that the only fights her parents ever got in were when Donna left to go take care of Josh.

Something tells me that this thing just got a whole lot more complicated than God ever intended.

xxxxx

She's my wife.

We're three weeks away from our 25th anniversary.

For 25 fucking years, she's been my wife.

Her name is Donna Yates, not Donna Lyman.

Does he need me to write this down for him? Does he need a diagram? Should I make a congressional resolution to explain it better to him?

She's been at CJ's all weekend. She flew up last night. I'm not sure why she left. All I got was a note with her flight info and a plea to leave her alone for five days.

I don't know much about politics and what little I do know I've learned from my two best friends. And I know it's about time for Josh to officially announce his candidacy. I keep telling myself that that's why she's there. That she's up there as a member of his campaign. As executive assistant or some shit like that.

Whatever.

xxxxx