Secretly Yours

Chapter 1 Caden

ONE

CADEN

“Will you lighten up, for Christ’s sake? It’s a reunion, not a funeral.”

Jesse, my best friend for all my life if he didn’t murder me later, craned his neck to scowl at me as we entered the catering hall.

“This was a bad idea,” he mumbled as we searched for our table number.

The last time I’d been to this hall had been for our senior prom twenty years ago.

It seemed a little over the top in the name of nostalgia, but I supposed it would have been even worse if they’d had it in the school gym.

At least here, there was room for an open bar.

Everything seemed very different at almost thirty-nine, as opposed to when you were eighteen, full of cockiness and stupidity, thanks to good health and raging hormones.

Although I would try to hide it tonight for Jesse’s sake, it was depressing and taxing to think about the effort we’d have to put in to have a good time tonight, compared to all those years ago.

“I shouldn’t have left Maddie,” he grumbled as he pinched the back of his neck.

“Your niece is with your mother for the night, and she’s fine. We all wanted you out of the house.”

“So we came here,” he scoffed as we strode past our old classmates. Or at least, I thought they were our old classmates. I couldn’t recognize any of them as I examined their unfamiliar faces, and they scrutinized us back the same way.

“Why not? Twenty-year high school reunions come but once in a lifetime.”

He glared at me as we finally found our—thankfully—empty table.

“Yeah, it would be a shame to miss it,” Jesse said as he fell into one of the seats.

“Listen, I brought you here because I thought it would be a good way to get out of our heads. Worry about other stuff for a change,” I said, huffing out a laugh. “And it would be good for you to see her.”

His eyes flicked to mine, more sadness than anger pulling at his features.

“What the hell am I even going to say?”

Jesse had had the same girlfriend for all four years of high school. They’d been attached at the hip until two weeks after graduation, when all of Jesse’s fears and insecurities over Emily leaving town to attend a school six hours away had gotten the best of him, and he’d broken up with her.

“Say hello and see how that goes.”

He lifted his gaze, a soft chuckle shaking his shoulders.

“I guess you’re right. It’s worth a try.”

Jesse had been a zombie for that entire summer and had never been the same since. With all he was going through now, I believed a little closure from his past would do him some good. He’d hate me for it now but appreciate me later.

I scanned the space, figuring we’d find the bar and start there, when I spotted her.

Not Jesse’s her. My her.

My gaze landed on the still-beautiful blonde leaning against the bar top, as if a spotlight had been cast on her head. I almost expected the band to slow down to a cheesy eighties song as I took her in.

Blond hair brushing her shoulders, gorgeous curves that were softer than I remembered and made her even more beautiful, the smirk lifting her lips as she clinked her glass with Emily’s reminiscent of so many times of friendly sparring between us that had led to some of my hottest and best high school memories.

Could you really call someone the “one who got away” if she was never yours to begin with, other than inside your foolish little head?

My full-body reaction to simply being in the same space with Sabrina Tirado sure as hell felt like that was exactly who she was—despite how hard I tried to deny it, both then and now.

The minute she was in my line of sight, my feet sped over to her, gravitating to her as if of their own accord. I recognized Emily standing next to her and should have waited to approach, for no other reason than to be a buffer for my best friend, but I couldn’t stay still.

My body was having a muscle memory reaction to the girl who’d had me in ways I’d never admitted to her because I could barely confess them to myself.

“Sabrina?” I finally called out. “I thought that was you!”

“Caden? Holy shit!”

I smiled when she launched herself at me, and I pulled her into a hug, as if two decades hadn’t passed between us and we were still the same “extra” friends we liked to call ourselves to piss people off.

Only my extra was a lot more than I’d ever let on.

I laughed with the little air I had left in my lungs, as most of it had whooshed out the second I’d realized who she was.

“Wow,” she said as she scanned my face. “You look great.”

Her smile was wide, lighting up her hazel eyes as they locked on mine. Time stopped along with my heartbeat for a minute before I sucked in a breath to get it the fuck together.

“Finally, a familiar face,” Sabrina breathed out. “We can’t place any of these people. But I guess maybe I look different too since no one seems to recognize me,” she quipped, craning her neck as she scanned the space behind her.

“You don’t look different at all. You’re still gorgeous. You probably have these balding middle-aged assholes just as tongue-tied as when they’d see you in school.”

She dropped her head back and laughed, as deep and throaty as I remembered, and I couldn’t help laughing along with her. I wished I’d been strong enough to keep her in my life once I’d realized how important she was to me.

After Jesse and Emily had broken up, we’d faded from each other’s lives. We’d both felt out of place and guilty because our dynamic of four had split into two groups of two, but the reason why I hadn’t fought harder to stay in touch wasn’t only out of loyalty to Jesse.

Once I’d realized how I really felt about her, it scared me enough to keep my distance.

What if I slipped one day and told her I loved her, and she flat out rejected me?

My immature and terrified teenage self couldn’t handle even the idea of it.

I’d spent my summer missing Sabrina too but had never let on how much.

While it had been a long time, core memories didn’t have expiration dates.

Maybe if I’d held on to some of that self-preservation that had made me a chickenshit as a teen, I wouldn’t have fallen into a marriage as fake as the woman I’d married.

“Well, thanks,” she said, breathless as I swore I caught a blush rising up her neck. Sabrina didn’t blush around me. Flush after I’d gotten her all hot and bothered, sure, but she’d never preened from a compliment from me before.

That was…interesting.

I’d expected Sabrina to be here, but I’d been too focused on Jesse and how he would react to seeing Emily to consider what I’d say to Sabrina when I saw her again.

Hell, getting Jesse to agree to come tonight to begin with had been an exhausting hassle. But he needed it. Both to get away from the grief over losing his baby sister and—even for just one night—a break from figuring out how to be a parent to the little girl Tessa had left behind.

I’d thought maybe closure from the old love of his life, even if it was uncomfortable as fuck at first, would help give him a little peace.

But neither of them looked peaceful as I gazed at them over Sabrina’s shoulder. Jesse held on to Emily as if she’d just fallen into him, the poor dude already mesmerized enough by her to not realize how long and how tightly he was holding on to her, until she told him to let go.

Why had I made us come here again?

Other than trying to pull Jesse out of the funk he’d settled into since he’d had to move back to Long Island, I was a little nosy about how everyone had turned out.

I’d made it all the way up to marketing director at the company I’d worked at for almost a decade, and part of me wanted to show off how well I’d done for myself to all the jerks who’d thought I was nothing but a goof-off.

But once I found Sabrina, proving anything to anyone faded from my mind.

Sabrina and I’d had an odd arrangement, even by high school standards—or, I supposed, any kind of relationship rules.

We had been good friends, and when we were in between boyfriends and girlfriends, we would hook up with each other.

We’d managed to go back and forth with ease, using each other as an occasional distraction and release with no hard feelings—until I’d broken the rules and caught real feelings.

She’d never known that and there was no point in telling her now, but just being in her presence made me feel better. It brought me back to a simpler time when I was just a happily clueless kid enjoying a pretty girl’s company.

The matching shell-shocked looks on both Jesse’s and Emily’s faces reminded me of old times too, and I had to sink my teeth into my bottom lip to hold back a laugh.

“Hey there, Jess—Emily,” I said, stopping myself from calling her “Jessie’s Girl,” my nickname for her in high school. I caught Jesse cringe and felt even worse for my slip as I pulled her into a hug.

“Nice to see you, Jesse,” Sabrina said, waving at Jesse while darting her eyes back and forth between him and Emily. “We noticed your name on one of the cards.”

I almost cracked up at the scowl Emily leveled her with.

“Yeah, we got here a little late,” I said. “Jesse’s fault.”

I got my own death glare from Jesse and wished I’d learned at some point in my life how to keep my mouth shut, but seeing Sabrina again had me more out of sorts than I’d expected.

“You didn’t miss much,” Sabrina told us, pointing to the table next to the bar. “That’s our table. Remember Gage Sheridan and his crew? The years haven’t been too kind.” Her red lips twitched into a smirk.

“Shit, for real,” I said, sweeping my gaze over them. Everyone knew who they were, but looking at them now, I never would have recognized them either.

Despite the shitty turn my personal life had taken, I liked to think I looked pretty damn good for my age.

I used the gym to get out my frustration so I wouldn’t unload on anyone else, and unlike the tools at Sabrina and Emily’s table, I still had a full head of hair with only a few tiny spots of gray.

Maybe this reunion didn’t totally suck. Sure, I was still shaking off an awful divorce, but the shallow side of me took it as a win that I hadn’t peaked in high school.

“Our table seems to be pretty empty,” I said. “Why don’t you sit with us?”

It was out of my mouth before I could consider what I was saying. I could feel Jesse and Emily tense up at the same time, almost flinching at my suggestion, but Emily managed to recover first.

“As long as you don’t mind,” Emily said, searching Jesse’s face. Despite the moment of panic I’d caught in her eyes a few minutes ago, she really seemed okay with it or was doing a great job of faking.

“Not at all,” Jesse said, as fixated on Emily as always. She was still just as beautiful too, and it was weird how much she still seemed to fit next to Jesse even after years apart, although their eyes darted everywhere but to each other.

I had brought us here for the distraction, and, for both Jesse and me, I guessed we were about to get our money’s worth.