Chapter 4 Caden
FOUR
CADEN
“You want to run some laps?” I teased Sabrina as I motioned toward the track while we strolled through the park. “It’s been a while, but maybe I can give you a few pointers from my track days so you can be in good shape for the soccer field.”
She glared at me, rolling her eyes before she looked away.
“I’m an assistant coach for a kids rec league, Caden. I pass out juice boxes, bags of snacks, and try to keep the kids from killing one another in between kicks. I don’t need any kind of athletic stamina for the job, but thanks for the offer.”
We’d been doing this ever since the night of the reunion. This, meaning hanging out whenever we had a free moment. We’d seemed to pick up right where we left off, but we had this whole other level of common ground now as jilted spouses of brutal divorces.
The heat was there too, but we hadn’t done anything with it yet. We had moments of staring a little too long or a goodbye hug that lasted a beat longer than just a friendly one, but we’d back away without it complicating things.
It was just like old times, other than falling into each other’s bed—or, as it was then, any back seat or corner we could find. We were friends without the extra, and it seemed to be holding.
Sabrina would always be more than a friend to me, but I had a twenty-year track record of keeping that to myself, and I had managed okay so far.
To keep her in my life, I could hold myself in check. It sucked, but I could do it.
“Well, you may need some stamina to help Emily keep the single mothers away from Jesse,” I said.
Sabrina let go of a laugh when I lifted a brow.
“Poor Emily isn’t going to have any back teeth at the end of the season from grinding them so hard.” She snickered, shaking her head. “You need to come to a game. I told you, the actual soccer game doesn’t hold a candle to the battle between those two.”
Jesse had settled things with Emily after the reunion, but he hadn’t planned to take it further than that.
He’d wanted to keep all his attention on his niece, but as fate would have it, as it laughed its ass off at both Jesse and Emily, when Jesse had signed Maddie up for soccer, Emily had become her coach.
Now, they were “friends” who danced around each other during every game and practice—or, at least, from what Sabrina had told me and what Jesse would allude to when I pushed.
When I’d asked Sabrina if she wanted to meet up at the bar last week, she’d blown me off with a no-thanks text, which was not like her. We were both pretty damn wordy, except she eventually got the hint when it was time to close her mouth.
It was hard to read emotions via text, but it had been short enough to feel like a brush-off.
“Everything okay lately?” I asked her as we settled onto a bench.
“Fine,” she said, securing a lock of hair behind her ear that blew across her face in the brisk fall breeze. I pressed my palm against my thigh, an effort to rub away the impulse to trace my finger along her jaw.
Sabrina was always beautiful, but sometimes when the sunlight hit her eyes in just the right way, her hazel irises would turn gold, almost translucent. A shiver would roll down my spine, as if she were looking right through me, and I couldn’t hide a damn thing.
But if I was going to keep her in my life, I had to keep that part of myself with all those pesky feelings I’d never known what to do with to myself.
“Why do you ask?” She leaned back on the bench and squinted at me.
“Well, because you’ve been a little distant. Did I do something wrong?”
A moment of panic laced through me that maybe I wasn’t doing such a great job of hiding my feelings. I did a quick replay over what I could have said, and I tried to recall a time I’d stared at her for too long without realizing it.
She blew out a long breath, her shoulders drooping as she shook her head.
“No, you didn’t. I can see how you’d get that impression, and I’m sorry. I did something stupid.”
“And…you were embarrassed about it? Have you met me? I’m the king of doing stupid things.”
She dropped her gaze to the ground and bumped her shoulder into mine.
“It was stupid since I’ve done it before, and no good ever came from it. I logged on to Facebook and looked up my ex-husband. I do that when I’m feeling low, hoping that karma finally did its job and made him miserable and ugly.”
She dropped her head back, clenching her eyes shut for a minute.
“But he’s great and has a new baby on the way with his new wife. Their second. Only this time, he’ll be married to her and not me when this one arrives.”
“I’m sorry, Sab.” I looped my arm around her shoulders.
“Don’t be,” she said, sighing as she dropped her head onto my shoulder. “I have to stop wishing for something that won’t happen and just accept it for what it is.”
She burrowed deeper into my side as her gaze drifted toward the playground in the distance.
“It’s not that I still love him. Once I learned how long he’d been lying to me, that died pretty fast. It’s that…” She trailed off, draping her hand over her eyes.
“It’s that he got the best of you, and you want the universe to punish him for it,” I finished for her.
She jerked her head up. “Yes, that’s exactly it.” Her full lips curved into a soft smile. “No one gets me but you.”
“That’s because we have shared experience with the same kind of bullshit.” I stretched my arm along the bench behind her, my head spinning from too many points of touch between us.
“The way I try to look at it is that nothing that happens to them is going to satisfy us enough to feel vindicated. The best way to get them back is to make the most of our lives, as they are. Be in the moment instead of thinking about what they’re doing.
And who knows what their lives are really like.
” I shrugged. “Social media only shows so much.”
“True. Sometimes karma works in places you can’t see.”
“Exactly. But going into hiding over it is a hell of a lot more than he deserves.”
“It’s not that I went into hiding.” She peered up at me with wary eyes. “That’s why I was afraid to see you. I was afraid that I felt low enough to…fall back into old habits.” She grimaced as she scooted away from my arm and toward the edge of the bench.
“Ah, I think I see now. You were afraid that you were going to be so upset that you would hook up with me. You make it sound so terrible.” I tried to joke, but her frown deepened.
“It’s not that. Trust me, I know it wouldn’t be terrible.” The corner of her mouth curved up.
No. It wouldn’t be terrible. It would be fucking spectacular. But she’d be in it to soothe her wounds and scratch an itch, while it would mean enough to me to scramble my already frazzled brain.
But despite knowing that, I still wouldn’t have said no—or hesitated for even a second.
“We have a good thing, right? Back then, it was okay to use each other because we didn’t know any better. Does that make sense?”
“It does,” I said, trying to ignore the sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. It hurt to hear her say she’d be using me, but she was looking out for both of us.
But if Sabrina wanted to use me, I’d let her. I’d more than let her. I’d volunteer as tribute.
“I don’t want to lose you again.” Her eyes were glossy when they met mine. “Spending all this time with you—” a watery grin split her mouth “—I realized how much I missed you.”
“I thought I was a pain in the ass.” I quirked a brow and squeezed her hand to bring her pretty gaze back to mine.
“Oh, that you were. And are,” she said with a slow nod. “But I’d still miss you.”
I took her hand back before I could stop myself.
“You wouldn’t lose me.”
Because if we fell into bed together and she unintentionally tore my heart out of my chest again, I’d still stick around.
While it hurt to know she stayed away from me so that wouldn’t happen, at least one of us had some semblance of self-preservation, because it sure as shit wasn’t me.
“All that being said, I think I may shock you by what I’m going to ask you.”
“Okay,” I said, squinting at her. “Hit me.”
“Does your offer to be my plus-one slash fake boyfriend at my niece’s wedding still stand?”
My brows shot up to my hairline.
“Sure, but I figured it was a no since you never brought it up again.”
“It was, but while I was dwelling in my pity spiral these past two weeks, I realized a few things.”
“Like what?” I asked, leaning closer.
“First, that having to explain over and over again that I’m just fine alone would make for a really shitty night.
” She chuckled. “I am fine with that. Or getting there. But, second, like you said, what’s wrong with having a little fun?
Even for the shock value alone.” A smirk twisted the side of her mouth.
“So, are you in?” She nudged her knee against mine.
“Jeez, I mean, stop laying it on so thick.” I pressed a dramatic hand to my chest. “You’re embarrassing me.”
She cracked up and shoved my shoulder.
“All kidding aside, if you don’t want to do it—”
“Nope, my offer is still very valid.” I lifted her hand and brought it to my mouth, holding her gaze as my lips lingered on the soft skin of her wrist.
I didn’t have to worry about getting caught mooning over her for a night since that was what I had to do to play the part. Sabrina would think I was just in character.
It would be both the easiest and hardest thing to do, but I never could refuse her anything.
“There would be no greater honor than to be your fake boyfriend for a night. Your sister is going to lose her shit, isn’t she?”
“Fuck yeah,” she said, a real laugh escaping both of us.
She inched closer and draped her hand over the back of my neck. Did the pretending start now? Did she want to make out for practice purposes? I’d happily act as if I were just taking one for the team instead of aching for those lips on mine to see if they were as soft as I remembered.
Before I could decide whether to go for it or not, she pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“Thank you. You’re too good to me.”
“What are friends for?” I whispered, trying to take in the air that whooshed out of my lungs from the feel of her lips on my skin.
Being her fake boyfriend for a night would be all too easy. Going back to reality when it ended was going to be the real challenge.