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.Myher.
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!”
