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?”
