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. Flushafter 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’dmanaged 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 caughtrealfeelings.
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.
