Jessica Lemmon - Best Friends, Secret Lovers

“Remember that pact we made in college? The one where we swore never to get married.”

Reid let out a hearty “Ha!” UK-born Reid Singleton was planning on staying as unattached as his last name implied. “Right here in this room, I believe.”

Gage pursed his lips, his brows closing in the slightest bit over his nose. “We were hammered on Jägerbombs that night. God knows what else we said.”

“I didn’t adhere to it. I should have.” Flynn had been swept up by love and life. He hadn’t taken that pact seriously. A mistake.

Gage frowned. “It’s understandable why you’d say that now. You’ve been through the wringer. Back then no one expected to find permanence.”

“None of us wanted to,” Reid corrected.

Flynn pointed at Gage with his water bottle. “You and this new girl have been dating, what, a month?”

“Something like that.”

“Get out now.” Reid offered a hearty belch. He lifted his eyebrows and downed his portion of whiskey, cheeks filling before he swallowed it down. “You and I, Gage, we stuck to the pact.” He smiled, then added, “If you were Flynn, you’d have married her by now.”

Reid wasn’t exaggerating. Flynn and Veronica had been married on their thirty-day dating anniversary. Insanity. That they’d lasted three years was more a testament to Flynn’s stubbornness than their meant-to-be-ness.

The final straw had been Veronica screwing his brother.

Whatever , he thought, as the sting of betrayal shocked his system afresh. He’d never liked Julian much anyway.

“He’s doing the thing,” Reid muttered not quietly, given his state of inebriation. His gaze met Flynn’s, but he spoke to Gage. “Where he’s thinking of her.”

“I can hear you, wanker .” Flynn lost his marriage, not his hearing. Though “lost” would imply he’d misplaced it. It hadn’t been misplaced, it’d been disassembled. Piece by piece until the felling blow was Veronica’s head turning for none other than his older, more artsy brother. She was the free spirit, and Flynn was the numbers guy. The boring guy. The emotionally constipated guy.

Her words.

“Hey.” Gage snapped his fingers. “Knock it off, Flynn. We’re here to celebrate your divorce, not have you traipse down depression trail.”

But Flynn wasn’t budging on this. He’d given it a lot of thought since he’d tumbled down that hill. It was like life had to literally knock him on his ass to get him to wake up.

“I’m reinstating the pact,” Flynn said, his tone grave. Even Reid stopped smiling. “No marriage. Not ever. It’s not worth the heartache, or the broken leg, or hanging out with the two worst comrades in this solar system.”

At that Reid looked wounded, Gage affronted.

“Piss off, Parker.”

“Yeah,” Gage agreed. “What Reid said.”

With effort, Flynn sat up, carefully moving every other limb save his broken leg so he could lean forward. “I don’t want either of you to go through this. Not ever.”

“You’re serious,” Gage said after a prolonged silence.

Flynn remained silent.

Gage watched him a moment, a flash of sobriety in the depths of his brown eyes. “Okay. What’d we say?”

“We promised never to get married,” Reid said. “And then we swore on our tallywackers.”

Gage chuckled at Reid’s choice of phrasing.

“Which means yours should have fallen off by now.” Reid’s face contorted as he studied Flynn. “It didn’t, did it?”

“No.” Flynn gave him an impatient look. “It didn’t.”

Reid swiped his hand over his brow in mock relief.

“Come on, Parker, you’re high on drugs,” Gage said with a head shake. “We made that pact because your mom was sick and your dad was miserable, and because Natalie had just dumped me. We were all heartbroken then.” He considered Reid. “Except for Reid. I’m not sure why he did it.”

“Never getting married anyway.” Reid shrugged. “All for one.”

“So? Swear again,” Flynn repeated. “On your tallywackers .” That earned a smile from Reid. “Big or small, they count.”

The first time they’d made the pact none of them truly knew heartache. Breakups were hard, but the decimation of a marriage following the ultimate betrayal? Much worse. Reid and Gage didn’t know how bad things could get and Flynn would like to keep it that way. He didn’t want either of them to feel as eviscerated as he did right now—as he had for the last three months. All pain he could have avoided if he’d taken that pact seriously.

His buddies might never find themselves dating women who slept with their family members, but it wouldn’t matter how the divorce happened, only that it did. He’d heard the statistics. That 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce was up to around 75 nowadays.

He’d heard some people say they didn’t harbor regret because if they’d never married, and divorced, they wouldn’t have learned life’s lessons. Blah, blah, blah.

Bullshit.

Flynn regretted saying “I do” to Veronica all the way down to his churning stomach. The heartbreak over her choosing his brother would have been more bearable if she’d told him up front rather than three years into an insufferable marriage.

“I swear,” Reid said, almost too serious as he crashed his glass into Flynn’s water bottle, then looked at Gage expectantly.

“Fine. This is stupid, but fine.” Gage lifted his glass.

“Say it,” Flynn said, not cracking the slightest smile. “Or it doesn’t count.”

“I promise,” Gage said. “I won’t get married.”

“Say never , and we all drink,” Flynn said.

“Wait.” Reid held up a finger. “What if one of us caves again? Like hearts-and-flowers Gage over here.”

“Shut up, Reid.”

“One of your monthlong girlfriends could turn into the real thing if you’re not careful.”

“I’m careful,” Gage growled.

“You’d better be.” Flynn stared down his friends. The enormity of the situation settled around them, the only sound in the room the fire crackling in the background. “The lie of forever isn’t worth it in the end.”

Reid eyed Flynn’s broken leg, a reminder of what Flynn’s stupidity had cost him, and then exchanged glances with Gage. These men were more like Flynn’s brothers than his own flesh and blood. They’d do anything for him—including vowing to remain single forever.

“Never,” Gage agreed, holding up his own glass.

Reid and Flynn nodded in unison, and then they drank on it.

One

Flynn Parker, his stomach in a double knot, attempted to do the same to his tie. His hands were shaking from too much coffee and not enough sleep. It wasn’t helping that the tiny room in the back of the funeral home was nearing eighty degrees.

Sweat beaded on his forehead and slicked his palms. He closed his eyes, shutting out his haggard reflection, and blew out a long, slow breath.

The service for his father was over, and when Flynn had left the sweltering room, the first thing he’d done was yank at his tie. Bad move. He’d never return it to its previous state.

God help him, he didn’t know if he could watch his father being lowered into the dirt. They’d had their differences—about a million of them at last count. Death was final, but burial even more so.

“There you are.” Sabrina Douglas, his best friend since college, stepped into view in the tall mirror at the back of the funeral home. “Need help?”

“Why is it so hot in here?” he barked rather than answer her.

She clucked her tongue at his overreaction. Much like this moment, she’d come in and out of focus over the years, but she’d always been a constant in his life. She’d been at his side at work, diligently ushering in the new age as he acclimated as president of the management consulting firm he now owned. She’d been with him for every personal moment from his and Veronica’s wedding to his thirtieth birthday— their thirtieth birthday, he mentally corrected. Sabrina was born four minutes ahead of him on the same damn day. She’d jokingly called them “twins” when they first met in psych class at the University of Washington, but that nickname quickly fizzled when they realized they were nothing alike.