Page 3 of Promised Secret (Promises, Promises #3)

“I like you, too.”

I was beaming. Of course I liked him. He was my best friend. The best person I knew, and someone I hoped to keep in my life forever.

Dan watched me as I continued smiling. It felt like he was studying me or trying to read me. He didn’t smile back, and my expression deflated just a bit.

He sucked on his bottom lip for a brief second before releasing it.

“I don’t think you understand what I mean,” he said slowly.

I frowned, confused by what else his words could have meant. He liked me, and I liked him. It was normal for best friends to feel that way, so what else could he mean?

He let out a sigh that sounded even more frustrated than when he was worrying about a problem.

“Clay, I like—”

“What are you boys doing? Where’s your dad, Dan?”

The rest of Dan’s sentence was cut off by my mom walking through the front door. She glanced between the two of us with a weird look on her face, but before she could say anything, Dan’s lao-ba entered the reception area from the back.

Dan tensed but returned to his laid-back manner so quickly that I wouldn’t have noticed the strange action if I hadn’t spent years watching the man.

“There you are, Sandra,” Victor said, face lighting up at seeing my mom. He beelined toward her, and I didn’t miss Mom’s shy smile or the way her eyes lingered on Victor as he strode to her side.

It was surreal seeing them like this. They never acted this way before, and I was starting to wonder if my wish for them getting together was merging with my reality.

But then Victor wrapped an arm around Mom’s waist and placed a gentle kiss on her cheek.

Mom turned her head to accept it in a familiar way.

My eyes bugged out of my head. In my peripheral vision I could see Dan had a similar reaction.

While I was more shocked than anything else, he looked a bit…

horrified? I must have interpreted his expression wrong.

Sure, who wanted to imagine their parents getting together?

But if they made each other happy, that was all that mattered.

What I was most curious about was how long they’d been hiding this from us, but I didn’t have to wait for an answer.

“There’s something we want to tell you boys,” Victor started, then turned to my mom. Only when she nodded did he continue. “Sandra and I have been dating for a couple of years.”

“Years?” Dan asked in obvious shock. “You’ve been going behind our backs for that long?”

“We weren’t going behind anyone’s back. We were being discreet,” Victor replied.

Mom nodded. “That’s right. We didn’t want to tell anyone until after we were sure this is what we both wanted.”

“And is it? Is being with Victor what you want?” I asked her.

She looked at Dan’s dad, her smile softening. Her gaze moved back to mine as she replied, “I didn’t plan on being with anyone else after divorcing your father.”

I scowled, hating to hear her call him that. He was never a father to me, just someone I had the misfortune to share DNA with. Mom’s sorrowful smile told me she knew exactly what I was thinking.

“I wasn’t looking for love, but it somehow found me anyway,” she whispered, eyes on me as if begging me to understand. Victor took her hand and squeezed it in a comforting manner, and the affection they had when they looked at each other was undeniable.

I jumped off my seat and ran to pull Mom into a hug. “I’m so happy for you,” I said honestly.

She squeezed me tight. “You’re not mad I kept this from you?”

I shook my head against her, and when we pulled away, I said, “I’m surprised you guys kept this from us for so long, but I’m just happy that you’re happy. I only care about that and that he treats you right.”

“He does,” Mom said with another soft smile.

Dan stood from his seat and joined us. I couldn’t read the exact expression on his face, but I knew he wasn’t happy. He looked from me to my mom, to his dad, and then to their combined hands. A frown marred his face.

I wanted to comfort him and ask why he was so upset by this news. His mom had passed while giving birth to him, and his dad had been alone since. Didn’t Dan want him to fall in love again? Or was it my mom that he didn’t approve of?

It couldn’t be that, since Dan and Mom adored each other. They were always the ones taking over the conversations during dinner, then having their own private, hour-long chats afterward. Surely, he wouldn’t spend so much time with her if he didn’t like her?

Before I could make sense of why my best friend was being so weird, Victor cleared his throat.

“There’s actually a reason we’re telling you now.

” He paused and glanced at Mom again. Mom stayed quiet, but a faint blush painted her cheeks.

“I asked Sandra to marry me, and she gave me the great honor of agreeing to be my wife.”

The sense of longing that’d bubbled in my chest rose again. If they were getting married, then wouldn’t that make Victor my stepdad? I asked the question I’d been fantasizing about for a while now.

“Does that mean you’ll be my lao-ba, too?”

Victor nodded with a huge smile and bright eyes, then patted me on my head like I’d seen him do to Dan so many times before. Warmth bloomed inside of me at the chance of getting something I never thought I’d have, but it quickly chilled when I saw Dan’s expression.

“You’re getting married?” Dan asked frantically. There was a desperation in his voice I hadn’t heard from him before.

Our parents noticed, too. They both frowned, but it was my mom who spoke up. “It’s true I agreed to his proposal, but it was only on the condition that you two are okay with it. If it really becomes a problem, we won’t marry.”

Dan opened his mouth, but no words came out.

He once again glanced between our parents, to their threaded hands, then his gaze landed on me.

There was so much sadness and despair in his eyes now that I automatically walked to his side.

I wanted to take his hand or pull him into a hug.

I’d do anything to comfort him, but he quickly turned away from me.

After the first month of avoiding me, he’d never turned away from me again. I was at a loss for what to do.

“No, it’s not a problem. I’m happy for you two,” he said with a smile. To my eyes, it looked a little too forced, but our parents were already laughing happily and pulling him into celebratory hugs.

I wanted to laugh with them and celebrate us becoming an official family like I’d wanted, but I couldn’t help but feel like something was terribly wrong.

I tried to catch Dan’s eye. Now I was the desperate one, wishing he’d just tell me what changed, but no matter how much I tried to meet his eye, he refused to look at me.

All the excitement I had for the news disappeared as I kept watching Dan pretend to be happy with our parents. I wanted him to tell me what was wrong. I wanted to scream at him to look at me, and when he finally did, all I was met with was the same fake smile he was giving them.

He’d shut me out, and the ground under my feet started crumbling.