Chapter Two
The Lyft driverhad taken a right off Spring Street onto Kingsman, and Logan had ended up in 2008. That was the only explanation he could muster for how he'd wound up back in the Kelleys' house, the scene of "legendary" teenage hijinks and so much teenage bullshit, at a party so ridiculously wild it was as though the intervening ten years hadn't happened atall.
If this were a movie he was reviewing for HackCritic, he'd rate it somewhere belowHot Tub Time Machine- which at least had some originality going for it - and slightly aboveOld School, which was only funny when Will Ferrell was on-screen.
Then again, he'd have to warn his readers that this movie was seriously politically incorrect, and highly, highly clichéd. Trigger warning for anyone who actually lived through 2008, as well as people who have no desire to remember the unmitigated assholes they were in highschool.
The way they'd usedpeople.
The way they'd betrayed people they maybe, actually, hadloved.
"Logan!" D'Andre said happily, walking into the kitchen where Logan had claimed himself a bar stool like Barney Gumble at Moe's Tavern in the Simpsons. He refused to leave this room, let alone mingle, after being physically assaulted by a guy dressed as Cupid an hour ago. "What isup,brother?"
"Dee," Logan acknowledged, returning the man's enthusiastic embrace as though they hadn't hadliterallythis same conversation the last time D'Andre had wandered in for a beer a few minutesago.
Oh, shit. Maybe he'd wandered intoGroundhogDay.
If Logan needed to make Andi McDowell fall for him in order to break the spell, he was seriously out of luck, though. He hadn't dated a girl since his freshman year ofcollege.
"Where have youbeen?" D demanded with the seriousness of the very drunk. "What have you beendoing?"
"Down in North Carolina," Logan told him, trying to make it sound like they hadn't hadthisconversation already, too. "Remember, my step-dad got a job coaching down near Charlotte, couple years after we graduated? And I went toUNC."
"Oh, shit, yeah! Go Tarheels!" He held up his hand for a high-five.
"Go Tarheels," Logan agreed, smacking D'spalm.
"And how's CoachGeorge?"
George McNamara, Logan's stepfather, had been the coach of the Brookville Lions for about ten years before leaving to take a job with an even more competitive high school team down in North Carolina.Real athletes, not pussies like you and your friends, as he'd informed Logan more thanonce.
"Oh, you know. He's good. Sameold."
He took a deep drink of his beer. Good God, how long until he could go back to hishotel?
"Good, good. You got yourself a wife yet?" D'Andreasked.
Logan choked on his beer, but D didn'tnotice.
"Me, I got married to Tiff, like, three years back. You 'memberTiff?"
"Yeah, sure. Tiffany was goodpeople."
"Sheis," D'Andre agreed. "And we got two boys. Silas and Solomon." He made a face. "I didn't pick 'emout."
Logan chuckled. "They're good names, though.Solid."
"Yeah?" D seemed to consider this while swaying on his feet. "Okay, then. So, what about you? Gotkids?"
"Uh, nope. No kids. No wife." Logan took a deep breath. It had been a good long while since he'd had to really come out to anyone he'd known while he was still in the closet. He was openly gay back home in Raleigh, and he'd come out to his parents years ago. He hadn't really considered that he'd have to tell his old friends tonight, hadn't spared a thought for how they'dreact.
Honestly, he hadn't been thinking aboutthematall.
But then again, there was a good chance he could tell D now, and the man would forget it entirely by tomorrow morning, if not by the time he needed his nextbeer.
"Actually, I'm gay," Logan toldhim.
D'Andre leaned against the counter and frowned, like this revelation required deep and complicated internal calculus to resolve. "So, you're saying... you bangdudes."
