“Not stupid. You guys were close, closer than I ever got to a guy in high school.” She snickered and reached for the bottle of wine in the middle of the table. “Maybe if you were in love and happily committed to someone, seeing the boy who broke your heart in high school wouldn’t bother you as much.”
“It doesn’t bother me.” I peeked at the entrance, trailing the new crowd coming into the room.
“But you’re looking for him, aren’t you?”
“You know, having fun at your best friend’s expense is mean,” I teased.
“I’m not having fun at your expense, but it does make the night slightly more exciting. And honestly, in your line of work, you should know that time means nothing to a broken heart,” she said, raising her brow as she sipped from her glass. “Wow, this tastes like shit.”
“Most table wines at catering halls do.” I twisted the glass stem back and forth between my fingers. “And I’m an editor. I don’t write love stories, at least not that often. I fix them to make sure they make sense.”
“You need to know what makes a good story in order to fix them, and you were always a hopeless romantic. Another reason why all the first-love memories may be throwing you a little.”
“I edit all genres, not just romance.”
With the travel back and forth to grueling games all over the country during college, I’d lost whatever interest I’d once had in pursuing a lifelong career in sports, but books had remained my solace whenever life became stressful or upsetting.
It was a cheap and convenient defense mechanism I’d learned as a kid with a working single mother who could only afford the bare minimum.
My full sports scholarship ended up financing a degree in communications and English, and now, I read for a living.
While, yes, I still enjoyed reading romance and allowed myself to get lost in a story, after my engagement had imploded a few years ago when we were just months away from the wedding, I’d filed true love under fiction, just like the dragons in the paranormal novel I’d edited last week.
The irony of helping to craft perfect happily ever afters when I couldn’t figure out one for myself was not lost on me.
“Again, he was your first love. It’s hard to forget that magic, you know?” Her smile was wistful as she lifted a shoulder. “All that sloppy passion mixed in with raging hormones. It warps your mind.”
I ignored Sabrina and picked up the program on the table, flipping through until I found my soccer team championship photo. In it, I beamed at the camera, my rosy cheeks obvious even in the black-and-white image. I could still feel the clueless and pure happiness radiating from me.
“What’s that? A yearbook?” Sabrina’s brows drew together as she glanced over my shoulder.
“Sort of. It looks like someone just pieced together photos from senior year.”
“Oh good, a refresher.” Sabrina snatched the program from my hand. “Maybe if these shots have captions, we can figure out who some of these people are.” She turned the program around, pointing to my soccer team picture. “Damn, girl, look at those quads.”
I cracked up at Sabrina’s whistle. “It was all those drills.” I rubbed my thigh, remembering the pain accompanied by thebile rising in my throat when daily practice became torturous enough to want to throw up.
“Yeah. That’s why I always told you to roll up your skirt more. I was jealous of your legs in high school. Not jealous enough to run back and forth after dismissal kicking a soccer ball, but still.”
“They aren’t bad now, though.” I uncrossed my legs and stretched one out, circling my wedge-heeled foot.
“Yep. You still got it, my friend.” She patted my knee and scrunched her nose at the cluster of men settling across the table. “I wonder how many weirdos are here that we forgot about in high school,” she whispered.
“Nice to see you ladies,” one of the men called out to us, raising a beer bottle in our direction.
I nodded back, sneaking a look at Sabrina. She closed her eyes and gave me a quick shake of her head.
“You played soccer, right?” The taller one leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing me as he ran his thumb along his bearded jaw. “Ellie?”
“Emily,” I corrected. No, they weren’t crashers, but I still couldn’t place them.
“I’m sorry for being rude, but I can’t place you.”
He regarded me as if I’d just lapsed into a different language.
“Gage Sheridan. I guess you were so busy with soccer, you didn’t go to any football games.” He chuckled as his two sidekicks snickered next to him.
“No shit,” Sabrina said, her jaw slack. “Sorry, but I didn’t recognize you either.”
