“Wow,” she says. “Congratulations. You always wanted to be a CEO or COO or one of those C jobs.” She clinks her glass against mine. “Achievement unlocked. Congrats.”
I smile and fight back the urge to reach up and brush back a strand of hair that’s escaped from her ponytail. “So did you end up doing the Pacific Crest Trail?”
She stares at me for a second like I’ve lost my mind, and I wonder if I have. Then she bursts out laughing. “Oh my God, I totally forgot about that,” she says. “That was one of my goals when I was eighteen, wasn’t it?”
A flicker of guilt tickles the back of my throat, but she doesn’t seem upset. More amused than anything. “I take it you didn’t cross that one off the bucket list?”
“I think I lost interest,” she says. “Or I woke up and realized I hate heights, I hate being cold, and I don’t like walking more than a mile, never mind walking twenty-six-hundred miles for five months.”
“Other than that, it was a totally worthy goal.” I sip the champagne, which is pretty damn delicious. “Well, we all have stuff that sounds like a fantastic idea at eighteen, and ten years later you’re wondering what the hell you were thinking.”
“True enough.” Sarah unwinds the yellow scarf from around her throat and sets it on the arm of the couch. “Is it hot in here?”
“It’s pretty warm,” I agree, though it has nothing to do with the temperature of the room and everything to do with that long, bare slope of her throat. Her tank top dips low above her breasts, and I force my eyes off her as attraction chatters through my body like an electric current.
“So how about you?” she asks. “Did you get to skydive the way you wanted?”
“Not quite the way I wanted.” I pause, wondering if I should tell this story so soon after our reunion. It’s going to take my cool points down a few notches.
What cool points?
“I went up in a plane after I turned twenty-one and I was totally planning to jump out,” I tell her. “They had me strapped to the guide for the tandem jump and everything.”
“And?”
“And I chickened out,” I admit. “The other two guys on the flight went through with it, but the pilot had to take me back down to solid ground.”
“Ooof.” She grins. “Well, not all goals are made to be achieved.”
I refrain from telling her this was on the one-year anniversary of Shane’s death. That I was feeling sick and heartbroken and a little too eager to hurl my body at the concrete from twelve-thousand feet, screw the parachute.
“Do I make up some cool points if I tell you I got my pilot’s license the year after that? I even bought a little four-seater Cessna Skyhawk.”
Her eyes widen with surprise. “That totally counts. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” I tell myself to shut up so I don’t come off like some bragging idiot. It’s true I’m doing well on the career front, but I don’t need to blurt it out within the first ten minutes. Instead, I comb my brain for memories of Sarah’s other goals. For snippets of late-night dorm room conversations and confessions.
“You wanted to live overseas,” I recall. “Did you get to do that?”
Sarah shifts a little on the couch, and her knee bumps against mine. The effect is electric, shooting a delicious, warm jolt all the way up my spine. I’d forgotten it was like that between us. That our video game sessions in my big brown beanbag chair felt way more intense than just friendship. I kept myself in check, thanks to her string of boyfriends and my long-term, long-distance girlfriend. After we broke up, there was this time with Sarah that I thought?—
“I lived in Venezuela for six months teaching English,” Sarah says, jarring me back to our conversation. “I would have stayed longer, but I got swine flu.”
“That’ll put a damper on things.” I glance down to where her leg has come to rest against mine and try to focus on our teenage life goals instead of the warm pressure of her body heat.
“You wanted to learn French, right?” she asks.
“Oui,” I tell her, wracking my brain for something witty and useful to say. “Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles.”
Her lips part just a little, and belatedly I recall she had a thing for languages. Our sophomore year, she confessed to hanging out near the exchange student advisory center just to listen to foreign students bantering with each other.
“What does that mean?” she asks, and the words come out breathless.
“Literally? It means your ass is surrounded by noodles.”
Sarah bursts out laughing and sets her empty champagne flute on the coffee table. “That’s something you need to say to someone on a regular basis?”
“It’s an idiom,” I tell her. “A slang way of telling someone they’re very lucky.”
