My eyes scanned the room for the hundredth time in the past two hours. The entire dance floor was packed thanks to the DJ playing 90s and early 00s R&B and Hip Hop. The music was nostalgic, and it had everyone shaking what their mama gave ’em. The bar was six people deep all waiting with drink vouchers in hand. The tables were half-occupied with people pretending to be interested in “catching up” while their eyes were scanning for someone more interesting to speak to.
Or maybe that was just my jaded take on the environment. Maybe everyone was having a great time and I was the only one searching for an emergency exit. The reality was the reunion was in full swing and the only person I’d come to see was nowhere to be found. I should have known that it wouldn’t be as easy as showing up and her appearing. This wasn’t a romantic comedy; this was real life.
Yes, online she’d been on the list of people attending, but obviously that didn’t matter. My name wasn’t on the list, and I was here.
“Maddox Cruz!”
A man who looked vaguely familiar stumbled in my direction. His hairline looked like it was scared of his forehead, and he rocked a beer belly that rivaled Lizzy’s belly right before she delivered Hannah.
I had to check his name tag to figure out who he was. When I read the name I did a double-take. Chris Porter was the epitome of the high school athlete. He was a triple threat playing basketball, football, and baseball. And he excelled at all of them.
After high school, he’d attended Notre Dame and started in the quarterback position as a freshman. His junior year of college, he went in the second round to the Cowboys. He played pro ball for a couple of years but never really made a name for himself in the game. I hadn’t heard anything about him for the past decade.
“Porter, good to see you,” I greeted him as his large paw landed on my shoulder.
“You too, man. Can you believe it’s been twenty years?!” Chris leaned into me and exhaled.
His dragon breath nearly knocked me over. The man needed to stay away from flammable objects otherwise, he’d be breathing fire.
“It’s crazy.” I took a step back to remove myself from the danger zone and his arm dropped from my shoulder.
“You lookgoooodman.” Chris grabbed my arm and squeezed my bicep. His hands were the size of baseball gloves. “You been hitting the weights?”
I nodded, unsure of what to reply. I wasn’t about to comment on his weight. He looked like a caricature of himself. Like he’d been stung by a million bees and had an allergic reaction.
“What have you been up to?” I took a sip of the beer that I’d been nursing for the past hour. Unlike Chris, I had no plans on getting wasted tonight. There was a good chance I’d be driving back to the city since the sole reason I was here hadn’t shown up.
“I’m in Sactown. I own a Chevy dealership. Got a wife, an ex-wife, and a girlfriend. Three kids and two baby mamas. What about you?”
“Still in the city. I have a daughter. Hannah. She’s five.”
“Married?” he asked then immediately belched.
“Nope.”
“Divorced?”
“No.”
“Never tied the knot?”
I shook my head.
“Smart.” He tapped his head with his pointer finger. “You always were a thinker. I remember cheating off of you in…well, every class I had with you.” He laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.
He wasn’t the only one. And I charged for my services. Looking back, it wasn’t my finest moment. But I was a kid who grew up in the system. After being removed from six foster families, I ended up in a group home at age nine and was there for the next seven years.
All my life, I’d been in survival mode. And my side hustle of writing people’s papers and letting them cheat off of me had put food on the table and enabled me to hire a lawyer to get emancipated from the state at sixteen after I graduated high school.
“Oh shit, speaking of smart people! Have you seen Julianna Pierce? She is lookin’ figgity-figgety fiiiinneee.”
Julianna was always attractive. She just wasn’t blonde with big tits. I had a feeling that this was going to be a She’s All That or any other 90s movie where the girl takes off her glasses and suddenly the jocks all realize that she’s gorgeous.
Porter gripped my shoulder as he rose up on his tip toes to search the room. I felt him wobble and his hold on me tightened. “There she is! In the green dress.”
I turned my head in her direction and saw that my hypothesis was correct. She looked the same way she had when we were in high school, which was exactly like Rachel Bilson. Both the actress and Julianna had aged well.
“Speaking offiiinneee, do you ever talk to Peyton Russo?” Porter asked as he slapped me on the back. “Remember her? You two were joined at the hip. Whatever happened to her?”
