Page 10 of Kellan & Emmett (Gomillion High Reunion #1)

Emmett

Laughter rippled through the gym, the kind that came loose after enough drinks and too many years pretending we were still young.

Neon strobes pulsed across the floor, catching sequins, sweat, the blur of bodies moving like it was 1989 all over again.

Dancing had never been my thing.

I gave it a song or two at the start, enough to satisfy a handful of our classmates, then found my usual refuge: the wall.

Safer there, cup in hand, letting the music shake the room while I stayed still.

Didn’t mean my eyes stayed still.

Every time the crowd shifted, they found Kellan.

First laughing through the Electric Slide, then getting dragged into some freestyle mess with Jamal and Derek. He looked younger, happier.

“You’ll dehydrate if you just watch,”

Leif said, his grin easy.

A drink pressed into my hand. I didn’t need to look up to know the voice. Leif Lawson.

“Appreciate it,”

I said, taking a sip. The drink was sugary, spiked.

“What is this?”

“House specialty,”

he said.

“Blue Lagoon. They’re pushing it hard tonight.”

“You running deliveries now?”

“Hardly..”

His grin was easy as always.

“Besides, someone’s got to make sure Gomillion’s only bookstore doesn’t lose its most reliable customer.”

I snorted.

“What, all those paperbacks donated to the schools keeping you afloat?”

He shrugged, unbothered.

“Somebody has to keep the lights on at Between the Leifs Bookshop.”

We talked a while—town gossip, books, the impossible task of keeping a small business afloat. About his store, about who’d moved away, about how strange it felt to see so many old faces in one room. Easy talk. Familiar.

When our conversation thinned, I let my gaze drift back to the dance floor.

The crowd surged one way, then another. Sequins, neon, laughter spilling in waves. But—

Where was Kellan?

Heat prickled under my collar. Of course. He’d bailed. Again.

I tipped the cup back harder than I meant to, liquid stinging my throat. The fact that he wasn’t there didn’t matter.

It shouldn’t matter.

But irritation crawled under my skin all the same, souring into something I didn’t want to name.

Where the hell had he gone?

I scanned the gym, casual at first, pretending I wasn’t checking doorways, corners, shadows near the bleachers. Too many people pressing close, perfume and cologne mixing. The music was louder now, or maybe just grating harder against the place in me that knew he wasn’t here.

Dammit.

Leif asked if I wanted another round. I muttered something—“Need some air”—and set my half-empty cup on the nearest table. My pulse thudded in my ears as I pushed the double doors.

The air tasted faintly of sugar and sweat, like the night itself had swallowed the punch bowl whole.

I scanned the parking lot once, twice, stupidly hoping I’d catch a familiar frame leaning against my truck, waiting. But he wasn’t there.

A couple leaned against a sedan, sneaking kisses like they were seventeen again. Someone else lit a cigarette near the far end, flame snapping bright before dying. No Kellan.

Go back inside, Em. Stop caring. He isn’t your problem and hadn’t been for twenty years. If he wants to disappear, let him.

I circled farther, around toward the track. The field lay still, the scoreboard dark, only the faint hum of the stadium lights filling the air. I stopped, scanned, heart thudding harder for no good reason.

My throat worked around a tightness that had nothing to do with the drink. If he wasn’t here, then—where?

The answer came before I let myself name it. The bleachers. Of course.

And suddenly my feet were moving, gravel crunching under my shoes as the music bled thinner behind me.

It wasn’t logic, not really. Just instinct—muscle memory from a lifetime ago. That was where we always ended up. After practice, after games, after too many nights when the world felt too heavy to carry alone. That was our place.

For a second, I almost laughed at myself. Maybe I’d lost that right to know him, to find him. Twenty years erased a lot. But something under my ribs insisted.

My steps slowed as I crossed the grass.

The bleachers came into view, washed silver under the field lights. He was there, slouched forward on the bottom row, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands. Like the weight of everything had finally buckled him.

He didn’t look up.

I waited a beat, two, telling myself to turn back. To let him be. But I stayed. Of course I stayed.

“You always were good at disappearing.”

His head shifted, just enough to let me know he’d heard. After a beat, his voice came—low, frayed at the edges.

“And you always knew where to find me.”

“Not anymore,”

I said, taking a step closer, gravel crunching underfoot.

“This time it took me twenty years.”

That got him to look at me. His eyes caught mine under the lights, haunted, like he wanted to say something and swallow it down at the same time.

“I was…”

He broke off, ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.

“That night—everything was changing.”

His words came fast, ragged.

“You staying here, me leaving, my dad breathing down my neck about the scholarship, about being the perfect son. And then there was you. My best friend. The only thing that made sense. And suddenly it didn’t. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe, because what if—”

“It’s too late for what ifs, Kellan.”