Page 34 of Most Likely to Match (The Matchbooks #2)

She hugs him again before returning to her spot behind the table and writing out his name on his name tag. She eyes us as she hands it to him. “Wait. Did you two come together?” Her pointer finger flies between us, the sticker fluttering on the end like a white flag.

“ No ,” we say in unison. That seems suspicious.

“We work together, though,” I say. “At my matchmaking company.”

Kayleigh’s face lights up. “That’s so cool.”

“Barely,” Dean says. “I do the therapy equivalent of consulting,” he says. He turns to me. “See you in there.” He walks away before I can contradict him.

I find Dean at the bar set up along the outer wall, windows behind it displaying a view of a courtyard that was never used when we went to school here.

“Why’d you say that?” It’s loud, between the music and the chatter of our fellow former classmates. I have to lean in so he can hear me. “You’re not a consultant.”

His words are a warm gust against my ear. “It’s easier to explain that way.”

I pull back so I can see him fully. “Dean.” I lay my hand on his forearm. He wanted us to stay a secret. To be able to come here without having to explain anything to anyone. But hopefully he doesn’t consider light forearm contact a violation of those rules. “That’s not true. ”

“You built your business from your dorm room, Chlo. That’s a big fucking deal. I’m not going to take away from that.”

The bartender hands him two drinks, and he exchanges them for cash, giving one to me.

Apparently half the proceeds from the cash bar tonight are going to student clubs and programs. It seems questionably legal for money made from the sale of alcohol to go to student programs, but I’m not here to ask questions.

“Slàinte.” He taps our plastic cups together.

“Huh?”

He shakes his head. “Something Nick taught me.”

I take a sip of what turns out to be slightly sour, possibly cheap sparkling wine. Dean winces and glares down at his cup.

Eileen Chu approaches us with a tall Black man on her arm, who she introduces as her fiancé, Mark.

Perhaps unsurprising, as our class valedictorian, she’s now a medical researcher.

“We met in med school.” She smiles up at him.

Mark, almost a foot taller than the rest of us, seems fairly lost to the conversation due to the music’s volume, but he nods placidly whenever she looks to him during our conversation.

“So what are you guys up to?” she asks as the music cuts out again, an awkward fizzle of silence causing everyone’s voices to drop until it comes back again.

“We work together. Dean is an integral part of my business,” I say before he can even attempt to defer responsibility. After Eileen and Mark wander away a few minutes later, Dean elbows me gently. “What?” I feign innocence.

He looks at me, warmly, happily. He looks at me, and butterflies and flower petals and confetti explode inside me, tickling my ribcage.

This is a secret. We are a secret. If I say it to myself every thirty seconds or so, maybe that will help. Though even if it does, keeping this secret is going to be way harder than I thought.

“You’re something,” he says, quiet enough I know he’s meant it to be under his breath, but loud enough that I can still hear him in spite of the heavy bass.

“Was it a mistake?” I ask. “To come here?”

This auditorium reminds me of Moonbar on especially busy nights.

When it’s so loud with people and sound that it somehow also seems to affect my vision.

When I can’t carry conversations because the crush of bodies borders on overwhelming.

Usually I can escape to the quiet bathroom hallway, the office, or at least use Jasmine as an anchor.

Tonight, Dean is my anchor. But we’re standing far enough apart that I couldn’t lean into him without falling a little. I can’t smell his cologne or deodorant or whatever it is that makes me want to bury my face deeper in his armpits.

“You want to leave?” he asks. Maybe it’s just the slower emo song stuttering through the speakers, but there’s disappointment in his tone.

His arm flexes where he leans against the side of the bar, his tattoos on display.

He’s dressed in a sage green short-sleeve button-up, patterned with little cream-colored flowers.

I’ve never seen him in it before, and I have to tear my eyes away from him in it, his tattoos, his bare bicep, him , now.

I focus on a slideshow that’s projected against the backdrop of the stage curtains. “No,” I say, going for breezy. “I’m fine.”

Beside me, Dean is relaxed, a half smile softening his already soft mouth.

He’s easy with anyone who comes up to chat with us, talking about Core Cupid or London, Matt and Rick.

Even Lauren S., who cautiously approaches us with her girlfriend’s hand clasped tightly in hers, is greeted with a smile, with kindness.

I could count on two hands the number of words I’ve contributed to conversations, and a niggling worry scares me that this is a fall back into bad habits, of keeping quiet when I should speak up.

But I also love to watch him, hear him speak.

He’s lovely and charming; exactly like the boy I once knew but entirely different somehow.

“How are you doing?” With the slideshow rolling, the music isn’t quite as loud now, so he doesn’t have to project his voice. But he still leans in enough that if I close my eyes and imagine hard enough, the suggestion of his lips is there, silk against my shoulder.

“Great.” I smile. Hold up my cup of cheap room-temperature sparkling wine.

Dean scowls at the cup, gently prying it from my grasp .

I whimper. “That’s my emotional support cup.”

He turns to dump the cup in the garbage. “Chloe,” he says, his voice firm. “I—”

“Good evening, everyone.” Lauren G.’s voice cuts through auditorium, forcing Dean to turn back to the stage, his lips pressed together in a tense line.

She leads us through a land acknowledgment, something I never experienced on my high school campus when I was a student.

Then she runs through the admin of things like fire exits and off-limits areas and thanks the reunion committee.

Then Lauren’s teacher energy comes fully online, creating excitement for events planned tonight where there previously were none.

There are alumni bingo cards we can pick up from the check-in table, three guided tours of the school— which seems kind of pointless, but maybe I’m a reunion humbug— and a silent auction set up along the back wall to raise money for programs for current Don Head students.

“And,” she says with a flourish, “there’s a video booth confessional where you can leave messages for your fellow alums.”

Folks clap and the music returns to its previous volume. A school friend of Dean’s— a woman with blue hair that I don’t recognize— chats with him, and now that I have lost my emotional support cup and my human anchor, I give myself permission to drift.

The memory lane slideshow ends, and confessional booth videos begin playing on the screen. If there’s accompanying sound, the organizers don’t bother turning the music off to hear it, but the general gist of it looks like happy people with happy faces saying happy things.

Despite attempting to converse with other people, my eyes keep wandering back to Dean.

He’s moved on from his conversation with the blue-haired woman— whose name is Laura, I think— and is lost in a group of vaguely familiar men.

Dean didn’t want to come to this; I know he didn’t.

Yet he seems so completely at ease. As if he doesn’t care what any of these people think.

Not in an irreverent way. He just simply doesn’t need them, their approval, their opinions, their concern .

I’m envious.

“Have you gone on a tour yet?” Lauren G. bounds up to me, slipping her arm through mine before I have a chance to answer her.

“The school tour? No.” She gazes at me expectantly. “Do you want to go?” I ask. “Don’t you work here?”

She shrugs, smiling. “It’s kind of fun. Plus it’s quieter than in here.” The music cuts out again. “Sorry about the speakers, though,” she says with a wobbly smile.

She’s not wrong about the quiet, so I let her drag me to the tour group meeting in the foyer.

The tour guide, a former student council treasurer, points out places like “This is where crickets were released in the school for the twelfth-grade prank,” and “This is where the vice principal tackled a student streaking for their different senior prank.” He points out the music classroom, where Mr. Chatterjee—who retired two years ago— taught for fifty years.

We climb a stairwell where a student in our graduating class almost started a fire from smoking a cigarette indoors.

The hallway on the second floor has been set up like a museum, with lockers opened and photographs of us, our graduating class taped inside.

Osprey backpacks and Ugg boots and those overpriced goose down jackets are stuffed inside.

Music from a hidden speaker plays a Rihanna song that bleeds into a Maroon 5 song.

“ Wow .” I stop at the entrance to the hallway. “This is incredible.”

Lauren grins and points to a photo in one of the lockers.

“Is that us?” It was taken from the yearbook. Lauren and I sitting on the bleachers, Bristol board signs in our hands that read Go and Ducks . It must be tenth or eleventh grade, though I don’t recall the specific game.

“It’s really great,” Lauren says, her voice high and a little loud. “That you and Dean are friends.”

I straighten from where I was bent over the photo, let my hand drop from the door. The rest of the tour has moved up the hall a bit, though they’re moving slowly. I start toward them again.