Page 5 of Reece & Holden (Gomillion High Reunion #6)

CHAPTER FIVE

Reece

Grogginess dulls my senses and for a moment I don’t remember where I am.

I blink my eyes open and the familiarity of my childhood bedroom brings it all back to me, along with the realization that it’s late.

I grab my watch from the nightstand. It’s three o’clock.

Shit! The jet lag really knocked me out.

Cursing myself for not setting an alarm, I jump out of bed, ignoring the ache in my bones and the dull throbbing in my head.

I don’t have time to worry about them now.

I need to find Holden before the reception tonight.

I yank open the door, not wanting to waste any more time and nearly run into my mom carrying a pile of laundry.

“Oh, you’re up. Did you sleep well?”

“I did, but I didn’t want to sleep so long.” I bite back an accusation that she should have woken me. I’m a grown man; I’m not going to blame my mom.

“You obviously needed it, honey. Let me fix you something to eat.”

“There’s no time, Mom. There’s something I need to do urgently.

” I slip past her and into the bathroom before she can ask questions.

I take a quick shower, trying to rinse off the brain fog so I can function properly.

When I make it downstairs a few minutes later, my mom hands me a coffee and a cookie.

“Take these with you, they’ll keep you going until later.”

“You’re the best, Mom,” I say and kiss her cheek, which earns me her widest smile.

“Go do whatever it is you need to do.” She gives me a little push toward the door. I know she’s curious what it is, and I will tell her once I’ve had a chance to apologise to Holden.

As I slide into the driver’s seat, I check my watch.

It’s four now, so I don’t have much time.

I reverse out of the driveway at a speed that wouldn’t have been out of place in some old cop movie.

I start running through what I want to say to him, urgency jumbling the thoughts in my head.

A loud horn gets my attention and I see a car heading straight for me.

Fuck! I swerve, narrowly missing him. I’m definitely close enough to see the rude gesture he gives me.

I’m about to give one back when I notice it’s me who’s in the wrong.

I’m driving on the left side of the road.

I’d forgotten about it in my haste. I correct the car back over to the right and drive across town with no further mishaps, and more vigilance.

I know Holden has a yarn store; I’ve gleaned that much from what my mom’s told me over the years.

She never knew about what I did to him, the taunts and name calling, the shoving and belittling.

Nothing violent, but enough to make his life miserable.

If she had known, she would certainly have told me off, grounded me, and given me a lecture about how to treat people.

Would it have made a difference? I don’t know.

I was in a pretty bad place at the time.

I dismiss the thought as I’ll never know, and there’s no point dwelling in the past. I need to fix this now.

I pull into a parking space in front of a row of stores.

The yarn store is obvious as a splash of bright colour amongst the other store fronts.

I can’t help the smile that pulls at the corners of my mouth.

Then I notice the name—Yarning for Ewe. It’s cute, and a sense of feeling like I lost something long ago settles in me.

I don't know what it is and I don’t have time to think about it now.

I push on the door but it doesn’t yield, and again as it takes a few seconds for me to realise it’s not going to open.

It’s then I notice the sign, “Closed Early.”

“Damn!” I mutter and try the door one more time, giving it a rattle for good measure.

I fist my hands in frustration. I’ve fucked up big time.

I stand on the sidewalk, looking around for inspiration.

I have no idea where he’ll be or where he lives, but I do know where his parents live—or lived—and it’s the only option I can think of right now.

I race back to my car and reverse out into the traffic, earning myself a few beeps and expletives in the process, but I ignore them.

I have more important things to think about.

It’s only a few minutes drive to Holden’s old neighborhood.

I peer at each of the houses, trying to remember which one is his parents’.

At last I find it and park the car. It’s old fashioned, and like most of the houses in this neighbourhood, looks like it hasn’t changed in the last twenty years.

Each one is just as I remember it. I pause at the mailbox at the end of the drive.

My heart sinks that the name no longer says Pearce, but I’m going to try anyway, it’s the only chance I’ve got.

There aren’t any cars in the drive, and knocking on the door doesn’t yield any results.

The sinking feeling I’ve had since finding the store closed intensifies, and I reluctantly retrace my steps back down the drive.

I spot a neighbor in his front yard mowing the grass.

“Do the Pearce’s still live here?” I shout over the noise, and he stops the mower for me to repeat the question. He takes off his ball cap and wipes his forehead with his arm.

“Nope, they moved away, must be ten years ago now.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“I heard they moved into one of those retirement communities across town.”

It doesn’t surprise me that much. Holden’s parents were quite old when he was born. I think it was a shock when he came along. They seemed to belong to an older generation even when we were kids. The news doesn’t help me.

“What about their son?”

The guy shakes his head.

“Sorry, I can’t help you there.” He goes back to his mowing and I walk back to the car, disappointment dragging at every step.

The only other place I can think of to try is the Bunyan, the bar closest to the high school.

It’s a long shot, a last desperate hope really.

I’ve never been in there as I moved away before I was legal drinking age, but I know it as the local watering hole.

I didn’t think it was Holden’s type of place, though.

I find a parking space and walk the half block to where it is.

The name has changed to Timbers and Tallboys, judging by the sign outside.

As soon as I enter I know this is a mistake.

Holden’s not going to be here. It’s noisy, hot, and packed.

Standing room only, and very little at that.

I have a small longing for the quiet bar I go to back in England with Mac and Nolan, the Gilded Goat, a place where you can sit and talk without having to shout.

I make a circuit of the room just to make sure—twenty years is a long time and people do change.

I see a few faces that look like they could be familiar, and several that definitely are, but I don’t slow down or make eye contact.

My only concern is finding Holden and he’s definitely not in here.

I’m relieved to get back out onto the sidewalk, but I have nowhere else to try.

There’s nothing else to do but wait a couple of hours for the reunion.

Even though I arrive early, the registration line is already long.

I’m impatient and try not to show it, but I’m still fidgety and jittery.

I take a few breaths to try to relax as I scan the room constantly.

I can’t see any sign of Holden, and only then does it occur to me that he might not even come to the reunion, and that makes me even more jittery.

I finally get to the front of the line and sign in, ignoring the look I get from the young student when I declare I have no plus one.

I don’t need a date, but I kind of wish my brother was here with me.

We’ve become great friends over the last few months and he’d probably have some words of wisdom, and at the very least I wouldn’t look like a spare part.

The student, no doubt part of this year’s seniors, gives me a card informing me it’s part of an ice-breaker game later in the evening, that it’s part of a matching pair and I have to find its partner.

As I move away from the table, I glance down at the card and chuckle.

In a way I do have my brother with me. It says “mac” and shows a picture of the curved pasta.

I snap a picture and send it to Mac, receiving a message almost straight back with a lame joke about it being a cheesy game.

I snap my phone shut and take another look around.

I notice a familiar face . . . Miles. He was also on the swim team.

He looks away and I don’t blame him. The bullying I directed at Holden spilled over to him occasionally as well.

Oh well, I knew this was a risk coming here. I try to start off friendly.

“Miles! Hey, good to see you!” I offer my hand to him.

“Hi, Reece. Welcome back to Gomillion.” To give him his due, he doesn’t shun my hand, but he does give it the briefest of shakes before pulling his hand away. I smile, trying to convey that he has nothing to worry about with me. I turn to who I assume is his date.

“Hi. Have we met?”

They turn and look at Miles and then back to me, extending their hand.

“Unlikely. We didn’t run in the same circles in high school. I’m Atlas St. James. And you are?”

“I’m Reece Fisher,” I reply, racking my brain trying to remember who they are, and then it comes back to me. “Oh! I remember you. How have you been, Atlas?”

They give me a wide smile and we make the usual nonsense small talk that people who barely knew each other twenty years ago and still have nothing in common make.

After a few minutes they head over to where Miles is waiting with a glare on his face.

Maybe coming back here wasn’t such a good idea.

I take a deep breath. No, I’m no longer that person and I want people to know that. One person in particular.

I still can’t see any sign of Holden, and I’m in the way of people who are clearing the registration line. Hovering here with no one to talk to is not a good look so I head over to where a bar has been set up at one end of the gym.

A young woman bustles up to me and practically thrusts an iPad into my face. She garbles something incoherently.

“Sorry, can you repeat that . . . Amber?” I ask, reading her name badge. She almost rolls her eyes, like it’s my fault she can’t enunciate correctly.

“Do you want to vote on the Gomillion’s mascot?”

Even though it was a question, I get the feeling that “not really” isn’t the correct answer, so I look down at the screen. Both of the images on the screen are equally as bad as each other.

“Just tap the one you want to vote for,” she says impatiently and pushes the iPad even closer toward me. I randomly choose one, just to get rid of her, and it does the trick as she peels away and scouts out her next victim.

I finally make it to the bar. There’s only a limited choice of cocktails, so I choose a mango margarita and sip it while I scan the room again.

I see a few of the people I noticed in Timber and Tallboys, and they nod a greeting across the room.

I hope I’ll have time to catch up with some of them over the weekend.

It’s interesting to see how twenty years sits on some people.

There are several who wear it well, whereas others are showing the effects of time.

I think I’m somewhere in the middle and pretty much look my age.

It could be twenty years or it could be fifty, but I would never mistake the chestnut hair that I spot standing at a table twenty feet away.

Holden is here. I hesitate briefly, suddenly unsure of what reception I’m going to get.

He does look older of course, and yet he looks the same, almost. He now has a short neat beard, which I have to admit suits him.

He’s wearing a pair of jeans—I refuse to be distracted by how they hug his slender legs—and a button down under a knitted sweater vest in green with a geometric pattern.

The Holden I remember would never have dared to wear something that bright, though he’d have wanted to.

It suits his chestnut hair and gray-green eyes perfectly.

He’s standing on his own, and I don’t care to name the relief I feel that he is, or that he’s not wearing a wedding ring.

I came thousands of miles for this and I can’t put it off any longer.

I down the rest of the cocktail in one gulp and grimace at the sweet taste.

Setting down the glass on a nearby table, I straighten my suit jacket and make my way across the room. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.