Page 1 of Reunion

1

Cole

“How about him?” Grandma Merkle prodded my ribs with her bony elbow, nearly upsetting the plate in my hands as she widened her eyes indicatively in the direction of the bar area. She was trying for subtlety, but Merkle—who wasn’t actually my grandma, but a great-aunt—andsubtlehad been foes for long decades now.

With a sigh, I scanned the sea of faces, trying to determine who she was giving the googly eye to. “Which one?”

“Periwinkle shirt, with pants that actually sit at his waist like they’re supposed to.”

“For you or for me?” It was a necessary clarification since Merkle had no qualms about putting the moves on men of any age whatsoever.

She rolled her eyes with as much vigor as the dowager countess ofDownton Abbey, but I didn’t dare point that out because the last time I had, she’d popped me as soundly as she had when I was a kid. So I located the guy she was crowing over and assessed him top to toe. His pantsdidfit him nicely.

“I don’t know about that periwinkle, though,” I said, just to get a rise out of her. “And also, that’s uhhhh, Perry Fortner, I think. He went to grad school with Aaron. Pretty sure that woman next to him is his wife and that she’s pregnant with his child.”

“You don’t know that. Never assume.” Merkle gave me a gimlet-eyed stare that I rebuffed with a snort.

“He actually said, ‘This is my wife, Sara.’ And then he rubbed her belly. No one does that if it’s just a potbelly. That would be weird.”

“Unless they have a thing for Buddha.”

“Still weird.” I laughed. “But no. Not him. Stop now, please. I’m trying to enjoy some”—I glanced down at my plate—“empanada.” It’d been abandoned for the last ten minutes as Merkle did the verbal equivalent of a Grindr swipe through my brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law’s wedding party and out-of-town guests. “I don’t need any help getting a man. Or choosing a man. Or whatever it is you have in mind.”

“Considering your last boyfriend, I beg to differ.”

I pointed the empanada at her. “You met himonce.”

“It was enough. He was a prissy little thing.” She sniffed.

“Yes, well, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” I tried to turn the conversation on her, in no mood to rehash my last relationship. Because she was right on that count. Merkle had seen in seconds what had taken me…far too long. “Your drink is empty, by the way.”

She held up her rocks glass and examined the ice cubes within, then me.

“Nope. I already got you one refill. Go find someone else to do your helpless-old-lady schtick on.”

She raised the stakes by narrowing her eyes, but I held my ground and stared her down until her lips quivered at the corner and she broke into a smile and patted my shoulder. “You’re not my favorite grandson, but you’re really close.”

“I’m not technically your grandson, either.” The words fell mostly on Merkle’s back as she ambled toward the bar, and I resumed my lazy lean against a tall table on the periphery of the club’s dance floor, where I’d been doing an excellent impression of a wedding Scrooge since we’d arrived from the ceremony rehearsal. Aaron and Shay lived in New York, and most of the members of their wedding party and many of the guests were people I’d only heard of in passing. The upside was that also made it the perfect hunting grounds for a casual fling.

On a large screen behind the dance floor flashed images of Aaron and Shay throughout their courtship. Now that most of the guests had been through the club’s eclectic tapas buffet, the DJ had shifted from soft background tunes to aggressive remixes of popular classics, and people were starting to respond to the seductively thumping bass lines. I needed at least another drink before I attempted the dance floor, though.

When my phone vibrated with a text, I glanced down at the name and my stomach flip-flopped.

Jason:I just tried to call.

Cole:Brother’s wedding weekend, remember?

Jason:Oh right. Sorry.

Cole:What’s up?

Jason:Did you take the fancy corkscrew with you?

I took a deep breath and forced my grip to relax on the phone as the fluttering in my stomach became a knot of frustration.

Cole:Nope

Jason:Do you know where we might have put it?