Page 19 of Sam & Justin (Gomillion High Reunion #4)

Reunion - Saturday Afternoon

My attention had been split three ways during the alumni game.

First, there’d been the game itself. I’d always enjoyed watching basketball, though I lacked the ability to play it with any real skill.

Watching the current team go against my former classmates had been exciting, and I acted like a maniac throughout the game.

There was something about the energy of the crowd that was infectious, and I was always willing to let it drag me along with it.

Second was Sam. I was so aware of him sitting next to me that it was almost distracting.

I noticed him watching my reactions. By the middle of the game, I found myself seeking out his hand, and at one point, I was so caught up in the energy of the crowd and his presence that I couldn’t resist kissing him.

I was obsessed with every single one of his little reactions.

They were different than they’d been the night before in his motel room.

Of course, that may have been due to the size of the crowd around us.

Finally, Theo. There was something off about him.

He looked like he was a million miles away, except when he was staring at Caden North.

I only knew some of their history, some from watching them in the hallways, but mostly secondhand.

The gossip mill had been hot after Caden’s disappearance, and I never really knew what to believe.

I knew too well that Gomillion mouths didn’t always speak the truth.

Whatever it was, I felt compelled to check on Theo.

The moment the game ended, I went after him.

Our conversation was short, and he said that he was okay.

I didn’t know if I believed him, but I also didn’t think I had the right to pry beyond checking on him.

We might have worked together on the reunion, but we’d never been close friends.

He’d been in my sister’s year; I wondered if she knew anything and made a mental note to ask.

By the time our conversation ended, people were leaving the gym and coming toward the parking lot.

Food trucks were parked along the edges, and while I was famished from skipping breakfast, I was more concerned about finding Sam in the throng.

In the end, he found me while I was looking in the wrong direction.

“Everything sorted?” he asked. I could hear the concern in his voice, and it tugged at something in my chest.

It also confused the hell out of me. It took me a few moments to realize that, rushing out the way I did, he must have thought that I had to get things organized for the next activity or fix something that had gone wrong.

After all, we’d managed to go the entire game, including half time, without any crises occurring.

That was almost a full two hours where he hadn’t had to share my attention with anyone, only for me to practically leave clouds of smoke when I ran off.

I offered him a weak smile. “I needed to check on someone.” I didn’t want to bring attention to whatever was going on between Theo and Caden. While I didn’t think Sam would go around reigniting old gossip, I couldn’t say the same for anyone around us who might overhear our conversation.

“But is everything sorted?”

My smile grew more genuine as I nodded. “Yeah. Everything’s great.” I wrapped my arm around his waist and pulled him closer to me. “Everything will be even better once we get something to eat. I’m starving.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Skip breakfast?”

“As it happens, yes,” I answered, grinning ear to ear.

“It turns out that waking up across town and still needing a shower really cuts into breakfast time.” His face started to fall right before my eyes.

I hated that. I didn’t want him thinking that I regretted a single thing that happened last night, because I didn’t.

What was missing breakfast compared to one of the best nights of my life? “Small price to pay.”

“I shouldn’t have asked you to stay,” he muttered.

I squeezed his side and shook my head. “No.” My voice was firm. “Last night was one of the best nights I’d had in a long time.” I didn’t want to lay it on too thick and make him think that I was just saying this to placate him.

It seemed to have worked. The tension melted from his features, and I felt his arm snake around my waist. I wasn’t normally a big fan of PDA, but this felt nice.

Kissing him in the gym felt natural. It didn’t feel performative, the way so many other instances of PDA did to me.

I’d had partners in the past where it felt like they were trying to mark their territory when they kissed me in public.

But this? It didn’t feel like that at all.

We were just two people, enjoying one another’s company.

It didn’t hurt that there were more than a few people walking around the same way; though I was pretty sure most of them were being affectionate with people they’d come to the reunion with and not people they hadn’t seen in twenty years.

People who would be leaving in less than twenty-four hours.

I pushed the thought from my mind. I didn’t want to think about it right now.

I wanted to live in the moment, instead of dreading what tomorrow would bring.

“So, what food truck is good?” Sam asked after a few moments of us walking aimlessly through the crowd.

There weren’t a lot of choices. Gomillion wasn’t a culinary Mecca, and we weren’t brimming with food trucks.

I recognized two of them, because they were staples around City Hall.

I was fairly certain another two came from neighboring towns.

I’d seen the last one parked across town when I was passing through, but I’d never had a chance to stop and try it.

I sighed. “I’ve only had two of them.” I pointed out the two that parked near the office.

“That one,” I indicated the one furthest from us, “has amazing chicken.”

“That one, then?”

“The other one has great barbecue,” I informed him with a heavy sigh, “and I looked at the menu of the other three, and they look really good, too.” In other words, I couldn’t decide.

I think Sam could tell that I was torn, because he squeezed my waist. “No one said we only gotta stop at one,” he suggested. I raised a questioning eyebrow. “Get a few things from the ones that sound good. Like the taco truck and the barbecue and shit. Then we meet at a table and share.”

I typically didn’t enjoy sharing my food, but did this really count as sharing? It was more like a sampler. I nodded in agreement. “Divide and conquer?”

“Yeah,” he grunted as he removed his arm from around my waist. I caught his wrist and pulled him back in for a quick kiss. When the kiss ended, he was smiling the kind of smile that made his eyes sparkle. I was pretty sure I’d sell my soul to get another one of those.

The feeling of that smile carried me through the lines of the two food trucks I decided to visit.

Well, that and the stolen glances at him standing across the parking lot.

I thought I saw him making small talk with another one of our former classmates, and that made me feel just as warm inside as the weight of his arm around my waist had.

Sam was making an effort to be friendly to the people around us.

It wasn’t even to make me happy, because I was nowhere near him.

I wondered if that interaction with Robbie earlier had helped take down some of his walls.

If so, then I was going to buy Robbie a beer the next time I ran into him at Tallboys. I would name my firstborn son after him. Okay, no, not my firstborn son. Maybe my next pet.

Eventually, Sam and I both finished our gathering missions and met at an empty table set up in the parking lot.

We had an entire spread in front of us. I’d gotten loaded fries and burnt ends from the barbecue truck, nachos from the taco truck, and nothing from the chicken truck.

(The line had been too long, and they didn’t have much that we could share anyway.) Sam had returned with sliders from one of the out of town trucks and some noodle dish that smelled amazing from that truck I’d seen around town and always thought about trying.

He’d also had the foresight to get two paper plates from somewhere.

We began to divvy up some of the food, which made it feel even less like sharing, and started digging in.

I’d like to say that we had compelling conversation over the food, but we barely spoke.

We were both too busy stuffing our faces.

In the end, we made a decent dent in the selection of food we’d bought, though we still had a lot left over.

I felt like I needed to be wheelbarrowed away from the table when it was time for me to leave, and I envied the fact that Sam got a few minutes to let the food settle.

Unfortunately, I had responsibilities.

At least, I thought I did.

When I got to the front of the school for yearbook distribution, everything was already laid out.

There were signs behind a table directing people into individual lines based on their last name.

There were lists printed out next to stacks of yearbooks to make sure everyone got one.

There were even multicolored pens and markers set out for people to sign one another’s yearbooks.

Our class had missed out on having a senior yearbook due to lost orders or lost files or lost something.

(I’d been involved in many things in high school, but the yearbook and the politics within it had not been one of them.)

I found Vanessa on the other end of the lawn. She was setting out the final pack of gel pens on a table with a smug look on her face. “I thought I was supposed to be helping with this?”

“You looked like you were enjoying yourself,” she chirped. “I had more than enough student volunteers. You’re not taking a role in handing them out, either.”

“Vanessa…”