Page 6 of Sam & Justin (Gomillion High Reunion #4)

I could see people starting to mill in, and I didn’t recognize a single one of them.

Maybe they wouldn’t recognize me either, and I could spend the whole weekend on the edges: on the edges of the activities, on the edges of the crowd, and on the edges of everyone’s memory.

Somehow, I doubted that last part. My reputation hadn’t been all that great back in the day, and small towns had long memories.

Fuck.

What was I thinking coming back here?

I had one last chance to drive away, but instead I climbed out of my car and started toward the entrance.

There was a table set up for people to check in, and I hopped in the shortest line.

There were a few people ahead of me. I pulled out my phone to send a text to Axel, making sure he knew I hated him, and I was blaming him for all this.

If it was a disaster, which was the only possible outcome, it was completely his fault.

I saw the moment Axel read the text, but he didn’t send anything back.

Guess he was busy, probably with Lana even though he’d deny that with his last breath.

When I finally reached the front of the table, I found myself staring at a dark haired woman with muscular arms and a friendly smile that looked plastered on.

Her name tag identified her as the new assistant principal, Vanessa Smythe Newton.

I already knew what the guys I hung around with in high school would’ve said if she’d been around when we were younger, and I could feel my ears heating up just thinking about it.

Not a word of it would’ve been appropriate, and I was pretty glad our assistant principal hadn’t looked like that.

As it was, I was having a hard enough time not looking at her arms.

I’d fucked a lot of guys who had less definition in their biceps.

I was so busy looking at her arms that I completely missed every single thing she said.

I just nodded at what I hoped were the right times, took the name tag and papers she passed me, and followed a few people into the small gym.

It was decorated for the party with little tables scattered around, high schoolers in black slacks and white shirts weaving through the crowd holding trays, and what looked like pictures taped up all over the far wall.

Doubted I’d find myself on that. I hadn’t exactly been the type to pose for pictures back then.

Hell, still wasn’t if I was being completely honest.

There were clusters of people standing around, and sometimes girls would let out high pitched squeals that echoed around the gym wall.

The whole place was loud. Conversations blended together, and it was starting to hurt my ears.

At least I knew I’d adjust. I had the same kind of reaction every time I went to a bar that had too many people.

Overstimulated. It was a catch-all term I’d used with my clients, and I knew it well enough to recognize it when I was feeling it.

Too bad I couldn’t heed my own advice and take a step outside and breathe in some fresh air.

Didn’t trust the people around me enough to close my eyes either, so I was just going to have to raw dog the sensation.

I flipped through the papers I was given and tried to block out some of the noise.

There was a copy of the schedule, and I read over it again even though I about had it memorized after all the time I’d spent looking at it.

There was another piece of paper in there, too.

A small card with the word gravy written on it.

I had no fucking clue what that meant. The woman at the table had probably gone over it, told me what the hell that slip meant, but I hadn’t been paying a lick of attention.

Now I was going to be the idiot standing there while everyone did whatever they were supposed to be doing with the cryptic card.

Or hell, maybe it wasn’t even meant for me.

Maybe it was the start of a grocery list that got tucked into my paperwork.

At least if it was the latter, I wasn’t going to feel any more out of place than I did right now.

People mingled around me, and they looked right through me.

It was like I wasn’t even there. No, that wasn’t completely right.

I’d seen at least a few people catch my name tag, and I’d seen the flash of recognition in their eyes.

They weren’t looking at the modern day Sam Masters.

They were seeing the guy I’d been back then.

They were seeing the guy with the leather jacket and the bad attitude, the one that reeked of cigarettes and gave off the distinctive aura of trailer trash.

They didn’t give a shit about the person I’d become, because they were thinking about the person I’d been.

I wondered if they expected to see bruises on my knuckles from another fight or something.

I wished I didn’t care. I wished that I could be the guy they thought I was back then, the one that didn’t give a shit about what anyone thought about me. But I’d never been him, and I never would be. I’d always cared too damn much about what people thought, even if I was good at hiding it.

At least I could put on a good act, though I could put on a better one with a drink in my hand.

I made my way over to one of the bars set up along the edges of the gym floor, hoping to find a beer.

Instead, there were signs advertising two signature cocktails.

Neither one of them sounded all that great, but the black mojito sounded a lot better than the spicy mango martini.

I didn’t mind the spicy part, but I’d never been a fan of mango.

I ordered one of the mojitos and left a dollar in the tip jar.

I still felt out of place, but at least there was a chance I could get a buzz.

I took a sip from the mojito and ruled that out real quick. The drink tasted like shit. The bartenders at the Rusty Nail could’ve made it better, but I already had it. Maybe they’d be able to rustle me up some beer later, when everything really got going.

I started to roam the room. Once again, people had one of two reactions to me.

They either ignored me completely in favor of people they actually remembered, or they saw my name tag and wished they’d chosen to ignore me.

This whole thing was a disaster. I should’ve listened to my instinct and not let Axel talk me into coming to my reunion.

I spent time wallowing in self-pity, finishing my drink, and drowning in more memories, mostly about who I’d been when I was a student here until someone finally spoke to me. “What’s on your card?”

My card? It took me a moment to realize what she was talking about.

“Gravy,” I replied.

“Damn, that doesn’t go with mine,” the woman said. She tightened her blonde ponytail before looking back down at the card in her hand. There was something almost familiar about her, but I couldn’t really place her in any of my high school memories.

“Go with yours?” I asked. Finally, I could get some fucking clarity on what the hell these cards were about.

The girl scoffed. “Guess you didn’t pay attention?”

There was something in the tone of her voice that made me bristle. I might not remember who this woman was, but she was looking at me like she knew who I was and had some thoughts about it. It got me questioning why the hell I’d bothered coming to this thing all over again.

I took a deep breath and brushed off my annoyance.

I’d just treat her like one of the bitchy parents of the kids I counseled who didn’t think their children were making progress fast enough or whatever.

I put on my best therapist voice and what Axel called my thera-pissed smile.

“I must have missed the instructions. Would you mind telling me what we’re supposed to be doing? ”

It didn’t sound too passive aggressive in my head, so that was a good thing.

“You’re supposed to find the person whose card goes with yours,” she said in a voice that gave me the distinct impression that she thought I was lacking in the brains department.

“Goes with how?”

Was I supposed to be looking for someone else who had a gravy card?

“They’re pairs. I’m shoes , so I’m thinking that I need to find someone who has socks or shoelaces or something like that. You said you’re gravy , right?” I nodded. “Then you’re looking for someone who has a card that has something that goes with gravy.”

“Like biscuits?”

“Probably. Or chicken?” Her voice sounded a bit less bitchy when she tossed out an option. Maybe I’d been reading too much into it. Projecting, again.

“Thanks.”

She smiled at me, and I watched as her eyes moved down my body and back up to my face.

There was a look in her eyes I’d seen more than a few times in tourists that found themselves in the Rusty Nail back in King’s Bay.

She was barking up the wrong tree, and I didn’t feel like dealing with the return of the grump.

“Good luck,” I told her before I pushed off the bar. Guess I was gonna have to go find whoever had something that went with gravy.

The first three people I asked were a bust. Not only did they not have anything to do with my card, but they all seemed bugged that I’d even dared to interrupt them to ask.

I really shouldn’t have listened to Axel.

Should have just stayed home. Too bad it was too late now.

I was already here, and I’d checked in. Besides, it was too far of a drive to just turn around and go home, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to linger around Gomillion without a real reason.

But that didn’t mean I had to keep playing this stupid game with the cards.

It was meant to be some kind of icebreaker, and it wasn’t breaking any ice for me.

If anything, it was showing off the ice my peers still had toward me.

I went back to the bar and got another one of those disgusting black mojitos.

Standing around let a few people come up to me, but not a one of them was the biscuit to my gravy.

Or the chicken to my gravy. Or the whatever the hell else to my gravy.

I did manage to make small talk with some girl that I think I had history with, but it was about as interesting as that class had been.

She scampered off to find her partner. At least her card was easy to find the match of. She had pepper .

“What’s on your card?” a deep voice asked as a body settled onto the empty barstool next to me. I turned my head, and it took all I had not to actually drop my jaw.

The man next to me was gorgeous. He had red hair and a matching well-kept red beard.

When he looked at me, he had sparkling blue eyes that crinkled in the corners.

I couldn’t tell much about his height while he was sitting next to me, but he was built the way I liked my men: solid.

My dad used to have a word for guys with that kind of body.

He’d say they were built like a brick shitter, and the man next to me was the living embodiment of the phrase.

There was something familiar about him, but that wasn’t hard to fathom given where we were.

It wasn’t until he smiled that it all pieced together.

I’d seen that smile sitting across from me at a library table, gifted to me when I’d figured out some math problem I’d been struggling with or when I finally got the date right on some history factoid he’d been pounding into my head.

That smile had gotten me through some dark nights.

It had also been the image I jacked off too more than a few times in my youth.

Justin Kirkwood.

My old tutor.

And he was looking at me like I was a bit slow, because I hadn’t answered his question. Shit. I was making a wonderful first impression—or whatever the fuck it was called when you’d already met someone and were meeting them again for the first time in twenty years.

I shook my head like I was trying to clear a particularly stubborn Etch-a-Sketch. He looked at me like I was an idiot, the smile faltering from his lips. “Gravy,” I told him.

It was too long after his question, but at least I got it answered.

“Gravy?” he confirmed. His blue eyes lit up like someone set a fire behind them. “Looks like we’re a match.” He sat his card down on the bar in front of me. Biscuit . Our eyes met, and I swear I felt a jolt of electricity shoot down my spine. “It’s been a long time, Sam.”

The fact that he wasn’t scowling at the memory of me almost made this whole trip worth it.