Page 13 of See You Sometime

Skye was talking to Mike and Jenny when out of the corner of her eye she saw a couple walk in. The man was really tall, which is what caught her attention. And then she looked harder.

Her eyes widened. “Rusty and Eliza!”

She didn’t realize she’d said that aloud until Mike chuckled. “Full intersection of vanilla and kinky lives—achieved.”

The couple walked over, at first focused on Mike and Jenny and apparently not recognizing Skye, who sat on Jenny’s far side.

“Still can’t believe you rat bastards didn’t try to heal me,” Rusty said as Mike stood to hug him and Eliza.

“Forty-twohit points of Scorching Ray damage, dude.” But both men were smiling.

“You’restillplaying D&D?” Skye asked.

Mike and Rusty both looked at her, and now Rusty’s eyebrows shot up in recognition. “Holy crap! Skye Bauer?”

She smiled, nodding as Eliza now recognized her, too, and dove in for the hug first.

“Oh, my god!” Eliza squealed. “It’s been, what, twenty years?”

“At least.”

Eliza moved aside so Rusty could lean in and hug her. “I saw your Facebook status the other day and meant to send you a private message, but got totally sidetracked. It’s great to see you.” He stepped back. “One of us,” he droned. “One of us.” Then his smile returned.

“Well,” Mike said to Skye, “at least he’s not yourboss.” He pointed at where a man and woman had just walked in.

She pointed at Jenny. “No, just my mom’s book club friend and who got me my job.”

“Ooh, ouch.”

The couple walked over to say hi. “Shayla here is the other one in the book club with us,” Jenny told her.

The man, her husband Tony, arched an eyebrow. “Do we have another vanilla life crossover?”

“Yeah,” Jenny said, quickly explaining Skye’s connection.

Rusty chimed in. “We knew Skye back when we were in high school. Hey, we could totally work you into our current campaign, if you wanted to play. We’re playing 3.5.”

Eliza cleared her throat. “While I’m sure it’ll be fine, barbarian, shouldn’t you clear that with Grant and Darryl first? Itistheir house.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He looked around. “They’re not here yet. Please remind me to ask them.”

Skye’s eyes widened. “As in Grant and Darryl who used to play D&D with us?” This was getting better and better.

“AndSusie,” Rusty added.

“What?”

“One of us,” Mike chanted. “One of us.”

“They’re a poly triad,” Eliza said.

Grant, Darryl, and Susie had been a year behind her in high school. “I’m friends with them on Facebook, but I haven’t seen them in decades.”

They’d reconnected via a Facebook group for alumni. Skye hadn’t been able to go to her twentieth reunion, thanks to Cheapo McCheatingstein not wanting to pay for it, but in her class there would have been few people she would have really been interested in seeing again, anyway.

Maybe Axel.

No,definitelyAxel.