by Gage Grayson
“I did give him a hug after the memorial, in Meredith’s garden…”
“Ah,” Jessie interrupts. “You feel weird about that?”
“Why would I? He just lost his mother.”
All I want is to break eye contact with Jessie—to look down at my drink or at the ball game playing on the far wall—but I don’t want to look like I’m uncomfortable or like I have something to hide.
Because I don’t.
“It was a little strange, I admit, because, I’m not sure. I kind of found myself doing it. I think my sympathy took over. You know, extraordinary circumstances…”
“Ghosts.”
With that weird comment, Jessie breaks her gaze to walk back around the bar to sit beside me again.
“Wait. What does that mean?”
“The scraps, the spirits of feelings from the past that still linger. In your case, I actually think it’s not even just the ghosts. Those feelings are still alive and never left. That’s what I think made it weird, if anything.”
“You weren’t even there. And besides, that was so long ago. Do you really think I haven’t moved on?”
Jessie gives a quick look around for Freddie before she turns back at me with a misplaced empathy.
“Moved on?”
My stomach starts to turn. Is she really being serious?
“I’ve moved on from high school, Jessie. I’m in my thirties, for fuck’s sake. I’ve grown up and had real, adult relationships.”
“Matthew? You think he counts as a real, adult relationship?”
I know she’s referencing Matthew Dunn, my on-again, off-again boyfriend—who I’m currently off-again with.
The two of us have been through a lot together—breakups, reconciliations, and everything in between, really.
“Why are you bringing up Matthew?”
“Is there someone else I should bring up?”
“I’ve dated other men.”
Just none I’ve been serious with.
Regret is spilling over Jessie’s expression as I feel my own face twisting in confused anguish.
“Look, I really am sorry. We don’t need to talk about it anymore, but if you ever want to or need to talk about it…”
“I won’t.”
My interruption sounds so ugly when it comes out, but Jessie doesn’t look one bit bothered by it.
She gets it.
“If you ever need to talk about anything, Brooke…”
“You’re always just a text message away,” I continue for Jessie, smiling, trying to undo the tension.
“Or just a barstool away, like I’ll be for a while tonight.” She smiles back.
“I appreciate it, really.”
“Hey, I know you’d do the same for me. Now, where the fuck is Freddie? Seriously.”
Jessie stands up to restart her search for the bartender. I get the feeling that if he doesn’t show up soon, the poor blond man will be out of a job.
“It’s not like you need it. And maybe he’s out back with Cindy?”
“Need what? And, as much as I hope he’s finally gotten the nerve to ask her out, he better not be there. He should be out here working.”
I laugh and decide not to tell Jessie what I really meant was that she doesn’t need somebody to unload on about any of those types of trials and tribulations.
She’s found her happily ever after with Eric.
But not everybody gets that in life. And those of us that don’t need to accept it.
Chapter 7
Dylan
“What is that? Jack?”
You can never be too sure these days, so I do take a fast glance up at Eric standing over me to make sure he’s not serious.
The goofy smile on his face is one I’d recognize anywhere, anytime—no matter how damn long it’s been since I saw it last.
Eric might be joking and just waiting for me to return that grin. But as I stare up at him from where I’m sitting on the grass, I make sure my courtroom-honed poker face doesn’t shift even the tiniest bit.
“Are you trying to tell me you don’t recognize this bottle?” I hold up the fifth of Jack as the fawn-colored liquid swishes deliciously in the glass bottle.
Eric keeps grinning unabashedly as he plays along. “The label’s still facing you, smart guy. I can’t see it.”
Shaking my head in faux-disgust, fighting my laughter becomes a challenge as I twist the bottle around for Eric to pretend to read the label.
“You see?” He points to the bottle. “That shit’s in cursive, I can’t read that.”
“First of all, it’s not.”
“That one word is.”
“You went to the same schools I did, come on.” I flip the bottle around. “It says Tennessee.”
“Oh. Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey. I get it.”
Finally, we both crack up at Eric’s ridiculous bit.
“Just sit the hell down already,” I demand as my laughter dies down.
A massive thunderstorm consumed the typically gorgeous weather earlier today, but it finally stopped long enough for Eric and me to enjoy some time on the field.
Unfortunately, the grass where I’m sitting is still plenty wet.
Eric sits down a couple feet away from me and looks up at the overcast sky. I take another pull of whiskey from the bottle, and it almost starts to feel like the last fifteen years never happened.
“Now I remember,” Eric says.
“Remember what?”
“How stingy you are with that bottle.”
“What the fuck?” With that exclamation, I pass the bottle into Eric’s waiting hand.
He takes a hearty swallow of Tennessee whiskey before responding in kind. “What the fuck what?”
“You’re just making shit up now,” I grab the bottle back and take another pull. “We never did stuff like this. We were good kids. Remember?”
That statement doesn’t sit long in the air until we both start cracking up.
“We weren’t out drinking whiskey on the football field, maybe…” Eric cuts himself off with a few more uncontrollable laughs.
“Remember that kid back in eighth grade?” I ask while Eric finishes laughing.
“Jeremy?”
“You remembered right away.”
“How could I forget? Remember that one night before Halloween when we went with him to egg a bunch of houses?”
I spur my recollection with another sip and hand Eric the bottle. “I remember that it was his idea to knock on people’s doors and actually ask them for eggs, toilet paper, and all that shit.”
Eric laughs so hard that he goes into a brief coughing fit.
“Fuck. Fucking whiskey almost went down the wrong pipe. But, yeah, people actually gave us that stuff, too. We just had to promise to use it on other houses.”
There’s an underlying twinge of terror to my laughter as I take the bottle back from Eric.
“Holy shit. I remember that and how Jeremy insisted on not keeping his promise. The Machiavellian way that kid was thinking. Do you remember if he even made it to high school?”
“He may have moved.”
Feeling the Jack start to hit me with unstoppable force, I stop myself from taking yet another gulp and place the bottle down in the grass between us.
“High school,” I say with a heavy sigh as my head swivels loosely and my gaze turns up towards the sky. “It’s like it was fucking yesterday, and now, I’m here again, on this same fucking field everyone associates me with.”
Eric picks up the bottle, takes a sip, and does his own contemplative skyward gaze.
“It feels like a lifetime ago to me.”
“Yeah, it kind of does, except for when it doesn’t.”
“Is that the kind of brilliant verbal logic you’re known for up in those Manhattan courtrooms?”
“Yes,” I state dryly.
“Fuck it,” Eric says with another sip. “It wasn’t that long ago, was it? Remember that running back from Austin who
lived here for like a year?”
Traveling back to those years in my memory is awakening parts of my mind that feel like they’ve been dormant for years. And for whatever reason, those parts of my mind are screaming out for just a bit more whiskey.
I take hold of the bottle and allow myself a healthy sip before lying flat back on the grass, feeling supremely relaxed.
“Yeah, Robbie. He had a Mustang, but it was some shitty early 90s model.”
“Exactly. Even then, that car was dying. But we still all piled in one Friday night in the off-season to drive to Mexico like it was The Last Picture Show or some shit. Remember how we hauled ass and made it in, like, two and a half hours?”
My eyes are now closed as I focus on the sensation of the blades of grass under me.
“No.”
“No? Wait…you weren’t there?”
“No.”
That Friday is becoming clearer in my memory. While Eric, Robbie, and way too many other kids in our grade were planning to drive down to Mexico for no reason, I skipped out on that planning to head down to the sub shop and the bakery and to Foley’s department store to get ready for what I had planned.
“Where were you then?” Eric’s voice snaps me back to the present, just for a second.
“I was busy.”
Usually, I told Brooke exactly what the plan was for our dates, or she told me.
But that Friday, I was vague about what the evening had in store. When I brought her out to the empty football field, I didn’t know what she was going to think.
After all, it’s not too often that high school kids set up outdoor, nighttime picnics for their dates.
I don’t remember her immediate reaction when she saw the blanket laid out on the field and the picnic basket and the candles. What I do remember is lying on the field later as we held each other, the grass still a bit wet, just like it is now.
Instead of a cloudy sky above us, it was a perfectly clear night. We stared silently up at the stars for some timeless amount of time.
I could’ve stayed there forever, but now, in present-day Fredericksburg, in the football field of the still-extant Fredericksburg High, it’s time to push myself up off the ground and start living in the present.
“Fuck, I forget how easily the memories can come flooding back.”
I take one more sip of whiskey to cap off that little trip into the past. I hope—foolishly—that it will drown the images in my mind.
“It’s amazing that there are still kids making memories at this school, in this very field. Not that there will be anyone as legendary as I was,” I joke.
“No.”
Eric’s staring wistfully off into the distance, probably still caught up in his own daydream.
Screwing the cap back on the bottle, I expect him to stay lost in the past for another minute or so.
“It’s over.”
I wasn’t expecting to hear Eric’s voice for a while, and his sudden statement causes me to drop the bottle cap in the grass.
“What?”
“It’s over. All of it.” Eric’s still staring off into the invisible distance, which is very worrying.
“Are you okay, man?”
Eric turns to me with resigned, tired eyes. “I guess you haven’t heard yet. Pretty soon, there will be no more new memories here. Fredericksburg High is shuttering for good.”
“But…what? How? This is a big school.”
On one hand, I feel like this news should have no effect on me whatsoever. My life here was half a lifetime ago, and now, it’s thousands of miles away.
On the other hand, memories of that night here with Brooke are starting again, vividly, but this time, it feels like my stomach is sinking slowly towards the ground.
“Apparently, it’s not too big to merge with Llano.”
“We’re merging with fucking Llano?”
Yeah, it’s weird that I said we when referring to the school I left almost two decades ago, but the unexpected outrage I’m feeling is throwing me for a fucking loop.
Eric shrugs. “For you, I’d think that was just some hometown shit you wouldn’t care much about.”
I’d think so, too, but evidently, I thought wrong.
“It is my hometown, Mack. And it’s affecting you and other people I care about.”
“There’s nothing any of us can do about it, though.”
As I stand up, I feel an energetic determination destroy the mild whiskey buzz I was building.
“Has any explanation been given at all?”
Eric shakes his head and reaches out for the bottle. I understand now that he’s drinking for more than just our reunion.
“Not a fucking clue. But half the staff here and half the staff at Llano are being let go, and the rest are being merged.”
Something so big like this has to have some reasoning behind it. States don’t just merge schools from neighboring counties on a whim.
“That doesn’t sound right. And I’m telling you right now, Mack, I’m going to look in on this for you.”
“Dude, why bother? Not like anything can be done to reverse the decision.”
I snatch the whiskey bottle from Eric before he drinks it all and take a long drink from the bottle with a grin.
“I wouldn’t say that. I’m a hotshot lawyer, remember? Beating the odds is what I do best.”
Chapter 8
Brooke
I love charity football games.
Not only do all of the proceeds go to a really great cause—which, in this case, is for two new children hospitals in Dallas and Houston—but it gives us football well before pre-season. Even if it’s only for the one game.
The Touchdown is absolutely packed today.
Not only are Jessie and Eric running a two-for-one deal on wings, but all the money made from every order of wings is going towards the building of the two hospitals, too.
The three of us are in our usual booth—which has an amazing view of the game—and we have about four pounds of wings before us.
Eric and I are smiling from ear to ear, Jessie not so much.
We’re not even half way through the first quarter of the game, and Dallas is already up two touchdowns over Houston.
“I don’t know what you two are smiling about. My boys are only giving you a head start so that it’ll feel like a fair game,” Jess huffs.
Eric and I share a look before laughing.
“You two laugh now, but just wait and see. My Texans are going to beat you by at least two touchdowns.”
“You know what I love about you, Jess? Your optimism. It’s endearing. Misplaced, but endearing,” Eric teases as he brings Jessie’s hand up to his lips to kiss.
“Well, you better hope the Texans win. Because if they do, I’ll be in such a good mood that I’ll do that thing that you love so much.”
A haughty yet suggestive smirk crosses Jessie’s lips that leaves Eric grinning like an idiot.
I’d like to say that I don’t know what the thing is that Jessie does, but I do. And I know why it has Eric grinning in such a fashion.
Eric turns to look over at me, his eyes pleading.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Mack! You can’t turn your back on the team for the thing!”
“But, it’s…you know…the thing.”
“Would Garth Brooks succumb to the whims of a madwoman?”
“No, no, he wouldn’t.”
“Hey now! No cheating. You know that using Garth Brooks is cheating,” Jessie interjects with a laugh.
“All is fair in love and war,” I counter with a wink and laugh of my own.
The three of us go back to watching the game just in time to see the Cowboys throw a forty-yard pass that results in a touchdown.
Half of the bar cheers—including Eric and myself—and the other half boos—including Jessie. The number of fans for each time is split almost neatly down the middle.
“So, speaking of touchdowns,” Eric chimes in as he grabs his pint of beer. “I w
as talking with Dylan, and he’s going to look into the state closing down the school. See if he can create a case against it.”
“Holy shit. That’s awesome,” Jessie exclaims excitedly.
Part of me is just as excited as Jessie is at the news. Dylan is one of the best lawyers in New York City and has yet to lose a case. That kind of expertise is invaluable.
But on the other hand…it’s Dylan. And him helping us out likely means that he’ll be staying in town longer.
That part has me feeling conflicted.
I knew that seeing him again would be hard and would leave me feeling confused—and it has—but I’d be lying if I said I’m not happy to have seen him.
Especially with him looking as good as he does.
I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts about Dylan that I don’t even realize that Matty has shown up.
He’s dressed in his police uniform, his chief insignia pins shining like tiny golden suns on his collar.
His sandy blonde hair is shaved down, and he’s sporting a sexy five o’clock shadow—which I’m starting to think I have a thing for.
His blue eyes are always filled with vibrant intensity—which is equal parts sexy and intimidating—and this moment is no exception.
“So, the great Dylan Andrews is here to swoop in and save the day, huh? Is he not making the headlines enough up in New York?”
Matt’s tone is cold and condescending. It’s no secret that he’s still bitter from his high school football days.
Dylan was the football hero—a downright prodigy in the sport who could’ve gone on to play in the NFL if he had wanted—and that left Matthew stuck playing second string.
It wasn’t until after Dylan left for Harvard that Matt got to actually play. And in his very first game, the team lost. Four years of being undefeated out the window.
And it wasn’t even a close game. We lost by four touchdowns.
It was bad enough, playing second fiddle to Dylan for three years, as Matt was a year behind us, but then to lose so badly in your first chance to shine? That was the shit frosting on the cake.
None of that was ever Dylan’s fault, which I’ve tried to tell Matty time and time again, but that chip on his shoulder with regards to Dylan has just never gone away.