Love, Laughter & Happily Ever After: A sweet romantic comedy collection

by Ellie Hall

  She had been watching the construction as she’d driven past it over the past year. Their high school wasn’t huge—there had only been about three hundred people in her graduating class. Even so, the scope of the undertaking of turning the school into something else was unfathomable. She had a hard time picturing what it would look like inside. They still had trucks from sub-contractors showing up regularly, so she was pretty sure it wasn’t even finished yet.

  “It’s going to be weird having the reunion inside my actual school but have it not be a school anymore. But no, I’m not staying over. I literally live three blocks away. It’d be fun, but I’m just going to stay late, drive home, then drive back early.”

  She had to keep talking herself into believing that was the best idea because if she didn’t, the desire to not miss out on any of the fun tried to take over. But honestly, it also made her more nervous and she was plenty nervous enough already.

  “And what about Jia?”

  “She’s not staying over, either.” Chloe took the towel off and shook out her hair. “Neither of us can justify the expense.”

  Beverly paused for a moment. “But I can justify it. I’m paying for a room for both of you.”

  Chloe stopped running her fingers through her tangled locks long enough to meet Beverly’s eyes. “No, you don’t have to. It’s not a big deal to sleep at our apartment.”

  “I know it’s not. But I also know that it’ll be delightful to stay over. Like a sleepover! You’ll have more fun.”

  “True,” Chloe said, “but I still can’t have you pay for it.”

  Beverly put her hands on Chloe’s shoulders and Chloe could feel the old woman’s eyes boring into hers. “You’re the daughter I never had. You bring me joy. And what would bring me even more joy is knowing that you and Jia are kicking it up at the reunion, staying over in whatever strange kind of environment it is to have your old high school made into an event center.”

  She paused for a moment, then smiled, as if she knew just what to say to convince Chloe. “It would be unkind of you to deny me the happiness you would bring me by being there, knowing I’ll soon get to hear all the stories you’ll have to tell.”

  Chloe came up with several responses to turn down her offer, but the more she looked into Beverly’s eyes, the more she could tell that her words were genuine, and it really would hurt her feelings if she turned down her offer. She finally nodded. “Okay. We’ll stay over at the school.”

  Beverly’s smile spread wide and she clapped. “Yay! I’m so glad.”

  As if on cue, Marty squawked, “Everything’s fine. You won’t fail.”

  Enough with the sarcasm already, Marty.

  2

  Josh

  Josh sat down in one of the two chairs facing Sandra’s desk. His assistant’s office was nice. Instead of all the dark colors, like in his office, hers was mostly white, open, and uncluttered, with a few splashes of color. There was something about having their planning sessions for the coming week in this room that made everything seem . . . doable.

  Since Josh’s business partner, Nick, couldn’t sit on a chair like a normal person, he sat, like usual, on the couch with one leg over the arm

  Josh looked down at his watch then glanced toward the hallway. 3:02, and Sharon was never late. Hopefully, everything was okay.

  Sharon was the assistant to both Josh and Nick, mostly because Nick had refused to hire one for himself and Josh felt that no one needed someone to keep him on track more than Nick did. So they’d compromised by asking Sharon to assist them both and paid her ridiculously well to put up with double the responsibility. She’d had two sets of twin boys and all four were teenagers now, so she was basically qualified to be the US Secretary of Defense during a nuclear crisis. She’d insisted she could handle the two of them just fine. And she did.

  Josh went through the list of items that needed to be on next week’s schedule while Nick looked unconcerned that the meeting hadn’t started. “Your reunion’s today, right?”

  Josh glanced up from his tablet. “Yep, and I’m still not going.”

  “I just don’t understand why. Mine was a blast.”

  Josh exhaled and glanced down the hallway again. “That’s because yours didn’t come with all the pressure. At mine, everyone expects me to show up with my high school sweetheart and a few kids. I don’t want to be the guy who doesn’t even bring a date. I’m not looking to feel like a failure in front of everyone.”

  Nick motioned to everything around them like he was trying to encompass the whole building. “Dude. You were voted most likely to succeed in high school, right? I think this qualifies.”

  “Yeah, but how does all this matter when I haven’t been successful at starting my own family?” He just needed to stay buried in work where he could forget that his life outside the office was basically nonexistent.

  “You just need to worry less. Things will work out.” That was pretty much Nick’s life motto. “Let yourself dream about possibilities.”

  “I did allow myself to dream about the possibilities of this reunion.” Those dreams had included running into Chloe Carson and riding off into the sunset with her. “I dreamed long enough to get to the part on the sign-up form where I had to type a bio, and that’s when I knew the dream was actually a nightmare.” He glanced at his watch again. It was already 3:05. Where was Sharon?

  “Okay, listen up,” Nick said, spreading his hands like he was setting a scene. “Here’s what your bio needs to say. ‘Joshua Trevorrow started his first business with his devastatingly incredible roommate while they were both still in college. They had a great idea but executed it poorly and lost everything. Because Josh loves research so much and his roommate loves an adventure, they set out to figure out how, exactly, things had gone wrong and what, exactly, they needed to do to be successful. The two of them started a new business just out of college and this time, they did everything exactly right. They sold it two years later for a hefty sum’—you don’t need to say the exact amount. People like success stories with humble underdogs—‘and started a new business coaching other businesses on how to be successful. Now, he travels all around the country giving keynotes speeches, teaching business courses, and consulting with business leaders on how they can improve their own companies.’ Bam. Done. It’s plenty long enough and interesting enough without even mentioning family.”

  Sharon walked in just then, went around to her side of the desk, and sat in her chair. Josh’s eyebrows drew together at her unexplained lateness, but he responded to Nick first.

  “It’s a decent bio, I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t matter because the deadline to sign up was two days ago.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t matter if your devastatingly incredible business partner hadn’t already submitted that bio along with your registration before the deadline.”

  Josh sat up straight. “You what?!”

  The smile on Nick’s face showed that he was enjoying this way too much. “You know that credit card of yours that Sharon keeps for whenever she needs to order your lunch or whatever? We used it to pay for the reunion and book you a room.”

  Josh spun to meet Sharon’s eyes. “You were in on this? That’s . . .” He didn’t even know what. “That’s such a breach of trust!”

  She held up a finger, her eyes sparkling the way they always did when she knew she was right and Josh was wrong. “Remember two months ago when Nick met that brunette at the farmers’ market and he really wanted to take the same salsa dance class she had hinted that she was going to start taking, but he kept talking himself out of it? You enlisted my help to use his credit card to sign him up for it, and I worried it was a breach of trust, but you said it was okay because we had his best interests at heart. You opened that door. So when Nick, here, said, ‘Hey, want to go through that door with me,’ I said, ‘You bet I do!’”

  Oh. Okay, fair enough. Just remembering how the salsa lessons had all played out made Josh smile. “You have to admit tha
t was a good choice. This, on the other hand—”

  “Oh, and Nick snuck me your keys.” Sharon set the keys down on the desk in front of him with a thunk. “I went to your building and packed your suitcase—it’s in your trunk. I even gassed up your car.”

  “You . . . signed me up without talking to me about it. And then you packed for me? And put gas in my car?” So many thoughts swirled in his head—including some words he wanted to say to Nick but wouldn’t say in front of Sharon—yet he still managed to wonder what state his apartment was in when he’d left that morning. “Sharon, we may pay you well, but we don’t pay you that well.”

  Nick looked at his watch. “It’s a three-hour drive, right? Check-in is from five to six-thirty, and activities start at seven. It’s three-twelve—you might want to get going.”

  Josh only cursed Nick’s name for the first thirty minutes of the drive. And, okay, he spent plenty of time cursing himself for signing Nick up for that salsa class. Although Nick had been dating Kelcee ever since, so Josh didn’t really wish he hadn’t done it.

  Then he started thinking about Chloe.

  He hadn’t heard anything about her after high school until she became his grandma’s home health nurse a few years ago. Hearing his grandma talk so positively about her had made him remember how much he’d liked her in high school.

  When he pulled into Salt Creek City, Nebraska and made his way to his old high school, he started wondering again how he’d let Nick and Sharon talk him into going. He parked in the lot that used to be faculty parking, grabbed the suitcase out of his trunk, and thought about how much easier it had been to walk into this school back when he’d been in high school and on top of his game. When it had seemed like all his choices had been the right ones.

  He walked up the sidewalk to the front doors but stopped ten feet in front of them. Sure, he was happy to see his old classmates, but did he want them to see him? It had only been thoughts of Chloe that had brought him this far and knowing how much his grandma wanted them to meet again.

  But what if Chloe was dating someone that his grandma didn’t know about? What if she was bringing a date to the reunion? Or, even worse, what if she came alone and he couldn’t manage to get as much as a “Hello” from her?

  He looked at the doors. Nope. This wasn’t going to happen.

  How had he managed to drive three hours without coming to that conclusion? He should’ve taken that full tank of gas and packed suitcase and headed south to Kansas City. Then he’d be eating BBQ instead of standing outside his old high school, questioning both the last ten years of his life and his future.

  He’d been pretty well-known for basketball in high school, and he’d even played in college. Some people attending possibly would’ve expected him to have gone pro, but that had never been on his radar even once. Most people probably thought that he’d do something in business and do it well. He was happy with the choices he’d made along those lines and was proud of what he’d accomplished.

  It was the other expectations everyone had for him that filled him with dread. As a collective, his schoolmates had been convinced that he and Tara would be married by the time they graduated college. And by now, they surely expected them to have a few kids, Josh spending his weekends coaching their junior basketball teams.

  He was nowhere near where he expected himself to be by this point in his life, and he was embarrassed. Was it so hard for a guy who planned everything and worked hard at everything to find someone, get married, and start a family?

  He should just leave. Fast. Before anyone saw him.

  He and his rolling suitcase spun around, and he took a step back the way he had come. He didn’t see that someone was coming up behind him before he crashed into her and his luggage crashed into her luggage. She let out an “oof” just as he wrapped his free hand around her waist to keep her from falling to the ground from his hit.

  “I am so sorry,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  She looked down at herself as if checking for injuries, then she looked up and met his eyes. Oh, wow, those were some incredible eyes. They were hazel with gold flecks and a brown rim around the outside and they were so . . . vibrant. He took a step back to take in more of Chloe Carson. Her hair was pulled into some kind of bun thing, and she was wearing scrubs, which didn’t surprise him at all. He hadn’t seen her in years, but she was even more beautiful now than she’d been in high school.

  He found himself questioning every choice he’d ever made because none of those choices had ever brought him close enough to see the brown rims of Chloe’s eyes. At the end of his senior year, he’d thought about how much he regretted never having asked her out, but he’d pushed those feelings aside. He’d been expected to take other paths.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “You weren’t thinking of leaving, were you?”

  “Of course not.” Not now that he’d seen her and the smile she was giving him. Not after knowing that just being near her made his heart race and his whole body feel alive with something that felt a lot like happiness.

  Her smile that crinkled her eyes told him she wasn’t buying it. “Good. Because I don’t want to be the only nervous one here.”

  When he pulled the front door open and Chloe walked through it, he knew nothing could get him to leave now.

  3

  Chloe

  As she walked from the lobby to her room, Chloe thought of nothing but the way it felt to stand next to Josh during check-in. And how great his voice had sounded as they’d chatted about random things. And how incredible he’d smelled. And how much his jawline had become defined since high school. And his shoulders and arms and all of him, really.

  She used the keycard they gave her to open her room door, and Jia squealed as she jumped up from one of the beds and ran to greet her. “Chloe! Check out this room!” Her friend’s exuberance fit her as much as her pixie cut did. Her dark hair was long on top and had enough product in it to stick nearly straight up, the tips of it dyed a deep purple that went beautifully with the yellow undertones of her skin color. It was a hairstyle that few people could pull off, but Jia totally did.

  “Wow. I thought it would look like a classroom still!”

  “Right? This was where we had US History junior year, remember?”

  Honestly, Chloe had still expected to see linoleum or industrial carpeted floors, whiteboards at the front of the room, and even papers stuck to the walls that teachers had left behind. But they had completely renovated the place.

  Two queen beds sat against one wall and the floor was covered with nice wall-to-wall carpet, but it wasn’t a generic hotel room—it still had touches of high school to it. The desk looked like a teacher could be sitting behind it, the green paint on the wainscot was reminiscent of a chalkboard, and the abstract art on the wall kind of looked like something she expected to see while looking into a microscope.

  And they’d even added a bathroom! She’d been worried they might all have to share the toilets in the women’s bathroom in the hall and use the showers in the gym.

  Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t even been sure how the hallways had been renovated—her mind had been too fully occupied by thoughts of Josh. A few of their classmates had been in the hall when they’d been walking toward their rooms, and of course, they had swarmed Josh, but she had looked back when she got to her room long enough to notice that he had a room on the same hallway as her. Just three doors away and across the hall, in one of the old math classrooms.

  “Did you see Gabrielle?” Chloe asked. Since Gabrielle and her husband, Mitchell—a guy from their school who was two grades older—owned this place, and since Gabrielle had been their senior class president and was the chair of the reunion committee, Chloe had expected to see her at the check-in counter. Getting everything ready must’ve been stressful—Gabrielle and Mitchell had snipped at each other over where on the desk the name tags with everyone’s pictures should be placed.

  Jia’s eyes widened. “I swear she
looks the same as she did in high school. Same age, same voice, everything.”

  “That’s what Josh said, too.”

  Jia grabbed Chloe’s shoulders and led them to the bench at the foot of one of the beds. “You saw him?”

  Chloe was not falling for Josh, so she needed her body to get the memo and stop happy-sighing every time she thought of him. “We checked in at the same time. While we were waiting behind the two people in front of us, he leaned over and whispered that Gabrielle looked the same, and Jia—he was close enough that his breath tickled my ear.”

  “Oh my. What did you do?”

  “I leaned in close to his ear and whispered, ‘I think that means she must be a vampire.’ And then he chuckled and I swear to you the sound rivaled the blessed whir of a fan on a hot night.”

  “How did he look? I need all the details.”

  “Well,” Chloe said, thinking about how to describe him, “he still has those amazing eyes that were at the top of my Ten Reasons I Have a Crush on Josh Trevorrow list. And he still has that same dark hair that I wanted to run my fingers through. You know—before my 10 Reasons Why I Should Get over Josh Already list. And everything else about him is just . . . better, I guess. And there I was, wearing these frumpy scrubs and end-of-a-long-day bun hair because I didn’t have time to go home first.”

  “Whatever. You still look great. It sounds like there was some impressive chemistry between you two then, huh?”

  Chloe shook her head, then stood up and grabbed her suitcase from where she’d abandoned it by her door. She hefted it onto the bed that Jia hadn’t claimed. “He probably doesn’t even remember my name, much less that I went to the same high school as him.” He’d said, “It was good to see you, Chloe,” but he hadn’t said her name until after Gabrielle had said it.