by Ellie Hall
It was karma, she was sure of it. If she hadn’t thought bad thoughts about Marty McFeatherbeak calling her “Most Behemoth Green Chloe” instead of “Most Benevolent Queen Chloe,” this wouldn’t have happened. She shouldn’t have given the bird so much flack for his slip-up.
She hadn’t made eye contact with Josh yet, and if she were still back in high school, she wouldn’t. Possibly ever again. She would just say into the microphone, “Now if you’ll all excuse me, I will be hiding under a rock for the next couple of . . . decades.” And then she’d move to a different state.
But she wasn’t in high school anymore. Jia was out in the crowd, smiling, and it made her think about how she’d encouraged her to own her fabulousness just an hour ago. That was Chloe’s entire goal this weekend, so she might as well start owning it right now.
She summoned some bravery and glanced over at Josh. One corner of his mouth was curved up in a smile. Not like he was amused at what was going on with their graduating class and the four corners, but like he was amused with her. Okay, that was something.
She took a deep breath and said into the microphone, “Well, if this corner’s ‘Would you rather’ is ‘see Josh’s abs,’ then I guess I better join, too.” She gave him a wink, and then stepped off the stage and joined the mass gathering there.
Jia made her way through the crowd to her and whispered, “Well, that’s another way to be memorable. I see you took our conversation to heart.”
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, wishing the action would make it all go away. Memorable had definitely not been what she’d been going for.
6
Josh
As soon as the get-to-know-you-again activity finished, several guys from Entrepreneur Club swarmed him and before he could get away, Chloe was gone. More classmates joined the circle of people chatting, and before long, he was headed with a dozen people toward the old auditorium; the space had been converted into a movie theater and was showing a movie from their graduating year.
He walked into the slightly darkened room and joined the group heading toward the popcorn, drinks, and candy. He couldn’t keep his attention on any of the people he was with though because he was too busy scanning the room for Chloe.
Nothing.
He bumped shoulders with Ian, a guy he’d done the school radio station with, and said, “Actually, I think I’m going to head over to karaoke.”
Music from the library spilled out into the hallways and he followed the sound to the room, saying hello to a few classmates along the way before stepping through the doorway into the library. A stage sat at one end with a giant screen both behind the karaoke singers and on the wall directly across from the stage so the audience could join in. He was scanning the room for Chloe, wondering if she might’ve gone with the group who went to see the Homecoming game at the new high school, when he heard his name through the microphone.
“Josh Trevorrow!” Mitchell said from the side of the stage where some of the guys from Josh’s basketball team stood, looking ready to sing. “We’ve got four guys up here and they need a fifth—come up on stage.”
Josh shook his head and waved him off. “I don’t sing.”
“Neither do we!” Antonne shouted, his words slightly slurred. He might’ve had a drink or two.
“No, really.” Josh turned to leave, but a couple of the guys hopped off the stage and pulled him toward it.
“Get up there, Josh,” someone in the audience called out.
Someone else said, “Call it payment for not showing us your abs in the little gym!”
That quick, he was up on stage, apparently pretending to be one of the members of One Direction—a band everyone seemed to go crazy for his senior year—singing What Makes You Beautiful.
Man, they were bad. Phenomenally bad. Josh had known he wasn’t great at singing, which was why he’d chosen to play the trumpet in band instead of joining choir for his music credit. Darius was singing falsetto, Neville was doing some kind of Barry White impersonation, Antonne was still slurring his words but not afraid to really belt them out, and Josh was suddenly reminded that Terrence was tone-deaf. They were all trying to remember the steps to a dance they’d made up during senior prom, but now they were failing spectacularly.
The crowd was singing along though, so it was fine. Totally fine.
Until he saw Chloe enter the room, her eyes meeting his. Then he couldn’t remember how to get air into his lungs, let alone how to sing and breathe at the same time. He choked on a couple of lines, totally mangling them, then somehow managed to pull himself together and sing straight to her, telling her how beautiful she was.
Before he got to the last line, she smiled, dipped her head, then ducked out of the room. The moment the song was over, Josh practically leaped off the stage and raced toward the door. He got to the hall panting and really needing water but needing to find Chloe even more. He caught sight of her heading down a hall and called out, “Chloe.”
She turned and smiled when she saw him, which made the tension in his racing heart ease the tiniest bit. She held out a water bottle toward him. “I just got this, but it looks like you need it more than I do.”
He grinned and accepted the water, guzzling half of it. “Who knew that embarrassing yourself in front of a crowd could make you so dehydrated?”
One of her eyebrows rose and her lips curved slightly up. “I knew.”
“Touché.”
His eyes met Chloe’s and all the awkwardness from the get-to-know-you-again games and his singing karaoke filled the space around them. He needed to think of a way to diffuse it, and quickly.
Chloe opened her mouth slightly, like she was about to say something, taking his attention right to her lips. Had they always looked so kissable? He waited intently for what she was about to say. When she bit her lip and turned to glance at the hallway behind them, he knew that if he didn’t do anything, she would be gone in a flash. “Do you—”
But before he could finish his sentence, she said, “I should go.”
And, like an idiot, he just nodded. Because even though he really, really wanted to say something to get her to stay, he suddenly thought about how far away he lived and that he was rarely in Salt Creek.
Gabrielle hurried out of a room just then, looking frazzled, and said, “Please tell me that both of you are free right this second!”
Josh and Chloe both nodded.
“Oh, good. Follow me.” She headed down the hallway away from the movie and the karaoke and the bulk of the action. “The staff is here setting up all the tables and decorations in the big gym for the dinner and dance tomorrow night, and they don’t have the centerpieces. I can’t search for them right now, so I need your help.”
He had imagined walking next to Chloe down the hall so many times in high school. Well, maybe not exactly like this, but toward their old English classroom or something. Being able to walk with her now—without people judging him for not being with Tara—felt like freedom, sunshine, and fireworks. It was practically the fourth of July, right here, right now.
Gabrielle stopped in front of a door that he’d walked past hundreds of times in high school but hadn’t known what was behind it until Gabrielle unlocked the door and opened it. “Okay, so here’s where we keep the memorabilia and decorations from school.”
The motion-sensing lights in the room came on as they walked in. It was pretty good-sized, as far as storage spaces went, and was filled with boxes, plastic totes, metal shelves, and odd-sized objects.
“The centerpieces are coyote figurines wearing a cape in our school’s blue and silver. Some of the boxes are marked with a graduating year, so ignore all the ones that aren’t for our year. But not all of them are marked, and I have no idea which box they’re in. Oh my gosh, thank you both so much for helping! I’ve got to run, but let me know when you find them.”
As quickly as Gabrielle had rushed in, she was gone, and Josh and Chloe were alone in the room. And . . . things were still
awkward.
The aisle made a big square around the room, everything on the sides and in the middle piled at varying heights. As they walked down the first aisle, taking it all in and wondering where to start, Chloe burst out with, “Are you single?”
A smile spread across his face. “Wanting to know what the chances are that you’ll be able to see my abs?”
She tried to hide a smile, but there was amusement on her face. “Just wondering if there’s a girlfriend who’s going to be jealous that you looked at me with those smoldering eyes while you sang to me.”
Had he smoldered? Maybe he had. He had definitely thought about how incredible she looked and how much a part of him had been hoping that she would be at the reunion because he’d been dying to know her again—to find out how similar she was to the girl she’d been in high school and how much he’d agree with his grandma’s opinions of her.
He tried to hide his smile, too. “I’m single. Please tell me you are, too, and that I didn’t make a jerk of myself by ‘smoldering’ at you.”
“I am,” she said, and then her eyes ran over him. It had been a quick glance, but it was clear she was checking him out.
He lifted the lid of a tote that wasn’t labeled and rifled around the random memorabilia inside. “So, you’re a home health nurse?”
She raised an eyebrow, like she hadn’t expected him to know.
“My grandma likes to talk.” She had mostly stayed quiet when he and Tara were dating. But after they broke up, his grandma constantly told stories about Chloe and how great she was—as long as his parents weren’t around.
His grandma and knew how much it mattered to him that people took care of each other, so she always told him how well Chloe took care of her. She hadn’t ever tried to set them up, exactly, but she had been laying the groundwork as surely as she loved collecting craft supplies.
Chloe nodded. “She does. Which is how I know that you have your own business telling Big Wigs how to run theirs.” She moved a box off another and pulled off the packing tape. “And that you don’t visit home often.”
He chuckled. Of course, the talking had gone both directions. And he didn’t miss that her last comment had a question behind it. He’d thought about pretending he hadn’t noticed, but maybe it’d be better if he just said it outright. “My parents weren’t happy that Tara and I ended things, so I mostly stay away to avoid the lectures. And since Tara’s parents are in the same neighborhood and they also think we ruined everything by not staying together, I figure it’s best to keep out of the blast radius.”
Surprise crossed Chloe’s face, and he wondered if it was surprise that his parents—and Tara’s—had been so upset about their breakup or surprise that he and Tara had been together for so long after high school. Now that he looked back on how wrong for each other they were, it surprised him, too.
Not that Tara was a bad person—they just weren’t right for each other. The only two things they had in common were a love of sushi and parents who thought the two of them getting married was the best thing for both of their families.
Josh closed the box he’d opened and grabbed another one.
“Did your grandma also tell you that Marty hates me?”
Josh laughed, thinking of the many phone conversations he’d had with his grandma about something Marty did to Chloe. “She said that Marty loves you.”
Chloe scoffed.
“Like a seagull loves dropping poop on a tourist’s head.”
This time Chloe laughed. “That sounds more like it.”
“Actually, she said that Marty is jealous because whenever you’re around, she gives you attention instead of him.” He paused for a moment, mid-lifting papers from a box to see what was underneath, and met her eyes. “Thank you for that, by the way. I may talk to my grandma a lot, but I haven’t seen her much. It has really helped to know that you’ve been there, taking care of her.”
Chloe blushed but kept her eyes on the box she was going through. “She’s pretty great. Well, all the people I take care of are in their own way, but Beverly is my favorite.”
“Did she tell you I had a crush on you in high school?” He couldn’t believe the words had come out of his mouth, but it was too late to bring them back now.
Chloe’s eyes flew to his. “You so did not—you didn’t even know my name. I was invisible to you.”
He shook his head as he grabbed a big plastic tote and took the lid off. “Oh, you were anything but invisible. Do you remember senior prom?”
She nodded.
“You were there, wearing a silver dress that looked incredible on you, your hair pulled up and curly, and Carlos Gutierrez was your date. I’ve never been so jealous of a guy before.”
“Then why did you never talk to me?”
That was a good question. A complicated one. “Because I was always with Tara, and everyone seemed to think that was my destiny. They named us Prom King and Queen at that dance. I don’t know if you remember how fiercely everyone thought we should be together or how they altered the sashes. They said Prom King and Queen for All Eternity.”
“I remember.”
“I know it sounds ridiculous now, and that I should’ve—both Tara and I should’ve—been able to just walk away and be with whoever we wanted. But it never felt like we had a choice in the matter. As crazy as it sounds, we didn’t feel like we did for a long time after, either. The high school pressures might have left after graduation, but the parental pressures didn’t.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and he wished he knew what she was thinking. Finally, she asked, “Why did they want you together?”
He shrugged. The reasons always sounded stupid when he said them out loud because the words never adequately conveyed the pressure both he and Tara had felt. “Our families are best friends. Our moms decided when we were practically babies that one day we would get married. Right before sophomore year, my parents and Tara’s parents merged their businesses and decided that their plan of us getting married would keep the business in the family. Once, when Tara and I had broken up just after college, our moms even started planning a wedding as a way to get us back together.”
“For real?”
He nodded. “We did actually get engaged at some point. I’m not even sure why—I guess we just felt like it was inevitable. Our parents wasted no time buying a beach house together so we could all ‘vacation with the grandkids.’ They weren’t too happy when Tara and I told them that we were breaking up for good a little over a year ago.
“But back in high school, if I’d felt like I had a choice in who I dated, it would’ve been you. I worried that if I talked to you or hung out with you or even looked at you, everyone would be able to see how gone I was for you, plain as day. I kept it a secret from everyone but my grandma.”
Chloe let out a small gasp, and he tried to read her expression. He didn’t even know why he was telling her all this. Was this his equivalent of the awkward apology? Because this way didn’t feel less awkward.
“I knew that you were miles out of my league, so I came up with plans about how I could try to get you to be interested in me.”
She had stopped going through her box at some point and had all her attention on him. “I was interested.”
His brows shot up. “You were?” He’d been involved in a lot of stuff in high school, so most people knew who he was. He thought she probably had, too, but her being interested in him was definitely new news.
Chloe nodded. “I even had a 10 Reasons Why I Have a Crush on Josh Trevorrow list. Well, there were technically a lot more than ten because I kept adding to it, but I put them as sub-items below the main ten.”
Josh was crouched down by a box but rocked back on his heels at the revelation. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, but don’t worry—I also had a 10 Reasons Why I Should Get over Josh Already list.”
“What was on it?”
“Things like ‘Lots of people sit by the kid who is alone at lunch. Ju
st because Josh does doesn’t make him special.’ And ‘He keeps being distracted in English and not being able to answer the questions. He must not love the subject like I do.’ And things like ‘Just because he looks beautiful in everything he wears doesn’t mean he’s beautiful on the inside.’ But that one didn’t ever work so well because I knew there was an ‘Except he totally is’ that belonged right after it, even though I pretended I didn’t know. Oh, and I’m pretty sure there was something on there about your abs.”
She had liked him? All that time he and Tara had wasted, and he could’ve been dating Chloe instead of just daydreaming about her? It felt like a punch to the gut. Clearly, he had done high school completely wrong.
The lights in the room suddenly went out, plunging the windowless room into darkness. Chloe let out a little yelp of surprise.
“It’s just the motion sensors. We’ve been in the same place for too long.” He stood and started waving his arms and could sense that Chloe was doing the same.
But the lights didn’t come back on.
“My phone has a flashlight, but I took it out of my pocket when I crouched down.” He heard her take a shuffling step. “Ouch!”
“Mine, too.” He banged his leg into a box, echoing her exclamation as he felt around for his phone.
As they stumbled around the crowded area in complete darkness, he suddenly had a hand on his stomach. Chloe pulled it back quickly, and he smiled. “I thought you wanted to see my abs, not feel them.”
She gave a breathy chuckle but didn’t take a step back like he thought she would. She stayed right in front of him, close enough that he could smell her citrusy shampoo. He didn’t move, afraid that if he did, either Chloe would back up or the motion sensor lights would come on and the magic of the moment would be lost.
Chloe’s hand carefully bumped his, a question in the gesture. He answered by entwining his fingers in hers ever so gently. The touch, small as it was, sent electricity buzzing through him. Every nerve ending was on high alert, reacting to everything.