by Ellie Hall
“There’s assigned seating?” Chloe asked, a note of panic in her voice. It hadn’t occurred to Josh that they might not be seated together until he heard her reaction.
“Yeah. We wanted to pair people up a bit.”
Gabrielle had been headed in their direction and was close enough that she heard her husband. She put a hand on his shoulder, a smile trying to cover up her grimace, and said, “No, honey—it’s because we want everyone to feel included.”
Mitchell bristled at the correction, but quickly covered his reaction with a smile. “My wife is always right, so, yes—what she said. And you two are at table four.”
Jia and her “hot date” were also assigned to their table and joined them a few minutes later, both attempting to hide smiles. When the guy glanced at Josh, Josh made a motion of rubbing his thumb on the corner of his mouth, and the guy mimicked the motion, rubbing the bit of lipstick Jia had left on his lip.
As they ate and talked and laughed and answered the question prompts placed on their table with Jia and her date and the two married couples that also shared their table, Josh marveled at how much he loved being around Chloe. Hearing her laugh. Listening to the stories she told about their shared high school experiences and the parts they hadn’t shared. He wished he would’ve been a part of all of it, and it made him want to do whatever it took to be a part of her life going forward.
His instinct was always to set a goal and work hard for it, and that was exactly what he wanted to do when it came to Chloe. After all, hard work was how he’d gotten good at basketball, the clubs he had joined in high school and college, and his career. Working hard had gotten him everything—except love. Except a family of his own. Maybe hard work wasn’t enough. He hoped that he had whatever it took to make things work with Chloe.
As everyone finished the meal, Gabrielle walked to where a microphone rested on a stand in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, and a deejay took his place at his equipment just behind the bridge. She welcomed everyone and then said, “We’re going to dance to many of the same songs from our prom, and we’re kicking it off the same way we did back then—with our theme song, “Firework” by Katy Perry. Have fun, everyone!”
Chloe grinned at him, so he said, “Would you like to dance?”
She nodded, and he led her onto the dance floor. He’d somehow figured out how to dance to fast songs back in high school, but it had been a lot of years since then. Chloe was dancing like she didn’t care who was watching or what they thought, so he did the same. Surprisingly, neither of them broke an ankle, so he considered it a win.
Thankfully, the song finally ended and the pace slowed a bit with “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars. He could handle that speed much better, especially because it meant being closer to Chloe.
He spun her out and back in, and then he just looked at her beautiful face. “I swear you are practically glowing in these lights.”
He’d meant it as a compliment, but she immediately gasped and pulled both of her arms in front of her, looking at them closely. “No! It totally shines in these lights! I really am going to be glowing for a year. Or more. We need to find Tammy Somerhalder. I need to know how long it took before she no longer had glitter embedded in her skin.”
She took a step away from him, but he put a hand on her arm. “I like it.”
“Really?”
He nodded and she sank into him closer. He placed a hand on the small of her back just as the music changed to a slower song by Adele—he wasn’t sure which one, and he didn’t care. All that mattered was that Chloe was in his arms and everything felt perfect. She kept gazing into his eyes and it was like the room suddenly wasn’t filled with all the people he’d spent every school day with a decade ago—it was only the two of them. Dancing close, responding to the music as one, reveling in the closeness.
Eventually, the song ended and a fast song came on. Chloe said, “I could use some cool air.”
They stepped out onto the grassy area behind the gym, and Chloe put her hand in his, leading them just under a tree whose branches spread out above them. She leaned her back against the tree. “Remember how Carlos Gutierrez wore that medical walking boot for the last few weeks of school because he had surgery on his ankle?”
Josh nodded. Not that he wanted to talk about her previous prom date.
“That happened at prom.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He said he injured it riding his dirt bike, but really, it happened when we were leaving. He was . . . showing off, I guess, and jumped from the third cement stair out front down to the sidewalk, landed wrong, and broke it.”
“Ouch.”
Chloe nodded. “I saw him in there just now, dancing with his wife. I think he’s enjoying this prom much more than the last one.” She pushed away from the tree and stood right in front of him, just a breath away. Then she whispered, “I am, too.”
Josh had wanted to kiss Chloe since that moment in the storage room. If he was being honest, he’d wanted to kiss her since the beginning of junior year. He’d held back, though.
Chloe stepped even closer and placed her hand on his chest, her soft eyes searching his, and he knew that now was the right time.
9
Chloe
Maybe it was the formalwear talking—because Josh looked devilishly handsome in his suit—but all Chloe wanted to do was kiss this beautiful man. She just needed to convince him.
But how? Flirting had never been her strong suit. It was probably why she was twenty-eight and not in a serious relationship.
Besides, it was hard to flirt when she couldn’t form words. And as she looked into his delicious brown eyes, she definitely couldn’t speak. But then his eyes flicked to her lips and she realized that words weren’t needed. She hesitated for just a moment, then rose up on her toes and pressed her lips against his. Just barely, though. Enough to test the waters, to see if he felt the same way she did.
He responded immediately, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close, and nothing had ever felt more right. He kissed her with such care and concern that it felt like the sun coming out after two weeks of nothing but rain. She had imagined this as a teen. But they were no longer teens, and kissing Josh as a twenty-eight-year-old adult was so far beyond what she’d been able to imagine at seventeen.
Probably because Josh himself had become so much more than he’d been as a teen. He was an incredible human. She’d known it for years from hearing Beverly talk about him, and after spending countless hours with him at this reunion, she knew it for herself.
She hadn’t thought it would happen, but her knees actually buckled. Josh tightened his hold on her, and she kept kissing him. Because oh, did his arms feel amazing wrapped around her. As good as his lips against hers. As his skin beneath her fingers at the back of his neck.
“Holy wow,” she said, barely breaking the kiss. “Marty was right—there is definitely no failing going on tonight.”
Josh smiled against her lips and kissed her once more. “My grandma claims he is one smart bird.”
Chloe kissed him again. “Mmm. I could do this for hours. But I also hear a slow song and want to spend all night dancing in your arms.”
He held her gaze long enough to threaten the stability of her knees again, but she’d been prepared for it this time and didn’t even falter.
He wrapped his hand in hers, and they headed back into the gym just as everyone was backing away from the middle of the dance floor. It took her a second to figure out what was going on. Then she saw it—two figures in the center of the gym. Isaac from her sophomore history class was down on one knee, an open ring box in his palm. Kristen stood in front of him, her hands covering her mouth, frozen. He was obviously proposing, but they couldn’t hear him from where they stood.
The crowd collectively held their breath, waiting for Kristen’s answer. Tears glistened on her cheeks like big flat pieces of glitter. And then she turned and ran out of the room.
Everyone stared at her retreating figure in shock, including Isaac, who was still on one knee. Then he got up and ran after her.
Jia stepped up to Chloe and whispered, “I can’t believe you almost missed that!”
“Well,” Gabrielle said through the microphone, her voice a bit shaky, “that’s not something you see every day. Um, Javier, do you want to start up the music again and we’ll give Isaac and Kristen some space? Everyone, let’s dance!”
The music started, and people made their way back onto the dance floor. Chloe and Josh had only taken a few steps when Chloe spotted Josh’s old girlfriend across the gym, standing tall and as in charge as ever. She spotted them, and people moved out of her way as she strode toward them across the crowded gym.
“Tara,” Josh said as she stopped in front of him. “I thought you weren’t coming to this.”
“Yeah, well, I thought that, too.” Tara glanced at Chloe, and then she looked back at Josh. “We need to talk. It’s important.”
Chloe nearly took a step back to make herself invisible like she always had when around someone like Tara. But Jia was right—Chloe wasn’t the same girl she’d been in high school. She wasn’t someone who shrank back and became invisible anymore.
She stepped forward, expecting that after the last couple of days with Josh, he would claim her as his date for the evening, showing the woman whom he’d dated for so long that Chloe was important to him.
Instead, Josh glanced around and said, “Now?”
Tara nodded solemnly. “Right now.”
Josh took in a long breath and let it out in a quick exhale. Then he turned his face toward Chloe, but not enough to make eye contact. He attempted to give an apologetic smile, but it hadn’t stayed there long enough to accomplish that. And then he walked across the gym and out of the dance with Tara.
Chloe stared after them. It was high school all over again. Whenever Tara was in the room—or even in the same school—Chloe was invisible to the one person she most wanted to see her.
She didn’t even realize tears had escaped her eyes until Jia wrapped her in a tight hug and the moisture smooshed into Jia’s hair.
“Come on,” Jia said. “Let’s get you to our room.”
10
Josh
Tara didn’t slow her pace until they were outside and she’d led them to where her boyfriend, Griffin, waited against the brick wall just beside the front doors. There was a time when Josh had hated Griffin because whenever Josh and Tara broke up, she always started dating Griffin again within a day or two. But now he was glad she had someone who was always there for her.
Tara stopped next to Griffin and looked at Josh, biting her lip.
“Just tell me, Tara.”
“I told my parents that Griffin and I are getting married.”
Josh’s eyebrows rose. Tara could stand up to anyone… except her parents. Announcing something that was so against their wishes must’ve been hard. “How’d they take the news?”
“Like you’d expect. Yelling and crying from my mom, threats to cut off my inheritance from my dad. He might be bluffing, but I don’t care. I told him to go ahead—I didn’t want it.”
Wow. That was huge for Tara. In his relationship with her, the status he could give her through his job was about the only thing that had mattered. If she was willing to give up everything to be with Griffin, it just showed, once again, how much better off Josh and Tara were when they weren’t together.
She gazed at her boyfriend. “I just want to get married to Griffin and start my life.”
That’s exactly how he’d felt every time they’d broken up—that he could finally start his life. He’d felt it the most when they’d broken up for good over a year ago. Not that he’d done an effective job of getting on with his life before this weekend.
“That’s great, Tara. I’m proud of you. Congratulations to you both.” He knew there was more to it than that, though, or she wouldn’t have dragged him out of the reunion she hadn’t planned on attending.
“My parents got your parents involved.”
And there it was.
Josh sighed. “How bad is it?”
“All four of them have gone full-on intervention. And they’re here.”
“Here?”
She nodded. “Faculty parking lot. They’re waiting for us.”
Josh pinched the bridge of his nose. For a split second in the gym, he had thought about asking Chloe to come with him to see what Tara wanted, but he was glad his instincts had stopped him. If she saw how intense his parents were, she would likely run the other way faster than an antelope running from a mountain lion.
“They think I will ‘come to my senses,’ and they’re counting on you to ‘patch things up between us,’ so I’ll see that you and I are perfect for each other.” She put her hand on his arm and searched his eyes. “When we decided to end things for good, we knew we could do it if we faced them together. Are you still on board?”
He nodded once. He was more on board than he’d ever been. There was a beautiful, caring, amazing woman inside the school he was pretty sure was the one who could finally give him the life he wanted. He was more than ready to get everything with his and Tara’s parents behind them.
“We can do this.”
He nodded. “We can.”
Since he hadn’t been home much lately, he hadn’t seen his parents and Tara’s parents in the same location for more than a year. Heading off to the faculty parking lot felt like heading into battle, and he really wished he had some armor to put on.
11
Chloe
“I am not going to be sad about this,” Chloe said through the bathroom door as she took off her dress and pulled on her comfiest yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt.
She came out of the bathroom and dropped the dress on her bed, then took the bobby pins out of her hair, letting the rest of it fall to her shoulders. “I mean, I already got over him a decade ago. This only happened because we’re back in this place where I’d first fallen for him. That’s all.”
“Yeah . . .” Jia said, dragging out the word. “That’s all it is. You aren’t protecting your heart or anything right now.”
“Well,” Chloe said as she plopped down on her bed, facing Jia, who had flopped down on her own bed, “there’s a reason why we have instincts to protect us from harm. It’s how we’ve survived as a species.”
“I’m not saying ‘don’t protect yourself.’ You get right on that, girl. All I’m saying is that choosing to not feel the emotions you’re experiencing isn’t exactly the healthiest thing to do.”
Chloe folded her arms in front of her and rested her chin on her arms. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up just because he was all attentive and sweet and funny and kind and generous and gorgeous and looking at me like I singlehandedly turned his world from black and white to color.”
“Oh, wow. Are you sure you want this to be over?”
Chloe let out a huge breath and rolled over to her back. “No. And yes. I spent my entire childhood being invisible—I don’t want to live that way anymore. I don’t want to compete with Tara. I just want to be seen and valued. And that means I’ve got to date people who see and value me. I want to matter.”
A knock sounded on the door, and the person behind it called out, “Craving Sweets!”
Chloe sat up, confused, as Jia jumped to her feet and danced to the door. She opened it, took the little bag the breathless teen held, then shut the door and turned to Chloe, grinning. “Remember when Craving Sweets opened during our junior year, and they announced that they delivered? And since they were only a block from the school, Chad Hendrickson ordered a giant cupcake and had it delivered to him in Mr. Mortensen’s biology class, and he got suspended for a day?”
Chloe nodded. “And we thought it had probably been worth it. Then on Valentine’s Day, something like fifty kids had cupcakes delivered to their Valentines, and the administration decided it was too many kids to expel so they just pret
ended they didn’t know it was happening. And we both wished we would’ve delivered one to each other.”
“You know me—I’m all about not living with regrets. So I ordered these when you first went into the bathroom and told them there was a twenty in it if the delivery guy literally ran them over. I know we just ate, but we didn’t get dessert, and I figured the situation called for it.” Jia pulled a cupcake out of the bag and handed it to Chloe.
“Aww, and you got me Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Supreme!” Chloe contemplated her cupcake as they sat at the end of her bed, savoring every bite. “I was just so in love with him, you know? He did so many big, flashy things in high school that made half the school fall in love with him. But it wasn’t all those big flashy things that made me fall for him—it was all the little things that most people didn’t notice. But back then I didn’t have the confidence to even give him a hint that I liked him. I think that was why it was so hard to get over him.”
Jia quietly chewed for a long moment before she swallowed and said, “Or maybe you never did get over him.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “We never even dated.”
Jia lifted her cupcake in a shrug. “No, but you knew his heart. You knew it back then, and you’ve known it with every story Beverly has told you over the past four-and-a-half years. You’ve gotten to know his heart even more here. Tell me that being around him this weekend has made you like him less.”
When she relaxed that protection around her heart for a second, she could see that this weekend had made her fall for him so much more than she had in high school. She shook her head. “He lives three hours away.”
Jia nodded slowly. Then in a voice that was ninety-nine percent serious-sounding but in reality was ninety-nine percent sarcastic—a tone she’d never known anyone but Jia to pull off—her friend said, “Yeah, because that’s an obstacle in a relationship that’s impossible to overcome.”