Max went to the small table where Megan sat and dutifully paid for his ticket.
“And here’s a name tag.” Megan giggled. “But I don’t think you’ll need to wear it. Everyone remembers Max Evans.”
Max smiled uncomfortably and stuck the name tag to his coat. “Just in case,” he said.
“Here’s your name tag.” Megan handed one to Piper. “Put it somewhere prominent so people don’t have to guess who you are.”
“How could anyone not know who Piper is?” Max asked with a grin.
Piper smiled to herself and took the name tag.
“Do you need help with anything?” Max asked Piper again.
“I’m the master of ceremonies, so my job won’t start until later.” She led him from the reception area into the main gallery where the reunion would be held. “I did a lot of the planning leading up to the event.”
Instead of paintings on the brick walls, the decorating committee had blown up pictures from their yearbook and placed them around the room. The black-and-white images cast Piper back ten years and made her pause.
“Wow,” Max breathed beside her. “I haven’t seen these pictures since we graduated.”
The committee members were in various places throughout the room, putting centerpieces on the tables, arranging the prizes for the drawings and attaching purple and black balloon bouquets on the stage. People were pretending not to watch Max as he and Piper walked over to the pictures, but he was clearly distracting several of them.
A hundred memories flooded Piper’s heart as they took a stroll down memory lane.
The pictures were taken at all sorts of events their senior year. Some were taken at games, others in the commons at lunchtime, a few in the parking lot preparing for the homecoming parade, several in different classrooms with favorite teachers, a couple in the auditorium for the spring musical and dozens of other places. Nick was in a few of them, his grinning face a harsh reminder to Piper of what she had lost.
“Look,” Max said, his voice a bit quieter than usual. He pointed at the biggest picture, which was in the middle of all of them. “It’s us.”
Piper stopped and stared. It was a picture of Max and Piper standing on the football field during homecoming, with Nick and the other homecoming court in the background. Max and Piper had been voted king and queen and Max was wearing his Timber Falls Lumberjacks football uniform, his crown sitting lopsided on his head. Piper was wearing a formal gown with a crown on her head and a cape over her shoulders. But they weren’t looking at the camera; instead, they were grinning at each other.
“It feels like a lifetime ago,” Max said, almost to himself.
It did feel like a long time had passed, but Piper could remember what she’d been thinking at that very moment. Though she was only seventeen, she knew exactly what she wanted out of life and who she wanted to grow old with. She had never trusted anyone more than she did Max, and not once had he broken that trust. She was deliriously happy the night she was crowned homecoming queen and had felt like she was floating on air.
But then she remembered what happened when she got home that night. She had found her dad passed out on the recliner again with an open bottle of gin at his side, and even though he hadn’t come to any of her other school activities since seventh grade, she’d been bitterly disappointed that he’d missed her senior homecoming.
Her life might have looked good on the outside, and almost ideal in this picture, but she’d still had a lot of problems at home with her dad. He had not held down a steady job since her mom had died, and Piper had taken a job at the local grocery store on nights and weekends just to pay their rent and put food on the table.
“These pictures don’t tell the whole story, do they?” Piper asked, hearing the bitterness in her voice, though she didn’t intend to dredge up the harder memories from her past. “With each good memory, it seems there are a couple bad ones mixed in.”
“Piper.” Max’s voice was full of regret. “I’m sorry—”
Piper shook her head. “I was thinking about my dad mostly.” Though she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about how much Max had hurt her a couple months after this picture was taken, or how Nick had come to her soon after and confessed how he’d always felt about her. She’d been in so much pain, she’d turned to him, but knew their relationship had always been a little lopsided because her heart had belonged to Max for the first few years. She didn’t want to admit the truth, but she knew part of Nick’s unhappiness was the fear that she had never stopped loving Max.
She put her hand on her rounded stomach and chose not to talk about any of those memories. There was no point in bringing them up again. Instead, she chose to talk about the present. “Even now there are good things mixed in with the bad. This pregnancy is one of them. I’m excited to be a mom after years of disappointments, but I never thought I’d be a single parent. Or think about the bed-and-breakfast. I’m thrilled it’s finally open and it’s even better than what I dreamed—but it’s not mine. Pictures rarely capture the heart and soul of a person, do they?”
Max studied the picture of them together, a dozen different emotions playing across his handsome face. “No, they don’t—but in this moment, at homecoming, I didn’t think my life could get any better. This picture perfectly captured my heart and soul when it was taken.”
“Moments are fleeting,” she said wistfully, thinking that by the age of twenty-eight, she had already lost her mom, her dad and her husband. “I suppose this picture should remind us to not take anything for granted and to be thankful for each blessing, no matter what might come our way later on.”
Max turned his gaze to Piper and he smiled. “I’ve always loved your optimism. You find a silver lining in almost everything.”
It hadn’t always been easy, but Piper had learned at a young age that if she couldn’t find something positive in each situation, she’d drown in a pool of self-pity. Even now, she could focus on being a single mom, or on the loss of her bed-and-breakfast, but neither of those things would change if she was upset. She needed to save her energy for what really mattered, and at the top of her list was erasing the debt so she could find a place to live when the baby was born.
But she didn’t want to think about any of that tonight. Tonight was for good memories.
“Max Evans!” A former football teammate entered the main gallery and his voice echoed off the wood floor and tin ceiling. He was a big guy who had grown only bigger since high school. He rushed across the room and grabbed Max in a bear hug, lifting him off the floor. “What are you doing back in Timber Falls, buddy?”
Max laughed as he was put back on the ground, and soon he was surrounded by old teammates again, all of them clamoring to hear from their classmate-turned-NFL player. Piper thought how strange it seemed that Nick wasn’t there, in the midst of his old friends. If it had been high school, Nick would have been right beside Max the whole time.
Soon Liv arrived and their old group of girlfriends gathered around a table to talk and share memories—though they weren’t nearly as loud as the football players.
Piper tried to ignore Max and his buddies, but no matter how much she tried, everyone kept bringing up his name and all the antics she and Max had gotten into when they were kids.
“I don’t think I have a single memory of Max that doesn’t involve Piper,” said Roxanne Caruthers Downs, one of their longtime church friends. “No matter where Piper went, there was Max, and vice versa.”
The table of ladies laughed and Piper wondered if Max’s name would have come up less if he wasn’t there. A few people brought up Nick’s name, and how much they wished he could have been at the reunion, but the majority of their classmates seemed uncomfortable talking about his death. He was the first of their class to pass away and Piper knew it was a hard reality for a lot of people to deal with—her included. The reason they had postponed the
reunion to Labor Day weekend was because their original date was just a few weeks after Nick’s unexpected death.
Soon it was time for Piper to go onto the stage and start the program. She had never been shy about public speaking before and wasn’t now, but being onstage gave her a good look at the room and she found that most of their class was congregated in the corner where she’d left Max a half hour ago.
“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” she said into the microphone. “If you could please find a seat, the caterers are ready to serve the meal.”
It took a few minutes, but most people complied and found a place to sit—everyone, but a couple die-hard Max Evans fans who ignored her and kept talking to him.
“Max isn’t going anywhere, Brady,” Piper said into the microphone. “And your wife is calling for you to come and sit down.”
Brady’s wife was waving at him from the front of the room, and when she was pointed out, her cheeks turned a crimson red. Everyone started to laugh and Brady hightailed it to his wife’s side.
“Sorry!” Max called out to Piper as he looked for a place to sit while the room quieted.
As Piper shared some of the housekeeping details of the evening, several people motioned for Max to join them, but he moved to the table where Piper had been sitting with Liv and sat there, instead. He put his forearm on the back of the seat Piper had been occupying, and when Megan came up and tried to take the seat, Max shook his head and indicated Piper—apparently letting Megan know the seat was taken.
Piper hadn’t even realized that Max knew where she’d been sitting earlier. He’d been so preoccupied with his friends, she just assumed he’d stay with them. But he wanted to sit with her.
Despite all her misgivings and uncertainties, her heart did a little flip-flop, and she felt like she was back in the school cafeteria again, being chosen and noticed by a guy who made her pulse skitter.
It was a good feeling—but she had to remind herself that she wasn’t in school anymore, and she had a lot more at stake.
No matter how much Max still made her pulse gallop, she had to protect her heart, for her sake as well as her child’s. More now than ever, she needed to know who she could trust and who she couldn’t—and Max was already in the untrustworthy column.
She couldn’t risk him walking away again when it mattered the most.
Chapter Five
“What do you say, Max?” Tom Treadway asked as the last of their classmates stood outside the arts center as the door was being locked by a staff member. “Would you like to go with a bunch of us over to Ed’s Sports Bar for a couple of drinks?”
Max’s ears were ringing with all the laughter and conversation that had buzzed around his head the past three hours. Piper stood to the side with the reunion committee, going over a couple of details, but she glanced in Max’s direction after Tom’s invitation.
It was late and dark, and he had no desire to join the others or leave Piper to walk home alone.
“Thanks for the invitation,” Max said to Tom, reaching out to shake his hand. “But I think I’ll head home. Let me know the next time you’re in town and we’ll get together.”
Tom nodded, though it was clear he was disappointed. “Okay, buddy. Another time. It was great to see you.”
“You, too.”
The group walked down the street, toward the sports bar, laughing as they went.
“Thanks for all your hard work,” Piper said to the committee members as they all broke apart. “I’ll see you next week for our wrap-up meeting.”
“Bye, Max!” Megan waved. “We’ll see you again soon.”
“Bye.” Max waved at everyone as they walked toward their cars. “Thanks for the great reunion.”
“It was my pleasure,” Megan said with a wink.
Piper laughed and shook her head as she joined Max and they started to walk back to the bed-and-breakfast. “Some people never change.”
“In some situations,” he said, playfully tugging on her long hair, “it’s a good thing.” He’d loved watching Piper with all their old friends. It felt like a time machine had taken them back to high school for a few brief hours.
“Are you saying I haven’t changed?” she asked.
“In all the ways that matter, you’re exactly the same as you’ve always been.”
“I feel like I’m a completely different person.” The soft glow of the streetlamps illuminated her beautiful violet-colored eyes as she sighed.
“You’re still confident, smart, kind, selfless, funny—”
“Okay, okay,” she laughed, clearly uncomfortable as she laid her hand on his arm to stop him from listing her attributes. “You have no need to lay on the charm with me, Max Evans.”
He smiled and loved seeing her smile, too. “It was fun being back with everyone and remembering all the good times we had together.”
“It was a good night.”
“I’m amazed that with everything else you had going on, you still managed to be on the reunion planning committee.” He shook his head. “Anyone there would have understood if you needed to step down.”
They came to a crosswalk and waited until the red light changed and then crossed the street. There weren’t a lot of cars on a Saturday night in downtown Timber Falls. A couple of the bars and restaurants were open, and the movie theater was still running its late shows, but all the other businesses were closed.
“I needed something to occupy my mind right after Nick died, so I refused to give up any of the activities I was involved in,” she said quietly. “Even though Nick wasn’t home much before he died, and I was used to being alone, after his death, I was completely on my own for the first time in my life. I didn’t like how that felt—I still don’t—so I stayed as busy as possible.”
“From what my mom told me, it sounds like the community rallied by your side.”
“They did.” She nodded, appreciation shining from her face. “Church friends, neighbors, classmates, even people I didn’t know showed up to help at the bed-and-breakfast. People brought meals and donated furniture, and Liv started an online fundraiser where people could give money. Even though I felt all alone in the world, the community showed me that I wasn’t alone—not really. It helped more than they’ll ever know.”
Guilt washed over Max again. “I wish I had known.” How had he missed something as devastating as his friend’s death? Had he been too preoccupied with his own life to pay attention to others?
“I know you do,” she said, her voice gentle. “But please don’t feel bad. You came right when you were needed most, to buy the bed-and-breakfast.” She took a couple of steps. “Besides, we all have regrets and it doesn’t help to keep beating ourselves up over the mistakes we made.” She paused and looked ahead at the dark street. “As long as we learn our lessons, that’s what really counts.”
Had he learned his lessons? He carried around a lot of regrets, but was that the same as learning from his mistakes?
They continued to walk down the dark side street, past a parking lot behind the buildings on Main Street, but a group of kids standing near the back of the theater caught Max’s attention. A nearby streetlamp gave him just enough light to recognize at least one of the students—and what he was doing.
“Hold on a second,” Max said to Piper, his voice grave. He put his hand out to stop her. “I think that’s Tad and a couple of his friends.”
It was clear, even from where Max was standing, that they were smoking a vape pen. The plume of vapor rose in a large cloud over their heads.
He moved toward his brother and Piper followed.
The group of kids noticed Max and Piper almost immediately and started to whisper chaotically while Tad shoved the vape pen in his coat pocket.
Deep disappointment sliced through Max. He was well aware of the penalty for using, or being in the possession of, a c
ontrolled substance. It was the reason Max couldn’t play in their championship game—though he had been using alcohol and not nicotine. The first offense disqualified a student from two interscholastic contests, or two weeks, whichever came first.
Tad had a lot going for him, especially on the football field. Why would he take any chances on throwing that away?
Thankfully, Tad was the only one in the group on the football team. If there had been others, their team would be in a lot of trouble for the next two weeks.
“Hey, Max.” Tad gave Max an uncomfortable and awkward greeting. “You know my friends from grade school, but have you met my girlfriend, Shelby?”
Max recognized Tad’s friends, though they were all much older than the last time he’d seen them. The blond-haired girl standing next to Tad smiled and gave Max a nervous wave. “Hi.”
Max hated being the bad guy, but there was no other way. “Tad, I saw the vape pen. I’m going to need you to hand it over and then I want everyone to go home.” He looked at all the kids, disappointment weighing down his voice. “You guys better prepare your parents, since all of you will be hearing from the principal on Monday.”
“Aw, come on, Max!” Tad shook his head, his face turning into a scowl as he handed over the vape pen. “We weren’t doing anything you wouldn’t have done in high school. Lighten up.”
“I never smoked in high school, Tad.” Or any other time in his life. “It’s not a good choice for many reasons, least of all is because it’ll disqualify you to play in this week’s and next week’s games.”
“Give me a break!” Tad scoffed and looked at his friends, pointing his thumb at Max. “This coming from the guy who got disqualified for drinking the night before the championship game.”
Tad’s friends didn’t laugh with him and Piper shifted uncomfortably.
His little brother’s comment hit its mark and made Max feel like a complete loser. But he couldn’t let his mistakes keep him from pointing out his brother’s. “And that’s exactly why I can stand here right now and tell you smoking, or any other controlled substance use, is a bad idea.” His mom wanted him to be a good example for his brother. The only way he could do that was to show Tad what not to do. “Nothing good can come from it, and if you’re not careful, you could face the same regrets that I do.”
A Home for Her Baby Page 6