Running into me was incidental. Obviously.
“Not a word since he took off for that fancy college. Not a phone call or letter or Facebook poke, for that matter. And he waltzes into your class like he owns the place, steals your phone, and says see you Saturday? What is that?” Helen demands, sounding closer to nineteen than her actual sixty-two.
Honestly, it’s probably more than I deserve.
I sit on my bed, my back propped against the ruffled shams, my fingertips tracing the stitched pattern in my quilt. “I had class. What was he supposed to do, ask the kids to give us a few so we could catch up? He was only there to see what the school had done with all his money and he still stopped in to help me out. I’d say it was pretty generous.”
Helen taps a rhinestone-tipped nail against her lips. “Is he as good looking in person as he is in the magazines?”
Laughing, I nod. “Believe it or not, even better.” And now I’m thinking about the way his suit jacket stretched across his broad shoulders when he was doing whatever the heck it was he did to fix the Smart Board. How his biceps bunched into rounded mounds visible even through the coat. How I wanted to run my finger along the line of his jaw to test the texture of his stubble.
The sound of Helen clearing her throat has me looking up in a guilty rush. “What?”
“You’re going to need a new dress. Something slinky and sophisticated.”
The thought has crossed my mind. Not because of Hank, though. No way. I just need to update my wardrobe with something my mom didn’t help pick out.
Wagging a finger in my direction, she gives me a once-over I’m not entirely comfortable with.
“Um, Helen?”
“A quality push-up bra wouldn’t be amiss. Your girls are lovely, but they deserve to be showcased from time to time.” She closes in like she’s about to test what I’m working with.
“Helen!” I squawk, crossing my arms over my chest.
Eyes twinkling, she backs off. “What’s your Hank’s favorite color? No, never mind. It might have changed since you knew him. I’ll ask the Google.” Helen holds up her phone to her lips and primly clears her throat. “Okay, Google—”
“I am not buying underwear in Hank’s favorite color.” I’m not buying underwear for Hank at all.
Why I continue to confide in Helen is beyond me. In the beginning, she looked like the sweet grandmother I never had, offering a steamy mug of cocoa as she pulled back that crinkly layer of cellophane from her plate of cookies. But within five minutes, it was more than clear Helen wasn’t any kind of fairytale granny… she was the walking, talking embodiment of TMI. And I kind of fell in love with her pushy, boundary-abolishing self that very day.
A penciled scowl meets my stare. “The Google doesn’t work if you talk at the same time.”
“I know, I’m sorry. But I don’t need a new bra. Even if Hank is there. We were over ten years ago.” And despite the bout of breathless, fluttery business I suffered in my class, he seemed completely unaffected. Which made sense, considering the man dates exotic supermodels and world-class ballerinas these days, not plain Janes who never left his hometown.
“Bra-schma. You need lingerie. A matching set of as many pieces as you can get.” Helen’s eyes take on a gleam I haven’t seen before as her sparkly fingers move molasses-slow over her phone. “And you need a wax. That’s nonnegotiable. I’ll book you for the full package with my girl.”
“No!” I choke, closing my eyes against Helen’s exhaustive waxing rituals. “I swear, I’ll take care of myself. I’ll use the hot rollers and shave past my knee. Not that it matters. Hank will probably show up with a date.” He certainly has enough of them.
Helen tsks, perching carefully at the side of my bed. “Of course it matters,” she chides softly. “Especially if he brings a date. I know what that boy meant to you, and whether there’s any chemistry left between you or not, when you see him again, you need to feel beautiful and confident. For yourself.”
And now I remember why I tell Helen everything. It’s not because she reminds me of a grandmother I never had. It’s because she’s my best friend.
Throat tight, I nod. “I’ll think about the lingerie.”
Helen’s papery hand closes around mine. “And the wax, dear.”
HANK
“OH, BULLSHIT. YOU’RE totally hiding from your assistant,” Jack accuses, laughing darkly as we cut through our building’s lobby. It’s only 5:15 and I should definitely be back at work, but after the shit-storm I just dropped on Sheila, asking her to adjust my travel schedule to accommodate the reunion on Saturday, no way am I putting myself in her path.
“Please. Haven’t you heard? Everyone cowers in my shadow.”
Jack barks out another colorful expletive, and a leggy blonde decked out in couture glances back at us as she waits for security to process her. There’s a flare of recognition as her eyes land on me, a subtle straightening of her spine that’s become familiar in strangers over the years, and it tells me she knows who I am.
Probably Jack too. He doesn’t make as many headlines, but the guy’s a third-generation real estate developer and owns half of Chicago. Plus the cameras can’t get enough of his broody, hard-to-get bullshit.
We keep walking to the “Residents Only” elevator. The woman might be there for Greg or Brian, or one of Jack’s other tenants, or she might be one of the reasons this building has the best security in the city. A benefit that’s come in handy more than once in the year I’ve been back.
Inside the car, Jack waves his watch in front of the sensor and the floor panel lights up with a P. “Coming up for a beer?”
What else am I going to do until Sheila heads home for the night? “I ought to come up and kick your ass. You couldn’t just tell me she works there?”
We haven’t talked about Abby yet and I’m not sure if it’s because Jack is managing me with one of his negotiation tactics or if it’s purely force of habit.
“Ooh are we lifting the moratorium on use of the A-word?”
God, he’s an ass.
The elevator doors open into an apartment that screams old money while managing to have state-of-the-art everything. We head straight for the kitchen, the lights coming on automatically around us and that classic from Queens of the Stone Age starting to play throughout the place.
He hands me a beer from the fridge and leans into the counter. “Would you have gone if you knew she was there?”
I take a long swallow and meet his eyes.
He laughs and, shaking his head, points his bottle at me. “That’s why. But it was time, man. Past time.”
“Seeing her again wasn’t what I would have expected.” Understatement of the century.
The side of his mouth hitches up. “It isn’t like running into other people you used to know. She’s—”
“The same.”
“Yeah.” He takes a thoughtful swallow. “But you’re not.”
No. I’m not. My goals and plans have changed. My priorities. The way I interact and the attachments I allow myself. All of it’s different to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.
I’m not the same. And I don’t really want to think about what it was like for those few minutes, feeling like I was. So instead I lean on my favorite fallback. The future. What happens next.
“Saturday’s going to be a madhouse,” I warn, glad Sheila already mentioned upping security for the night. “What time do you want the car to pick you up?”
Jack shakes his head, an amused scowl on his face. “Pass. I’m totally hooking up with Natalie Anverse. Don’t need you cramping my style. Besides, I saw how you were looking at Abby. Not going to risk getting ditched back in Bearings when you whisk her off into the sunset.”
He’s nuts. Natalie was never into him. And considering Abby was essentially standing precisely where I left her ten years ago, and grinning her head off about it, it’s safe to say I won’t be whisking her anywhere. But most of all… “You can’t be serious. You
want me to show up to this thing alone?”
“You’re about to make space your bitch,” Jack says dryly. “Pretty sure you can handle a couple hours with your old classmates.”
I nod, except it’s not the hours with the classmates I’m worried about. It’s the few minutes with Abby Mitchel I’m already looking forward to, to an unsettling degree. It’s that I can still smell the hint of fresh apple I caught when I leaned in close. And that I’ve already ordered her a new phone, not because I can’t fix the one she put into my hand… please. Hers is crap and I want her to have something better. I want her to have what I have, and since one of my companies had a hand in developing the operating system… I want her to like it.
It’s that I can feel that one quick snapshot I caught before Abby realized I was standing in her classroom burning a hole in my phone… even though I’ve already managed to look at it twenty-six times.
It’s that Abby is so much the same, I can’t think for even a second there’s a chance that after ten years things might be different.
HANK
THE PAST FIVE years have acclimated me to the rising crowds, the seas of unfamiliar faces, and the knowledge that the next eager handshake could be coming from a multimillion-dollar investor… or, even better, a burgeoning innovator.
So walking into a roomful of strangers calling my name and angling to get closer is par for the course… but not here, not like this. Not when I know the names behind the faces and remember the quality of our former interactions in ways they seem to have forgotten.
Jimmy Alverez, star quarterback and overall decent guy. Not more than a passing acquaintance back in high school, but now as I walk through the double doors he’s all over me, clapping my back, snapping selfies one after the next, and acting like my long-lost best friend. Which is fine. Like I said, he was a decent guy. But in a graduating class of five hundred, he’s just one. And already I can’t see past the press of bodies looking to get closer. I can’t tell if Abby’s here. If she’s alone.
My security team has instructions to stay out of the gym. It’s the press I’m serious about avoiding, and they’re mostly camped outside by the front entrance. But my lead guy, Jerry, must be getting antsy with the swarm of people around me, because suddenly it’s his hand on my shoulder, and he’s quietly asking if I want him to clear things out.
I shake my head and spend the next thirty minutes taking pictures with people I barely knew, shaking hands with guys who’d been total pricks, and ignoring the press of tits against my arm from women who swear they’d had the biggest crush on me back in high school. There’s a break in the crowd and I see Abby across the gym, laughing with some of the girls I remember her hanging out with. And like that, the tension I hadn’t quite realized was building within me is gone. Because even after seeing her the other day, or maybe because of it, I wasn’t sure she’d come. And I wanted her to. I wanted more than two and a half minutes of showing off what any first-year technical school dropout could have done while I disrupted her class.
Her dress is a deep violet, one of those filmy numbers with a short matching half-sweater over the top. It’s the kind of prettily conservative outfit that shouldn’t come off as sexy, but does. Surrounded by her friends, a drink in her hand, Abby’s watching me.
She doesn’t try to turn away like she’s hoping I won’t notice. It’s not her style. She lifts her glass to me with a pitying smile and cock of her head.
I can practically hear her: Eesh, good luck with your fans, Hank.
But I’ve had enough catching up with people I didn’t really know and, after mumbling a few polite words, I excuse myself. The crowd is thick and I shake hands without looking at who’s caught me, patting shoulders… all the while never taking my eyes off hers.
Jesus, she’s beautiful.
“Hank.” She says my name quietly, but I hear it like it’s the only sound in the room. Like Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” isn’t playing in the background. Like there aren’t a hundred different conversations going on around us. Like the echoes of every time she’s said it before have lined up and spoken together. It’s enough to rock me off balance and leave me a little out of control. And damn, it feels good, because I’m always in control.
Abby raises a brow, stepping closer before stopping a polite distance away.
Too far.
Not what I should be thinking, but it is what it is.
“I wasn’t sure you’d really come.”
Hitching a shoulder, I close some of the distance between us, taking more satisfaction in the slight widening of her eyes than I should.
“Neither was I.” I could leave it at that, hold on to what little control I’ve got left. But letting go with this girl has always been more temptation than I can resist. “But then I saw the prettiest girl in school and I realized how much I missed talking to her.”
That’s all it is. Me wanting an opportunity to talk to the girl who’d been such a critical part of my life… and finding something out about the woman she’s become. Sure, seeing Abby is stirring me up some, poking at a part of my control-freak psyche that’s been lying dormant for the better part of ten years. But there’s nothing more than that. And hell, I like to see her blush. That’ll never change.
“Hank.” She shakes her head as she peers up at the ceiling. When her eyes meet mine, she sighs. “You took me by surprise. Back in my classroom.”
“Tell me about it.” I push my hair back from my glasses and nod. “Thought I was hallucinating for a minute there in the hall. But it sure explained a lot about why Jack was so hellbent on getting me over to the school.”
“Wait, you didn’t know I teach here?” Her pretty face screws up like I’ve seen it so many times before. “Ugh… of course you didn’t. Egosaurus Rex here, right? You’ve got just a few more things to keep track of than some girl you used to date.”
She’s laughing, but that casual description of what she was to me doesn’t sit right. Still, I want to make her feel better.
“I’ve been busy?” I offer with the kind of sheepish grin that promises I know just exactly how weak an answer it is. I’ve taken not knowing where this woman works, if she’s met someone, whether she’s ever changed her mind, to a perfected art form.
And surprisingly enough, the girl who never let me get away with anything lets me get away with this. She gives me the same skeptical smile that had me tripping over my own feet in these very halls fourteen years ago. “I’m guessing that’s something of an understatement.”
Probably, but it was also a copout, and being this close to the most honest girl I’ve ever met makes me feel shitty about it.
“So, a teacher,” I say, more interested in hearing about all those things I’ve spent years telling myself not to wonder about than I am in talking about myself. “English… just like you planned.”
Abby lights up, and then she’s telling me about the career she always wanted. She talks about the kids in her classes and laughs about having the teachers we used to fear as her peers.
“Tinder? Mrs. Graham? Seriously, no,” I protest, wiping a hand over my mouth, like I think it’s going to do one damn thing to hide the guilty smile beneath. “But she was so… old. Even ten years ago.” She had to be seventy.
Abby nods, supremely satisfied. “The girl swipes right. And she brags about it! The details, Hank.”
And damn, that smile. Without thinking, I’m reaching for her, pulling her into my chest for the kind of easy hug we’ve shared a thousand times before… just not once in the last ten years. A fact I’m reminded of as the soft curves and smooth lines of her body come into contact with mine. It’s like a jolt from a capacitor, overloading my system in a way that’s almost painful, it’s so intense.
My smile fades and Abby’s laughter evaporates into a quiet gasp, like maybe she felt it too. Our eyes meet and hold, and my hand closes at the small of her back, desperate to fist the fabric of her dress but somehow finding the restraint not to. There’s a question
in her eyes, but then it’s gone as she looks away.
The body that always melted into mine, snuggling closer, no matter how tight I held her, tenses, going still and stiff. This isn’t one of those easy hugs. Things aren’t the same.
Shit.
Letting her go, I take a step back. “Sorry. Old habits die hard,” I say, like a total ass. Maybe I’m wrong about the connection still being there… or at least from both sides.
Abby’s shaking her head, looking anywhere but at me as she starts to talk.
“I don’t want to monopolize your whole night. It was so good talking to you, Hank. So good to see you—in person—I mean, I see you everywhere in magazines and on TV, but—” She cuts off with a self-deprecating laugh and closes her eyes before meeting mine again. Only this time there’s something guarded and closed off that hasn’t been there since that first year she moved to Bearings. “It was good to see you, Hank. Congrats on all your success. You deserve every bit of it.”
“Abby, wait,” I say, but she’s already headed for the door.
ABBY
SO NOW I know. All the years of wondering what it would be like to run into Hank again, and this was it. Incredible. Heartbreaking. Awe-inspiring. A torture like I should have imagined.
God, when he pulled me into his arms—
I’d almost forgotten how perfect that fit was. How right. How when Hank looks into my eyes like that, I never want it to end. One touch and it all came back in a rush. What it was like to love him. What it was like to let him go.
He calls after me, but I only walk faster. I barely make it out the double doors before I’m blinking back the tears.
They don’t make sense. It’s been ten years and I’m over Hank Wagner.
The halls are mostly deserted on the way to my classroom, where I pick up my purse and coat. Sometimes after a faculty meeting I’ll just sit in this quiet space, but tonight all I want is to get away.