Fourteen (21 page)

He grinned. “That makes it a little better.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Think you’re a know-it-all.”

“Are you disagreeing?”

He pouted. “No.”

“All right then.”

“What time do you need to be home?”

“Midnight.”

He raised his arm, presumably looking at the watch I never realized he wore.

“Good,” he said brightly. “I’ve got half an hour to make out with you.”

I rolled with laughter until he silenced me with a kiss. So we spent the next half-hour making out on a merry-go-round at a children’s playground. Afterward, we walked to my car, holding hands as we talked about the science fair and what time we needed to be there to set up. Not that we had all that much to set up to begin with, but it would give us plenty of time to get the last minute details into place.

“Do you want me to pick you up?” he asked, opening my door for me.

“If you want to.”

“I do.”

“Then I guess, yes.”

“You’re going to make things difficult, huh?”

“I never said I was easy.”

He laughed and I groaned, pushing on his shoulder and climbed into my car. He yanked me back, wrapping his arms around my shoulders when I fell into him.

“I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

I smiled and leaned back into him.

Size fourteen be damned; I’d never felt more accepted and more hopeful than I was right now. And I wasn’t even scared. For once in my entire life, I felt content with myself, and there was nothing more that I needed.

“Tell me again why we’re here,” I said, staring at the front of Collins Point High School from the car.

“So that we can see how horrible everyone else looks.”

I looked over at him, raising my eyebrow as he grinned at me.

“This place is like hell. No, it’s worse than that. It’s the seventh circle of hell.”

“You’re quite the drama queen tonight.”

“I hate everyone in there.”

“You hate Kyle and Ashley? Christina and Vince?”

I glared at him, and he laughed and grabbed my hand. I looked back at the front of the school and scowled.

Nothing had changed. It was just as I remembered it from ten years ago. As if time had just stopped in this part of the world, and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be sick or enjoy the memories of my senior year that rushed back to me.

“This is going to be fine.”

“I feel like I’m seventeen again.”

“But you’re not.”

“Well I feel like it!”

“Anna.” He laughed, leaning over to gently kiss my cheek. “You are a beautiful, successful, smart wife and mother. You’re still that strong, independent woman who graduated with me ten years ago. There is absolutely no reason for you to be worried.”

“These people—”

“Won’t even recognize you.” He grabbed my chin and turned my head, gently kissing me. “Relax, sweetheart.”

I placed my hand against his heart. That had continued to be our thing through our entire relationship. When either of us needed reassurance, feeling the other’s heartbeat always made everything make sense again.

I’d been dreading our high school reunion ever since we’d received the invitations in the mail. I’d even gone so far as to beg Evan to rip it up and forget about the whole thing. But he had to be a sadistic bastard and insist that we go no matter what I said to him.

His acceptance letter arrived a few days after the science fair—it had apparently made a detour and was delivered to a Mr. Ericsson at the retirement community across town— and we spent the rest of the night celebrating with our friends. It was hard to believe that it had already been ten years since then.

We stayed in New York after we graduated, both of us having fallen in love with all the ways that it was different from Collins Point. It had the added advantage of not having a single person from our graduating class follow us there.

We’d worked through most of our schooling and ended up with two jobs a piece after we’d graduated, neither of us using our degrees at the time. It had seemed nearly impossible to find a job in either of our fields, no matter how many places we’d sent our resumes to—or, in Evan’s case, samples. Then Evan had received a call from the New York Times at the end of March, and I’d finally found a practice willing to take me under their wing. As soon as we’d had enough money, the first thing we did was get married.

Our relationship had had its ups and downs—boys at college weren’t as narrow-minded as the ones back in Collins Point, and I’d found that having a jealous boyfriend was equally flattering and annoying as hell.

Not to say that Mr. Gorgeous didn’t have his own fair share of obsessed stalkers following his fine ass around campus, but I’d expected that. He still spent most nights sneaking into my dorm, after all, so there really was no reason to worry—he’d spent an entire day asking me why it didn’t bother me. I said I trusted him; he took it the wrong way and thought I meant that he didn’t trust me. That was our first big fight; we spent a week without seeing or speaking to each other before I found him camped outside my dorm room one night after class with his head in his hands and about ten dozen roses at his feet.

Now, even when we were angry at each other, we at least still slept in the same bed. Makeup sex was a really wonderful thing, too. It also resulted in our first child.

Evan and I had talked about having kids and had decided that when it happened, it happened. I’d stopped taking my birth control pills, and we both did our best not to rush to the drugstore and buy a test every time we made love.

We’d been married for almost two years, living in a beautiful brownstone in the better part of the city, when I finally realized that I didn’t have the flu. The first thing I did was call Evan, and he’d rushed home from work, three different pregnancy tests in his hand. They had all been positive, but we’d made an appointment with the doctor just to be sure.

Macie Corrine Drake was the spitting image of her father, and she had the smart-ass attitude to go with it. Her eyes were green like mine, her hair was brown like her father’s, and we absolutely adored her.

Now we had a beautiful four-year-old baby girl visiting with her Grandpa Bruce while we sat in front of the one place in the world I despised the most.

“I’m not in a position to relax,” I said, gritting my teeth.

“You’re not doing anything good for my son in this condition, you know.”

His hand trailed from my chin and rested on my swollen stomach, as he rubbed it. I sighed and placed my hand over his, linking our fingers and closing my eyes as I concentrated on breathing evenly.

“We don’t have to stay long,” he whispered, resting his chin on my shoulder and kissing my neck. “Go in, see how horrible the rest of our class looks, and then we can be off.”

“We promised everyone dinner tonight.”

“So we did.”

“You’re a pain in my ass.”

“You love me.”

“Your mother paid me to love you.”

“Is that any way to speak to the father of your children?”

“Who says the kids are yours? They could be the milkman’s.”

He laughed and kissed me. “We don’t have a milkman.”

“That
you
know of.”

“Macie looks too much like me.” He grinned. “Maybe this baby will look just like you.”

“God help him.”

“Going back to that place again, are we?”

My self-esteem had been low for eighteen years of my life, and Evan had made it his mission in life to raise it. It had been working well until we pulled into the parking lot of this place. I felt like that same girl I’d been while I was there. Pregnancy hormones didn’t help this situation, either.

I’d gotten down to a size eight after Macie was born, thrilled that I hadn’t kept the weight from my pregnancy and had somehow managed to lose a little more. Evan hadn’t been so thrilled about it, pouting when I modeled a new pair of jeans for him. I squealed that I’d never been this small in my life.

He’d told me that I was perfect no matter what size I was—as he often had in the past—and had confessed that he even liked it more when I was heavier. I’d loved him for it but had done my best to keep off the weight. It had worked for a while, until he started bringing home chocolate donuts and cheesecake from my favorite diner in the heart of Manhattan and had never been able to resist.

A month later, I was buying size twelve jeans, which still made me happy—kind of—because again, the smallest size I’d ever been before Macie showed up was a fourteen. I’d made him promise to stop bringing home that crap if I stopped trying to be thinner, and he’d agreed. Now, four years later and pregnant, I felt like a whale. Granted, it was for a good reason, but showing up to my ten-year high school reunion bigger than ever made me want to hide in the car for the rest of the night.

“I can’t help it,” I whined, burying my head in his chest.

“Okay, listen,” he said, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, “this is gonna be a piece of cake, babycakes.”

“Babycakes?” I asked.

“Don’t question it.”

“Can I call you cupcake?”

“You can call me anything you want if it gets you out of this car.”

“In public?”

“Will you get out of the car?”

“Possibly.”

“You do know that Kyle will probably tear off the car door in an attempt to get you out of it, don’t you?”

“He doesn’t know what car we drive.”

“No, but I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that we’re the only two still sitting in ours.”

“There’s a lot of people here. It’ll take him a while.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Why did we need to come here again?”

“I already told you.” He laughed, threading his hand through my hair. “We’re going to see all of our old classmates at their worst.”

“Or their best.”

“You’re way too negative for your own good.”

“You knew this when you married me.”

“What do I have to do to make you see that none of it matters?” he whispered, trailing his hand down to my stomach. “The only things that matter are you, me, Macie, this little guy, our families, and our friends. These other people haven’t mattered to us in over ten years, Anna. Don’t give them the satisfaction of thinking that they do.”

I sat back and placed both of my hands over his on my stomach.

“You’re right.”

“I know it.”

I rolled my eyes and he laughed, leaning over to kiss me again.

“Stay here.”

“It’s not like I’m going to go very far.”

He narrowed one eye at me, and I grinned, leaning back in my seat as he climbed out of the car. I tapped my fingers against my stomach, looking down and rubbing it.

“I hope you’re like your father, little guy,” I whispered, smiling when I felt him kick. “He needs some support keeping your momma sane.”

I looked up when my door opened and smiled at Evan, placing my hand in his. He helped me out of the car, closed it, and wrapped an arm around my waist, placing the other on my stomach again.

“Your momma keeps your papa sane, too,” he murmured, leaning down and pressing a kiss on my abdomen.

My eyes watered, and I looked up at him as he stood up straight. Flinging my arms around his neck, I kissed his jaw reverently.

“I love you so much.” I sniffled, burying my face into his shirt.

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me and kissing my temple.

“I love you too, babycakes.”

I snorted and wiped my eyes on my shirtsleeve. I wound my fingers through his when he grabbed my hand.

“Cupcake,” I retorted, sniffling.

“Yours.”

I blew out a deep breath, squeezed his hand, and looked up at the school again.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“It won’t be that bad, I promise.”

He winked before leading me to the front doors, each footstep echoing in my head as we stepped closer to the entrance.

“And if it is?” I asked as I pulled him to a stop in front of the doors.

“I give you full permission to name our son Jameson.”

About a month after Macie was born, Evan had gone out with some friends as a celebration of becoming a father and had gotten completely hammered. He’d been drinking Jameson whiskey and upon his return home, he kept telling me that he loved the name
Jameson
and wanted to name our future son after the whiskey; that night, he was determined that we were going to have a son. When I reminded him of that the next morning while his head was in the toilet, he’d told me if I did that, he’d divorce me.

“Done.”

He kissed my cheek as he pushed open the door for me.

“You’re going to lose,” he whispered, placing his hand on the small of my back.

“I hope I do.”

We walked into the lobby of the gymnasium, and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or turn around and run back to the car when I realized that time really
had
stood still. A part from a few additions—a snack machine in the corner and a display case at end of the room—everything was the same. It even smelled the same.

“Relax, babycakes.”

I grunted and he laughed, leading me up to the table near the gym doors. I sighed as I spotted my nametag,
Weller
typed in bold letters after
Arianna
. I tilted my head, vaguely aware of Evan grabbing his own nametag and saying something to me.