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Geri
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The flock of butterflies that has lain dormant in my stomach for eight years suddenly takes flight, sideswiping my heart on its flyby and sending it spinning into an erratic beat. The feeling takes me back to tenth grade because this is what it felt like every time I laid eyes on Sean Eastman.
But I’m not fifteen anymore; I’m twenty-three, so what the hell? Is it some kind of a conditioned response?
Yeah, right.
It’s more like I’m having a hard time reconciling my memory of the lanky boy who could never catch me on skates with the six-foot-four, blond-haired blue-eyed hard body in front of me.
My cheeks become uncomfortably warm. “Sean?” I ask in a breathy, dead-giveaway voice.
“Hey, Geri.” His voice is a timbre deeper than I remember. “It’s been a long time.”
It is him. I’d know those azure eyes anywhere because I used to be mesmerized by them. Hell, what am I thinking “used to be.” They’re even more spectacular now that they’re set in a face that time and maturity have filled out and chiseled into near perfection. And the blond mop that used to hide those baby blues is now cut short, at least a shade darker, and arranged into a flattering mess that blends with the scruff on his face.
Shake his hand before you make a total idiot out of yourself, my pragmatic voice directs me, and I obey. But Michelle knocks my hand out of the way and leans in with the clear intention of embracing me. “How long has it been?” she drawls in an accent I don’t remember her having. Typical Michelle—always putting on airs.
The reminder of her less-than-trustworthy character has me instinctively cringing from her outstretched arms. She was always up to no good, like the time she complimented my best friend, Ann-Marie, on the skirt she was wearing, bent forward on the pretense of taking a closer look, then pulled it down to Ann-Marie’s ankles in front of the entire school. That was the day Ann-Marie and I started calling her Michelle Asston.
I take a step back to avoid the viper’s hug and end up driving my heel right into the ground.
“Shit,” I blurt out. My hands grab for the nearest lifeline, which is Michelle, but she steps out of my reach with a saucy smirk on her face. I’m about to go down when Sean steps forward, snags my hand, and yanks me right out of my shoe and into his chest.
Everything pauses.
Our faces are inches apart and we’re looking into each other’s eyes—sounds corny, I know, but we really are. And so many old feelings begin to surface right alongside a bunch of new ones, because even as I stare into the familiar blue depths of my teen crush, I’m acutely aware that the boy is now a man.
“Oh, your shoe came off,” my mom announces as she bends down and pulls it out of the ground. She holds it out to me.
The spell is broken.
“Are you okay?” Sean asks.
Dropping my hands from his hard muscled chest, I regain my balance. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Eastman,” I say, naturally regressing into our old teen rapport. “Just me being a klutz, as usual.”
He breaks into a smile. “You always were unsteady in heels, McKenna.”
I laugh, even though I’m completely mortified that he remembers catching me teetering around the house in my first pair of high heels like a drunken sailor. But thank God he never knew that learning to walk in stilettoes was the first phase of Operation Cinderella, with the final goal of sweeping into my first high school dance as a femme fatale and blowing Sean Eastman’s mind.
I flash Sean a challenging look. “You’re right. I was much better on skates.”
His smile broadens, white teeth contrasting attractively against his after-five shadow. “My legs are longer now. I think I can take you.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, my eyes travel down to his legs while I make an mmm sound, as if considering that possibility, but in reality, I’m getting an eyeful of the way his jeans are hugging muscular thighs and... Get your mind out of the gutter, Geri. “I think we’d have to see about that.”
“Challenge accep—”
“Hey,” Michelle interrupts, hip-checking Sean out of the way with a playful laugh. “I wasn’t finished saying hello when you had to come to the klutz’s rescue.” She grips me by the shoulders and eyeballs me in a let-me-get-a-good-look-at-you kind of way. “Such a daring hairstyle.”
She leans in, we air kiss, and I’m beginning to feel a little guilty for thinking she was going to do something to me. But just before she releases her grip on my shoulders, she gives me a little shove. It’s a subtle gesture, nothing that anyone else noticed, with just enough force that I have to fall back on my bare foot to keep from falling on my ass. My mother shoots out a steadying hand. “Oh dear, there you go again. Put your shoe back on, honey.”
My mouth tightens wryly as I watch Michelle move against Sean’s side with a look of triumph. Smoothly done, I think to myself. A classic Michelle move that put me in my place and, according to the girl code, gives her dibs on the boy.
Instead of putting my shoe back on, I take the other one off, despite the coldness of the ground. “Safer this way,” I say, narrowing my eyes at Michelle.
She smiles dryly. “Mark told us you’re a receptionist at Global.”
“Columnist,” I quickly correct. “I write a fashion column.”
It’s a tiny white lie. I’m the assistant to the columnist, but more often than not, I’m the sole author because the head columnist, Deb White, is always working on something more important. I can’t say I blame her.
“Wow, little Geri grew up to be a fashion guru,” Michelle says in a flat voice. “Who would’ve guessed?”
“Her mother and I read it online every day,” Dad brags. “She has over half a million followers on Tweeters and Instapick.”
“Twitter and Instagram, Dad.”
Dad laughs, waving a hand through the air. “Whatever. Point is, we couldn’t be more proud.” He wraps a strong arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze.
I pat his chest to stop him there, lest he get too carried away and start gushing. “It’s just a stepping-stone to something better. I worked too hard to get my degree in journalism to just throw it way on fashion and beauty,” I say, setting the record straight. “But enough about me, what have you guys been up to since high school?”
Michelle’s smile is frozen. “I’m an aesthetician,” she says, letting that hang there for a moment. I actually have to bite my lip against the mortified laugh bubbling up my throat because, man, I walked right into that one. “I opened my own salon last year,” she adds.
“Oh, wow,” I say with exaggerated zeal in attempt to gloss over my flub. “You’re an entrepreneur? That is so amazing. Wow. Good for you, Michelle.”
“And I work for her,” Lacey says.
I close my eyes. Of course she does.
Next thing I know, Mark’s putting me in a headlock and giving me a noogie. “You’re always such a barrel of fun,” he says while drilling his knuckle into my head. “You should come out with us tonight.”
I try to wrench free of his hold, my dignity having suffered enough already. “Stop it.” I’m about to bite down on his arm when our mother intervenes.
“Oh for goodness sake, Mark, she’s wearing a skirt and flashing everyone. Let her go.”
He obeys, and I jump out of his reach, my hair askew and my skirt riding up. I resist the urge to throw a shoe at him and instead transfer the shoe in my right hand to join the one in my left so I can pull my dress down and push my hair out of my face. I flick a glance at Sean and see the broad grin on his face, his eyes lit up with merriment, and I flash back to all the other times my brother embarrassed me in front of Sean.
“Seriously, come out with us,” Mark says. “We’re having dinner at the new bistro downtown.”
“C’mon,” Sean chimes in. “It’ll be fun to catch up.”
I’m tempted to say yes, until I see Michelle place a possessive hand on Sean’s bicep. “Yeah. Fun,” she says unenthusiastically.
A realization begins to slowly dawn on me as I take in Michelle’s slender form pressed against Sean’s hard body. The reason Sean is back in town is because he and Michelle are seeing each other again.
Holy shit. It really is tenth grade all over again.
“Oh... I... ah,” I stammer, trying to come up with some profound reason why I can’t tag along and spend an evening watching them rekindle their flame while I stumble through awkward conversation. “Just got home and want to spend some time with Mom and Dad. Plus, I gotta unpack and iron my dress. Tomorrow’s the big day.”
Sean looks as though he’s about to say something, but Michelle pipes up first. “Totally understandable. Plus, we’ll see you tomorrow, right? At the wedding.” She turns her attention on Sean. “On that note, we really should get going. They won’t hold our reservation if we’re more than fifteen minutes late.”
Peter takes his car keys out of his front pocket. “Thanks for a lovely evening, Mrs. McKenna. It was great to be in this backyard again. Brought back a lot of happy memories.”
“It was good to see you again, Peter,” my mom says. “It’s always a pleasure to have you kids around.”
Everyone takes a turn hugging my parents, thanking them for the lovely evening, and I watch the old gang leave, rubbing the spot on my head where Mark drilled his knuckle, feeling a bruise forming already.