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LANDON
TEN YEARS LATER
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“HEY, LOOK WHO’S HERE.” My buddy Josh motions to the doorway with his drink, and I see two women enter the room—both beautiful in short cocktail dresses, but only one snares my attention like a hound on the hunt.
Emily Houghton.
It’s been ten years since I last saw her on the day of our graduation, and she’s as gorgeous as ever. Even more so with fuller curves and a glow about her that only comes with maturity.
For a decade, I’ve worked to get my life together—blazed through a string of superficial relationships—yet Emily remained in the back of my mind, a beacon of what could be.
I wouldn’t call it pining exactly.
We’ve never spoken more than a few words to each other. But my deepest fantasy of claiming the good girl—making her mine in the filthiest of ways, of basking in her aura of warmth and kindness—it followed me into every one-night-stand or doomed-to-fail relationship.
“Are you finally going to do something about this crush of yours? Or are you going to wait another decade before growing a pair of balls?” Josh asks with a smirk, and a couple of our former teammates snicker. It’s no secret I was gone for Emily our senior year, but I didn’t realize they knew about my lingering infatuation.
Taking a measured drink of my cocktail—some specially made fruity concoction Josh forced us to try—I consider my options. Wasting another chunk of my life wondering What if? isn’t appealing. Better to get it out of my system. Except I’m not convinced a weekend with Emily will be enough. What if the experience of knowing what it’s like to have her only heightens my obsession?
We live worlds apart.
Do I expect us to start a relationship?
Hell, she could already be in one.
A jealous knot coils around my heart as I search for any sign Emily arrived with someone other than her friend. No man hanging around in the background, though that hardly comforts me. He could be parking the car or in the restroom. The tart flavor of pineapple burns my tongue as I swig the rest of my cocktail in one go. I don’t want her to have a man.
And if she doesn’t? What are you going to do about it?
This is our ten-year reunion.
Homecoming weekend.
Our time’s limited, and while I’ve never had a problem getting women, Emily’s different. She makes me feel different. Case in point? The one and only time I approached her in college and confused the hell out of her. That awkward five minutes during lunch replays in my dreams, remembering her scrunched brows, the hesitancy in her voice. I lost any sort of flirting skills I possessed the moment I sat next to her.
“I’m not sure yet. I didn’t come here with plans to make a move.” Not entirely true, but a course of action eludes me.
The guys share looks of doubt when the Dean of Student Alumni calls for everyone’s attention and ushers us into a larger room set up for the banquet dinner. Cocktail hour’s over, and any chance I had to casually approach Emily ends with it.
I try to focus as conversations swirl around me from players and their significant others, smiling and nodding at each introduction and life update like my every cell isn’t honed into the fact that Emily is in my line of vision. She keeps checking her phone, a frown pinching her bow-shaped lips, and I wonder what’s wrong.
Who’s on the other end of the line? A husband? A boyfriend?
Whoever they are, the exchange doesn’t improve the longer the evening wears on because Emily visibly wilts as each hour passes—shoulders drooping, smiles dimming. I wish I could check on her, but I doubt a stranger digging into her private life is what she needs right now.
Her friends are probably better equipped to help her, anyway.
But they seem distracted by talking amongst themselves. Can’t they see how disengaged she is from their conversation? Why isn’t someone saying something?
“Earth to Landon!” A hard punch lands on my arm, jolting me back to awareness. Varying degrees of amused and annoyed expressions greet me as my eyes pan around the table. Michael, the offended party, waves his hand in front of my face. “Can you forget about Emily for a second? Considering how we were roommates for two years while you’ve only spoken two sentences to her? I asked what you thought about the Pacers trading Madison for Young.”
Normally, discussing basketball news would excite me, but it pisses me off he wants to cop an attitude because I missed a random question. “I thought it was a shitty move. Satisfied?”
“Easy, boys.” Josh’s wife intercedes, raising her hands in a mock stance of holding us away from each other. “Landon, it’s rude to ignore your friends, even if it is to stare longingly at the woman of your dreams. And Michael, lighten up. The four of us literally had dinner together last weekend where y’all debated this same topic.”
Everyone grins at her expert wrangling. As if we’re the age of her and Josh’s little girl.
Michael and I shrug in agreement, and the mood brightens with easier conversation that I try making a priority, instead of spying on Emily every two seconds.
Every five seconds is good, though, right?