Date Next Door

The way she studied his face made him wonder if she could actually read his mind. But of course she couldn’t, he assured himself a bit too quickly. Her extrasensory talents, if that’s what they were, seemed to be more precognitive than telepathic. Not that he believed in stuff like that, of course.

“Nic and I are pretty good at brainstorming,” she said. “Why don’t you try us?”

“Yeah, Joel,” Nic seconded. “Aislinn and I are always dumping problems on each other and usually we come up with some sort of solution. We’d be happy to talk about what’s bothering you if you want to discuss it. If not, just tell us to butt out and we’ll change the subject.”

He had always found it easy to be with Nic. Comfortable. He liked the way she treated him. Like a regular guy. Not an eligible bachelor-doctor. Or worse—a tragically romantic figure. Women usually classified him as one or the other, sometimes an uncomfortable combination. Nic simply saw him as her neighbor and friend.

Maybe she would understand the dilemma that had been weighing on him for the past couple of weeks….

“What happened?” she asked encouragingly. “Is it one of your patients?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s—this is going to sound pretty silly,” he said with an irritated shake of his head.

“Try us.”

He looked into the two inquiring faces turned toward him and sighed.

“My high school class back in Alabama is having an informal fifteen-year reunion in a couple of weeks. They’re attending the homecoming football game, which is against a big rival, and then having several activities and a dance the next day, followed by a farewell breakfast on Sunday morning. I’m just dreading it, that’s all.”

Aislinn’s expression didn’t change in response to Joel’s revelation. Nic looked surprised, but he couldn’t blame her for that. He doubted that she had expected a mere high school reunion to be his dilemma. But then, she didn’t know the whole story.

“A fifteen-year reunion?” she repeated.

He nodded. “Our class secretary was Heidi Pearl. Heidi Rosenbaum now. If it were up to her, we’d get together every year. Thank goodness the class confines her to having reunions only once every five years.”

“Did you go to the last one?”

“Yeah.” He figured his tone gave her an indication of how awful that had been.

Nic shrugged. “Last I heard, there’s no law that says you have to attend high school reunions. I’m not sure I’ll go to my ten-year reunion next summer. I’ve got better things to do than to sit around with a bunch of people I barely know now, talking about embarrassing adolescent memories. Aislinn’s the only friend I held on to from high school, and she and I see each other often enough.”

“Yeah, but I’m kind of expected to go. I was the class president.”

“Of course you were,” Nic murmured.

He gave her a mild look, then added, “Besides, Heidi works for my dad. There aren’t any excuses that would hold up to her daily inquisitions.”

“She sounds kind of scary.”

“Trust me. She’s terrifying.”

Nic chuckled, then shook her head. “Still. You should just tell them you aren’t interested this time.”

“I wish I could.”

“Why can’t you?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” she said again.

“I think she will understand,” Aislinn said, making him wonder if she had somehow already guessed his quandary. Good intuition, he reminded himself. Nothing more.

The funny thing was, he thought maybe Nic would understand. One of the few women in the small-town Arkansas police department where she worked, she was well accustomed to trying to meet everyone else’s expectations.

“Judging from past experience,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully, “if I go, I’ll be greeted with cloying sympathy and treated like some kind of tragic hero. If I don’t go, everyone will be even more convinced that I’m an emotional basket case.”

“You? A basket case?” Nic’s eyes were wide with surprise beneath her fringe of blond-streaked bangs. “You’re, like, the sanest, most normal guy I know.”