Wrangled

But if I’m lucky, they won’t recognize me quite as instantly as Virginia did.

I shield half my face with a hand and turn my attention back to my food, of which I very suddenly realize I won’t be able to eat more than a fifth. California’s changed my stomach, too. I can’t bear the sight of so much melty, runny, oozy food on one plate. There’s even a tiny ravine of gravy that dripped over the side.

I pull out my phone, snap a photo, and send it to Salvador.

He calls me ten seconds later.

“Don’t do it! You’re too young and beautiful!” he cries out the moment I answer.

I snort. “I can’t brave tomorrow on an empty stomach. And there are only so many choices. It was either this, or the greasy burger joint I avoided my whole childhood called Biggie’s.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re there. You hate Spruce.”

With a glance at the bar, I realize the three men have drawn silent, staring my way now.

I uncross my legs, twist my body away from them, and lower my voice. “So tell me, have you burned down my apartment yet?”

“Only the kitchen and half your bedroom, but working on the rest, I promise,” Salvador answers with impressive faux sincerity. “You’ll have a totally scorched ruin to come back to.”

I peer over my shoulder again. The guys are still glancing my way, chatting to each other in suspicious hushes. The bartender is in on their gossipy banter, too. They’re probably making fun of me, pointing out my designer pants and shirt, my shiny shoes, the ten or eleven wristlets decorating my arm, and my perfect, stylish sweep of blond hair. I clean up well, and my time in LA has taught me the importance of dolling yourself up no matter where you go—even if it’s a little dumpy restaurant in town like this one.

But I do realize it makes me stand out in the wrong way.

And that trio of country boys is not the target audience for my whole California-transplant attire tonight.

“Why did you go at all?”

His question pulls my attention back to him. “Go?”

“To that awful redneck town you’re from. I mean, didn’t the boys there torment you all through grade school?”

There are a few ways I could answer this, but my west-coast bestie Salvador and I have a particular style in which we interact. It involves cleverly-worded snark, taking nothing seriously, and never sharing any actual truth to each other. A totally healthy friendship, in other words. “Oh, you think I was the tormented party? No, no, my friend. This town just couldn’t handle me.”

Flashback to a time I was shoved into a locker, crying.

Flashback to loud, jeering taunts cutting through the cafeteria from a table of hateful, laughing athletes.

Flashback to a bag of flour that was dumped over my head just before my first class freshman year.

All three of those flashbacks had one thing in common: the face of a boy with bright blue eyes and the devil in his heart.

The face of a boy named Chad Landry.

“Yeah,” I say in response to some other thing Salvador comes back at me with. “I was the one tormenting these simple-minded fools with my radiance. Hah, this little town, it doesn’t even …” I blink away another pesky, tormenting flashback. “It doesn’t even know what to … what to do with such a lustrous demigod like me.”

“So again, I must ask, why are you there? I didn’t go to my ten-year reunion. Goodness, no one I know goes to theirs.”

I glance down at my plate full of food, which I still haven’t touched. “Oh, I have my reasons. I came here to show all my old childhood friends how far I’ve come, flaunt my success in a non-arrogant, slightly palatable way, and …” I straighten my back, take a self-affirming breath, then finish: “… and to bid goodbye to this small, nothing town for good.”

“Sounds like you have your own buildings to burn.” I hear the clink of a glass. “Here’s to burning it all down, my friend.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Is that my wine you’re guzzling?”

“Mmm, the fruits of having a best friend like you who lets me and my fiancé stay in your cute apartment while you’re gone …”

Fiancé.

Salvador has already gotten so used to that little word. Fiancé. It just falls right off his tongue … Fiancé.

That’s a new development as of one week ago, just prior to my decision to come here to Spruce for my reunion—a decision I was struggling with for months, until I heard that Salvador’s boyfriend proposed to him, and Salvador said yes.

I should maybe mention that Salvador’s boyfriend Richie also happens to be my ex from seven long years ago.

It isn’t exactly the first time Salvador has shared something of mine. Or went for my sloppy seconds. Or ridden on my coattails. Or “permanently borrowed” some cash, or a referral, or a contact to advance his modeling career.