Reunion (7 page)

In the cab on our way to the Banquet hall where the reunion was going to be held I felt nervous and excited. My internal monologue was creeping in. Wait why am I so nervous? I’m just going to do a little harmless flirting and dirty dancing maybe. I’ll drink a few but I’ll make sure I can still speak at the end of the night. Why was I so nervous about making Sam jealous? I didn’t want him back. He broke my heart. Two times in my life was enough. For me there are no third chances. But could I bear to see him and Christa together? Would I handle it. Memories of our 5 year swept in. I had not seen Sam for almost 7 months. I received a Birthday card from him sometime in between then.

Sav, Hope you have a wonderful day

Thinking of you, Always,

Love,

Sam

I burned it of course. I continued with my flashback from five years ago.

~

I knew I would see him and I would be cordial. We would hang out and I would dance and drink with my friends. That would be that. Nothing more. When we got the reunion and walked in the place there was more than half our graduating class there. I met the girls and we grabbed a table. We exchanged pleasantries with people we hadn’t seen since graduation. Most of the conversations were about us all getting our first jobs and apartments. I saw Sam walk in with Tyler and the rest of the guys and they came right up to our table.

“Hi ladies are you ready to have some fun tonight?” Tyler announced. He went around the table to kiss each of us on the cheek. The rest of the guys followed him including Sam. As he approached me I felt that tingle in my legs and my heart began to beat uncontrollably. He bent down when he got to me. He smelled so fucking good I wanted to lick his neck. I needed to control myself. I was going to play this cool.

“Hey Sav. You look beautiful.” He pecked my cheek.

“Hey Sam.” I gave him a half hearted smile. I swear if the room was silent you could hear my heart beat out of my chest. Why did I feel this way? We were over. Long over. Everyone stared at me and I turned and said

“What?” Trish laughed and said “ Some things just never change.”

“And whats that supposed to mean?”

“Sav I saw him when he walked through the door. He was searching for you right away. I could tell. I think he is trying to make the effort to at least close the book on you guys. You didn’t break up on the best terms .”

“Listen he made his choice. I wasn’t enough for him obviously. We are done and I’m fine.”

Everyone knew I was lying.

We danced all night. Snapped pictures, drank beer and laughed our butts off. Every once in a while I’d see Sam from across the room. He was watching me dance and be silly with my friends. He would always give me a half smile and raise his beer to me. Why did he have to be so damn good looking? He was dressed quite casually. We were all discovering our own unique styles. He wore baggy jeans and a short sleeved button down shirt. Baby blue and it hung down around the jeans. He looked comfortable. I already knew how he smelled. Fresh laundry and cologne from Abercrombie. I swear I could smell it from the dance floor. I was almost as though the scent was permanently implanted in my brain and a switch would go off with the smell at the very nearness of him. Later I spotted Christa at the bar. I wanted to be nice so I casually asked.

“Hey Christa. How have you been?’ She turned to me and flashed a bright white smile.

“Oh Hello Savannah. Good to see you. What have you been up to? I heard you moved to Boston? So far away from home. I bet you miss home and other things here, right?”

“Not quite sure what you mean by that Christa.”

“There’s the number one thing to miss standing right over there.” She nodded her head towards Sam. “I’d be missing that in a heartbeat if I was so far away from him. How do you manage it?”

“Um I don’t anymore. We broke up in the spring.” I replied. Why did i tell her that?

“What a pity. Was it the distance or did you fuck it up somehow?”

“Excuse me Christa. You have no idea what you’re talking about and I’m not about to explain to you the details of our breakup.”

“Well apparently Sam wasn’t worth your time either. If you don’t mind I’d love to give it a shot with him if he is willing and I bet my ass that he would be.”

“Whatever Christa.” I turned my head and walked away. She was more than I could take. My stomach turned and I felt the acid building up. The girls and I and a few of the guys were on the dance floor we all broke out in the electric slide. The guys were trying to catch up and Tyler stood beside me and followed my moves. We were laughing at their lack of coordination. When the song was done Tyler hugged me and laughed.

“Ah Sav I could never keep up with your dancing skills. Even when you tried teaching me how to dance for our 9
^th
Grade formal. Remember that?”

“Haha of course I do and so does my toe you broke. It still never heeled right.” We both laughed. Then a slow song came on. Tyler turned to me.

“Come on Sav. Let me show you how good I’ve gotten at this over the years.”

We danced and discussed how Boston was. “Ty I talk to you once a week. You know how Boston is. Whats with the small talk?”

“Nothing. I guess. It’s just that...” He paused.

“What Tyler? Spill it.”

“ Did you talk to Sam?” Just then a hand appeared on his shoulder and we turned to look and saw it was Sam.

“Nope.” Sam added. “Not a word but I’d like to catch up. Can I cut in Ty?”

Tyler looked at me. I rolled my eyes slightly and reluctantly nodded yes. Tyler winked at me and walked off the dance floor. Sam took me in his arms and spun me around. I tried not to inhale him but that was close to impossible. “So how have you been Sav?”

“I’m good. Busy but I love it. I’m happy.”

“Are you now?” He said sarcastically.

“Yes I am. I love my job. How is your job going?”

“It’s good. I’m not traveling overseas as much as I thought. I’ve been to New York and DC a few times and back in August I was actually in Boston for a few days.”

I swallowed hard. “You were?”

“Yep for four whole days.” I just wandered around the city. Hitting a few bars with some of the guys I worked with. I even hit this little place you may have heard of it Smitty’s On South?” I was dumbfounded. Sweat beaded up behind my neck. Smitty’s on South was a little place I sometimes would perform at with my friend who plays acoustic guitar. We work together and he asked me if I wanted to do vocals while he played. He frequented a few places in the city. Little holes in the wall but he thought he may pull in a larger crowd if there was a singer. I was excited to do it. We played at Smitty’s a lot on Friday night during Happy Hour.

“Oh so how did you like Smitty’s?” I asked with my eyes closed tightly and waiting for the answer I hope I wasn’t going to get.

“Oh it was good. We went to happy hour there that Friday night. Drinks were good. The entertainment was even better. “

Oh shit.

“Why Sav your palms are sweating. What’s wrong?” I felt him chuckle a bit. I said nothing. Sam paused for what seemed like eternity as we continued to dance.

“I just have one question for you. Why did you sing our song?” He raised my chin up with one of his long thin fingers and looked into my eyes. I turned my face around away from him even though we were still dancing and I felt our bodies getting closer as the song continued to play.

“You were there that night?” I asked in almost a whisper. I was sure he could feel my heart beat against his chest. I felt like it was going to explode. He nodded.

“I sang it cause my friend who plays the acoustic guitar thought I may have been able to handle the vocals and he slowed the arrangement. It just happened to be that song. Don’t read into it too much.”

“Sav it will never be just a song to me and yes I was there and you were the last thing I expected to see when I sat down with my business associates. You had on a blue and white halter top and a jean skirt. Your hair was down and when there was a break in the song you would sway your head back and forth and your hair would glide across the microphone.” I stopped dancing dead in my tracks. I looked up into his eyes.

“How do you remember all that?”

“Because in case you don’t know it I’m still crazy in love with you and I can’t stop myself from thinking about you and what we had and I haven’t stopped since the night at the café. I made a mistake.” He continued to stare at me.

“Then if you were at Smitty’s why didn’t you come up to me after my set was through?”

“Sav you made it perfectly clear that you wanted nothing else to do with. You were working and I didn’t want to upset you. I hid way in the back so you wouldn’t see me. I saw you though. Perfectly.”

“So you’re standing here telling me that you are still in love with me and you made a mistake and you want us back. I just want to get this straight.” I paused and we stopped dancing. I took my hands away from his and put them down to my sides.

“You think cause you remembered what I was wearing one night at a gig and I sang what you call our song that I was just going to be like ok let’s get back together? Is that what you thought Sam?”

He stood there shocked. “Um well I didn’t think you were seeing anybody and I thought we could take it slow.”

“I guess you should of done your homework there dumb jock. I started seeing someone just a few weeks ago.”

I was a big , fat liar.

I stood there solid and folded my arms across my chest.

“Oh really. That’s is news to me since I asked everyone of your girlfriends if you were seeing anyone and they told me no. They said you hadn’t dated anyone since we broke up. So why lie Sav?”

“Listen asshole I don’t have to tell my girlfriends everything that goes on in my life and I certainly don’t have to explain myself to you or explain my relationship with... Colin to you.” I quickly thought of a name.

He dropped his gaze at me. “Oh so he has a name. Colin you say? Isn’t that the name of the guitar player you sing with? I saw his name on the Sandwich board in front of Smitty’s that night?”

I nodded yes

“Are you fucking him? Be honest with me cause I can’t take this too much more” He shook his head at me a held up both his hands.

“You are such an arrogant ass Sam Reynolds. You can’t take much more? You can’t! Well I wasn’t the one that told me he no longer wanted to be with me because we didn’t have anything to talk about and he decided he wanted to stick his dick in everything that walked. You are actually saying to me you can’t take much more? How about my thoughts of you kissing and having sex with other people for the past 7 months. Did you think I wouldn’t think about that? And my sex life is no longer your business. You are so full of yourself.”

My voice was raised and I was pointing my finger into his chest. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Savannah stop. Just walk away honey. Let’s go. “ Lilian said quietly. I looked around and realized we were the only two on the dance floor.

“It’s taken me almost eight months to get over you. Do you realize the pain you put me through and I was doing it alone. Don’t you get it.”

The tears began to flow from my eyes and down my cheeks. My throat got tight and I couldn’t look him. All I could do was look down.

“Sav, I didn’t pursue anything with the girl I was talking to. I went out with a few girls but that’s about it. It never got too far. Every girl I went out with, they weren’t you. All I saw was your face. Please believe me. You have to believe me.” His face was serious and I swore I saw his eyes water up. He grabbed my face and held his gaze into my eyes. “ I have never lied to you Sav. In the years I have known you I have never lied to you. Why would I start now. When I wanted to end it I was honest with you and told you how I felt first. I didn’t cheat on you. That’s not me.”

“What about Senior Fun Night when I saw you and Christa kiss by the boys bathroom? What the hell was that? You didn’t lie to me then? Christa told me you kissed her.”

“Whoa wait she said that? Sav I told you what happened. I was waiting in line to use the bathroom and she walked up to me and pinned me against the wall. I pushed her away from me. She was drunk Sav. That was 5 years ago. We’ve been through so much more than that. Why would you still have that in your head. You’re jealousy is ridiculous.”

He took a step away from me. The DJ put on another song. It was a song that reminded him of the two of us. It reminded me of him as well. Sam rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and growled at the song choice. He grabbed me by the elbow and led me off the dance floor towards one of the exits. I struggled to get him off of me as we made our way out to the parking lot. “ What are you doing Sam. Get off of me”. I yelled at him

“We are not going anywhere until you hear what I have to say Savannah! You hear me!”He yelled right back at me.

“You can’t tell me what to do. I’m no longer yours Sam. We are over.” I screamed in his face. “Oh and I suppose your this Colin characters then huh? Do you want him Sav? Does he know you like I do? Does he touch you like I do? Does he know your thoughts by just looking into your eyes? Does he put up with your dirty smart ass mouth? Tell me Sav cause I’ll walk the fuck away right now. I swear I will. How many times do I have to tell you I made a mistake and I’m sorry. You are all I want in my life. All I ever wanted and needed.” He pleaded to me with intense eyes.

“Sam I … I.” I don’t know how but suddenly I could not speak as I stared into his eyes and the next thing I knew his lips were upon mine. His tongue searching mine. Tasting me. Deep intense kisses full of want and passion. My hands found his hair and I pushed my fingers through it. Through his waves. His hands explored my face, my chest and I felt a familiar ache of want between my legs.

“I want you Savannah.” Sam breathed into my ear. I melted almost instantly.

It didn’t take long to find his car in the parking lot. We climbed in the back seat. We were all over each other. His hands were tangled in my hair, his lips on my neck. His tongue in my ear. My hand traveled over his chest and I felt his heart beating on my hand. He smelled so good. I wanted to drink him in. His hand found the zipper on my jeans and I found his as well. He pulled away gently and looked at me intensely. Oh God I wanted him. I wanted him inside me. I needed to feel him. He ripped open my blouse and pulled at my bra. He found my nipples and tugged at them with his mouth. I threw my head back and shut my eyes tight. My hands found his ass and I squeezed it and hung onto it for dear life while he sucked and played with my breasts.