“I should be at home, working,” I say.
“You can take four days off,” Rob says. “It’s not like you’re an oncologist.”
I am very far away from practicing life-saving medicine. I write rom-com scripts for a living. Think meet cutes, splashy set pieces, heartthrobs choking back tears as they profess unlikely, undying love to a woman who purportedly works at a magazine and always has blown-out hair.
I’ll wait for you to stop laughing.
My career is admittedly a departure from the misanthropic sensibility for which I am known. However, please note I’m surprisingly good at it. I had two indie hits back-to-back right out of grad school. Granted, that was eight years ago. But my producer is in talks with an A-lister to play the lead in the screenplay I’m finishing, and I think it could be a hit.
A big one, even.
Which my career could desperately use. I get steady work writing for hire, but after my success right out of the gate, I was vain enough to think I’d be the next Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers, banging out stone-cold classicswhile minting money. Right now, I’m coming up short in the “millionaire voice of a generation” department.
“Appetizers are about to be served,” Marian continues from the stage. “So if y’all can go find your seats now, that would be perfect. We’re going to have this fabulous meal and then we’re going to get down like we’re sixteen again! To kick us off, there are icebreaker questions at each table. Chat through them while you enjoy your scallops. Now go have so much fun!”
I grab Dezzie’s hand. “I can’t believe I have to endure this alone.”
“You’re going to be great, princess,” she says, detaching herself from my grip. “Knock ’em dead. If not with charm, then with that famed sinister glare.”
“I already regret this.”
“Look, here’s our table,” Dez says to Rob, pointing at a nearby eight-top already populated with that quiet guy who founded a hedge fund and Chaz Logan, the funniest boy in our class.
“Oh man, you got Chazandthe billionaire?” I whine, despite being thirty-three years old. “I’m legit jealous.”
Dez scans the room. “Oh, I think your table will be interesting.”
I follow her eyes to a smaller table toward the side of the tent, near the beach, with a seagull-shaped sign that reads: Table 8.
And sitting at it, alone, is Seth Rubenstein.
My breath lodges painfully in my esophagus.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I hiss.
CHAPTER 2Seth
I’m having so much fun. Iloveshit like this.
We’re one hour into my fifteen-year high school reunion and I’ve already recapped the last decade with my old chem partner, Gloria, and her wife, Emily (they’re set designers in Hollywood, and they just got a dog), looked at twenty pictures of Mike Wilson’s baby (cute little guy), threatened to throw Marian into the ocean (I love Marian, and she looks great), had two craft cocktails named after our high school (totally delish), and watched a snip of the Lightning game on Loren Heyman’s phone (I’m not a hockey guy, but I think Loren thinks I’m someone else, and I like that about him).
I am now sitting at table eight, alone, because unlike the rest of my former classmates who are still milling about, I respect Marian’s intricately choreographed event protocol. Besides, when you’re the first at the table, you get to watch everyone’s reactions as they realize they have to talk to you all night.
It’s a blast.
I stretch out my legs with my back to the lovely Gulf of Mexico, sip my Palm Bay Preptini, and tap my foot to the opening of “Margaritaville” as I await my dining companions.
There are those addictively crunchy Parmesan twists sticking out from thebreadbasket—yum—and I grab one and bite into it. A somewhat embarrassing amount of cheese crumbs falls on my chest.
I’m brushing the schmutz off my jacket when I look up and my stomach lurches.
It’s Molly Marks, standing in the shadow of a potted palm, looking at me in horror.
I haven’t seen her in fifteen years.
Not since the night we broke up.
Or rather, since she broke up with me, stunningly and without notice, in a way that I didn’t get over until deep into college—or possibly law school, depending on how much PBR I’d been drinking.
