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“I’m glad you’re here. Maybe we can grab lunch this week and catch up? You know. For old times’ sake.”

I’d rather drive a fork into my eye than share a meal with you, I think, but keep the words to myself.

“Old times?” Sienna butts in. “I don’t remember there being any good ol’ times with you. Do you, Max?”

Misty’s smile stretches a little wider. “Always the same old Sienna. Blunt to a fault, even to your own detriment. Haven’t you ever heard that you attract more flies with honey than vinegar?”

“You know what else attracts flies? Bullshit. And on that note, I think I’ve officially hit my quota for the day. Excuse me. I need a refill.”

Sienna throws me a glance before walking away, silently asking if I’ll be okay on my own for a little while.

I give her a small nod, keeping my lips pressed into a thin line.

“Same old Sienna. I didn’t know you two had kept in touch all these years,” Misty says, watching Sienna cut through the crowd toward the open bar.

“I didn’t know you’d been keeping tabs on me either, so I guess we’re both full of surprises.”

Misty laughs, and it still carries that same practiced, musical quality.

God, how it disgusts me.

“I wouldn’t call it keeping tabs, per se. I just like to know what my old friends have been up to. Is that a crime?”

“If it crosses into stalking? Then yes. Last I checked, that’s still a crime.”

When Misty laughs even harder, it takes everything in me not to slap her just to make that annoying sound stop.

“Me? A stalker?” She chuckles. “My, you do have a writer’s imagination, don’t you? I forgot how carried away that imagination of yours can get.”

Liar.

Misty knows exactly how wild my imagination is.

She used to count on it, after all.

Because of her, there was a time when I didn’t feel safe even in my own home.

A time when I spent countless nights too scared to fall asleep, jumping at every noise, every shadow, every little creak of the floorboards, terrified that someone was lurking outside my windows or waiting for me in the dark.

The memory of those nights has my teeth grinding.

“Believe me, nothing my imagination could come up with could ever compare to the things you and your friends put me through.”

Her fake smile vanishes, replaced by a venomous scowl.

“I think if we’re going to enjoy ourselves this week, we should leave the past where it belongs. No one wants to spend the reunion rehashing stupid things we did when we were young and didn’t know any better.”

“Are you saying you’ve outgrown the person you were at eighteen?”

“I’m saying we’re not kids anymore. Why don’t we act like adults and let bygones be bygones?”

“That’s easier said than done.”

“Try.”

It’s the way she says the word try that makes it sound less like a suggestion and more like an order.

Still, if Misty thinks I’ll be easily intimidated, she has another thing coming.