AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chad’s face is lit up with humor that, even in the dim lighting of this truck, makes his eyes glow.
“Uh, yeah! I mean, shoot, you’re talkin’ to a former wrestler who’s been the butt and the instigator of at least a hundred pranks, dares, and bets in his life.” He eyes me. “You should have upped your ante, man. Like, gone way out, especially if you were cookin’ up an evil plan like that. Hell, I’ll wear the thing if it makes you happy, or puts some kind of closure on the past between us.”
“You sure about that?”
“Fuck yeah. Scout’s honor. Consider it a done deal. So let’s see the thing. Hand it over. Let’s go.”
I fish the jockstrap out of my satchel the next second, then lift it up, dangling it off my finger between us.
All the rest of Chad’s words swallow up in his throat.
I lift an eyebrow. “I never mentioned the jockstrap’s color.”
13
A Jock in a Jock
It’s difficult to put into words the effect that the Evans’s estate has on the senses when you approach it.
I’ve seen a lot of large houses in LA. Sprawling ones. Tall ones. Mega-million-dollar mansions.
Somehow, out here in the country, this palace that belongs to the Evans family is something I can’t even begin to conceive of in words. It’s so big, I don’t even see where it ends. When Chad and I enter through the front doors (which are twice our height), I’m already lost in the splendor of chandeliers, glass, gold, and rooms large enough to host three times the population of all of Spruce. Every room leads into some new room I hadn’t been in before. I have no idea when the house ends because we’re always strolling into yet another corridor, or another dining hall, or another wing of the kitchen. How does one family fill all of this space?
I mean, the property taxes alone.
I could die.
It’s in one of the large rooms—Ballrooms? Banquet halls? A den of Godzilla proportions? Seriously, what do I call each of these rooms??—that Chad and I reunite with a number of his friends we were sitting with at the reunion. They seem to have forgotten we left them high and dry—or else were filled in by a cranky Owen—for at once I’m roped into a string of interrogating questions about life on the west coast, and whether it’s true that it never rains or gets cold in Los Angeles.
A moment later finds Chad and I by a long table of delicate finger foods, desserts, and a tower of champagne glasses complete with a hired butler standing by prepared to serve us—which he promptly does. I take just one sip to confirm it is, indeed, the high dollar stuff, as well as a small plate of fancy cheeses, since in all fairness, we only ate a few bites of our big dinner at the reunion before skipping off to compete in an impromptu wrestling match.
A wrestling match that I will tentatively say I won.
Insert cocky, victorious smirk here.
It’s in the brightest (and most crowded) room in the house that I spot a small group of familiar faces lounging around a circle of fancy, bright-white sofas—the kind you don’t dare sit on with a glass of red wine in your hand. Among the group of faces is the one and only Vanessa Evans herself, daughter of Cassie Evans and valedictorian of our class. She always appears to be thinking of something equally clever and funny, as is indicated by her semi-permanent, strangely-inviting smirk. Her tall shape and her long limbs and neck make her look like an exotic bird perched on her throne, no matter where she sits. While her appearance suggests royalty—with her glittering, expensive jewelry dangling from each ear and adorning her wrists and fingers—her demeanor exudes an unexpected air of warmth. Despite the ten years, she looks exactly the same way I remember her, like she hasn’t aged a minute.
Seated next to her is the guy no one expected her to befriend, let alone get in a relationship with. There isn’t much remarkable to note about Robby, as his face is somewhat forgettable, neither attractive nor unattractive, but round, featureless, and boyish. He looks like the guy who lives next door to everyone, and something about his lofty expression suggests he’s both interested and bored with everything around him. I don’t know if it’s a result of his trying to fit in with these very unfitting surroundings over the years (or however long they’ve been dating), but something about his presence at her side certainly feels “transplanted”.
Or maybe I’m just a judgmental jerk?
He gently scratches her back while she chats away with the others encircling the couch—all of them Vanessa’s friends, telling by the sheer absence of other wrestlers, athletes, or choirboys.
