AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d had it bad for him. When we officially started dating, I hadn’t been able to believe my luck. He’d been my first love. So young and naïve, I’d been under the impression that we were going to be together forever. But of course, first loves weren’t meant to last. I’d had to find that out the hard way, and boy, had it been a hard lesson.
I sighed, still watching him. He hadn’t noticed me at all. It had been so long though, I wondered if he would even notice me if he did happen to look my way. I’d grown quite a lot from the stick-figured teenager he had known me to be back then.
He, on the other hand, still looked pretty much the same, save for the facial hair and bigger muscles.
My face feeling overheated, I looked back to my group of friends. They were huddled around the table, still gossiping.
Mila was outside, still having her cigarette.
And there I was, all alone.
Oh, what the hell? I thought, and chugged down the rest of my beer. I glanced toward Preston again, an adventurous and daring streak coming over me. I’d been looking for some fun, and felt there was a chance that I had finally found it. I’d be dumb to let the moment just pass me by…
So I slid down from my barstool, smoothed out my slinky black dress, flipped my hair over the shoulder, and sauntered my way over to Preston Walker.
CHAPTER 2
Tobias
“It’s been too long. We really have to do this more often,” I said, grinning at the guys before me.
“Aww, bro. Don’t get all sentimental on us,” Theo said.
“Hey, it has been a while. He’s allowed to get sentimental. As long as he doesn’t start crying on us,” Rick said with a chuckle.
“Whatever, man,” I said, laughing as well.
It had been so long since I’d last seen Theo and Rick. The three of us had been good friends during our years at Hullen Prep Academy, the top-notch boarding school we had attended. But as is often the case, we grew up and grew apart, and in doing so, we had lost contact with each other for the most part. Although we followed each other on social media, our interaction had remained fairly minimal over the years, and it was clear that we had all been leading very separate lives as adults. After graduating Hullen Prep, Theo had stayed in his hometown, while Rick had gone off to a community college, and I’d gone off to law school with my best friend, Anderson.
While the four of us had hung out frequently at Hullen Prep, I had only maintained a close friendship with Anderson afterwards, especially since the two of us had created our multibillion-dollar firm together. Over the years, Theo and Rick had evidently reconnected without us, rekindling their friendship and enjoying modest success of their own.
I had missed my friendships with Theo and Rick, occasionally even talking about them to Anderson, wondering what had become of them even though I had admittedly hadn’t made much of an effort to reconnect with them over the years. Due to the financial success Anderson and I had been enjoying, I had learned to be cautious about the kind of friends I kept around. While I took pride in the fact that money hadn’t changed me, I was well aware that it could certainly change the people around me, for better or worse. I had unfortunately learned that the hard way, considering one of my ex-girlfriends had turned out to be the epitome of a gold-digger. I had been crazy about her, even thinking that we would someday end up married and raising a family together. But then I realized she was more interested in the shopping sprees I could send her on more than she was invested in me as a person.
“Gotta be careful about chicks like that nowadays, man,” Anderson had told me. “They’re going to be all around us now.”
It was painful how right he had been. I had thought I would have found someone special to settle down with by now, but I’d had no such luck. Granted, my stupid fucking trust issues were partially to blame.
“So, what you been up to, man?” Rick asked, slapping me on the shoulder.
“Working hard,” I said, already debating in my mind how much I wanted to tell them. “I went to law school, and the rest is history.”
“Fancy lawyer type now, huh?” Theo said, smirking. “Where you located? Downtown somewhere, right?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Cool. Hey—whatever happened to that buddy of yours? Anderson?”
“I was just about to ask that myself,” Rick said, laughing. “You still keep up with him? What’s he up to?”
“He’s doing good. We’re business partners, actually.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep.”
“So he straightened up and stopped being a class clown then?”
I laughed. “Well, he’s always been a bit of a class clown, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have his head screwed on straight. He’s always been a lot smarter than he let on. That’s the secret to his success.”
