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He stood so quickly, he nearly knocked over his chair.
“Lexi.” God, she looked great. Her light brown hair was curly now, but everything else about her was just as he remembered, from the warm hazel eyes to the stunning smile to the button nose and rosy cheeks.
“When Dawn said you were here,” she said, “I didn’t believe her since I heard you didn’t come to the last one.”
“I’m here.”
She hugged him, and it took his brain five seconds to send the signal to his arms that he should hug her back.
Lexi.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said.
He quickly found that she smelled the same, too, like sweetness and sunshine and everything perfect. “You, too.”
Max had so many questions, such as where had she been for the last ten years? He’d tried a few times to find her on social media, but she had no presence there or anywhere as far as he could tell. A Google search had come up empty, too. How did a person not exist online in this day and age? According to Max’s mother, her family had moved to Texas and only returned for an occasional visit or ski weekend.
Just as he was about to ask where she’d been, a woman with a camera came at them. “Our class couple back together again! Smile, you guys!”
Max leaned into Lexi and smiled for the camera, but he wished everyone else would go away and leave them alone so he could talk to the only person from high school he’d truly missed. And yes, now that she was standing right next to him, he realized just how much he’d missed her, despite the hurt and confusion she’d caused him with her disappearance.
However, everyone else had missed her, too, so for the next hour, they were surrounded by old friends who’d missed them both.
He barely remembered some of them and had to laugh at how far removed his life was from who and what he’d been in high school. Becoming a single father at twenty-two had sent him in a whole new direction, and even though he still lived in Butler, he felt like he’d traveled a million miles from the innocence of high school in the last ten years.
They talked about things he could barely recall—teachers, classes, specific football games, ski outings and the basketball team’s run for the state championship their senior year. As one of the starting forwards on the team, that he remembered. They’d come up one win short, and Max could still taste the bitter regret that had stayed with him and his teammates long after that final loss.
But that wasn’t something he dwelled on the way it seemed some of his teammates had. He’d had more important things to think about, such as first-grade homework, karate classes and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches madeonlyon white bread with the crusts removed.
“You’re quiet,” Lexi said.
Most of the group moved to the dance floor when the DJ started playing songs from their graduation year.
“I don’t have much to add,” Max said. “I barely remember what the school looked like, let alone what table we sat at for lunch.”
She gave him a quizzical look that brought back so many memories of spending every possible minute with her once upon a time. “You really don’t remember what the school looked like?”
He shook his head. “It’s like a blank spot.”
“You ought to have that checked.”
Laughing, he said, “It’s because there’re so many things that’ve happened since then that take up the space in my brain.”
“Like what?”
“Did you hear I have a son?”
Her expression conveyed shock. “What? No! When did that happen?”
He told her about Chloe getting pregnant their senior year of college. “Caden is the best thing to ever happen to me. He’s… There’s not a word big enough to describe him.”
“That’s amazing, Max. I’m so happy for you. Let me see some pictures.”
Did she sound sad after learning he had a son? He pulled out the iPhone that was mostly useless to him in Butler, but it was full of photos of his blond little boy that he shared with Lexi.
“Oh, Max. He’s beautiful!”
“I’m completely biased, but I agree. He’s also sweet, kind, polite, funny as hell and a great athlete. We have so much fun together.”
