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Rowan
I’m ready to go home before we even sit down, but I’ve promised myself that the start of my senior semester would not be as lame as high school was. I could be a whole new person here, someone cool, someone fun. No more know-it-all, four-eyed-Bates, school loser and village idiot.
God, I hated high school.
“Excuse me,” someone says, stepping up to our table. She’s carrying three full mugs of beer on a tray, and she carefully serves them to us. She’s trying to smile, it looks like, but she doesn’t look happy to be doing this at all. “From the guys at the bar.”
Carly squeals with delight, and Jamie flushes red. I turn in my seat to look towards the bar, eyes landing on three guys who are sitting together, watching us. As my eyes meet each of theirs, something in my throat tightens, and a ball of nausea forms in the pit of my stomach.
The middle guy, Matthew Nelson, has coal black hair, a chiseled jaw, and dark, serious eyes. Flanking him are two others; Dereck, a bulkier man with almond-colored hair and the physique of an athlete – football, maybe. And the third guy is a bit smaller, but just as attractive. He’s in jeans and a button up shirt. Paint-stained pants, like he just left an art studio. His name is Bryce, and I’d recognize any one of these men at any time.
“Damn,” says Carly. “Can you say, hotties?” She’s also looking in their direction now, and she waves a couple of perfectly manicured fingernails in their direction.
Jamie, still looking flustered at the idea that some guy has bought her a drink, chews her lip anxiously. “Do we have to send them anything back?” she asks the bartender, who shakes her head.
“Sweet, free booze.” Carly at once starts sipping on her beer, as does Jamie, but the orb of nausea that has been growing in my stomach expands, threatening to spill over, and I push my beer away, wishing a hole would appear and swallow me up, never to be seen again.
“What’s the matter?” Jamie asks, resting her hand on mine. I’m so startled that I jerk away from her, almost spilling the contents of the beer all over the table in the process.
“Yeah, you look like you’ve seen a fucking ghost,” Carly adds, barely looking in my direction. Her eyes have barely wavered from the beer she’s now gulping down like a fish.
I clear my throat and shake my head, but my eyes are still locked on the man in the middle. He’s staring right back at me, bold, dangerous eyes never wavering. A smirk plays on his lips, self-assured and cocky. I’d recognize that smirk anywhere.
It’s the smirk I prayed every day I would never see again after transferring schools.
“Excuse me,” I say, grabbing the bartender’s arm before she can hurry away. She turns to look at me, clearly annoyed, but I don’t care. Not right now, and not anymore.
“What?”
“Take this back, please.” I push the mug towards her, ignoring the frothy foam as it spills over the glass and onto the table. Carley’s jaw drops, and Jamie looks horrified, as though I’ve declared war on the three men across the room.
“Is there something wrong with it?” the bartender asks, like she really cares.
I shake my head. “Not with it, just with them.”
“Rowan, are you alright?” Jamie asks again.
The bartender opens her mouth, probably to argue, but I shake my head, cutting her off. “Just take it back, please.”
“Sure thing.” The woman nods once, grabs the spilled beer, and hurries away. I watch her approach the three men as she leans in to speak to them, shrugging her shoulders a bit. The guy in the middle jabs one of his friends with his elbow, both laughing, then peers around the bartender and back at me. The smirk hasn’t faded from his face, and that pisses me off more than anything else.
“Do you know those guys?” Carly asks. She’s already halfway done with her beer, to the point that amber liquid is dribbling down her chin. I tear my gaze away from the middle-man’s smirk and look at her.
“Yeah, I know them.”
“They’re cute,” Jamie says carefully, feeling things out, because the look on my face hasn’t wavered. “How do you know them?”
I look back at the guys. All three of them have turned around now, their backs to us, and I feel a slither of gratification down my spine. If I was petty, I’d throw something across the room at them.
One hundred points for each of the three headshots.
“I know them from high school,” I say.
“Were you friends?” Carly’s slurring a bit, getting drunker by the second. Normally, I wouldn’t care; Carly’s been a lush since I met her. But tonight, I find it annoying, an irritating click in the back of my mind that doesn’t waver.
“I wouldn’t say friends.”
“What would you say?” Jamie’s cheeks are reddening now on account of the booze, and the rigid posture she usually maintains is slowly starting to turn to jelly. I swallow a tight lump in my throat and reach for the ice water the bartender dropped off with the beer, taking a sip to soothe my frayed nerves.
“Their names are Matt, Bryce, and Dereck,” I say, unable to tear my eyes from burning holes in the back of their heads. “They were my high school bullies.”
Carly bursts into giggles, spewing beer all over the tabletop. “Come on, Suzie Q,” she says with a laugh. “We all had high school bullies. Who the fuck cares?”
“Carly, knock it off,” scolds Jamie, turning to me. She rests her hand once more on top of mine and squeezes, shooting me a sympathetic look. I smile back, but it’s forced. All I want to do is lean over and throw up all over the floor.
“Matthew Nelson and his two goons made my life a living hell,” I say quietly. “They’re the reason I had to transfer schools in the middle of my sophomore year.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad.” Carly pushes aside her empty mug of beer and turns away to scope out the place for fair game. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” I agree, and tears push against the back of my eyeballs, threatening to spill over. “But I almost wasn’t.”
