Despite growing up together, Catherine Simmons and Mattis Reed were never close.
Cat was inseparable from Mattis' younger sister, Chloé, while he was busy running around on the football field.
But when Cat's new dream drags her across the country du...
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"Yo, Reed, you want another?"
I lift my head to nod at Chris. He's standing by the bar halfway across the room, and people are turning their heads due to his obnoxious yelling. He doesn't seem to notice, leaning in over the hardwood surface to flirt with the bartender, who couldn't be more out of his league.
The rest of the group sitting around me leers when a tall chick walks by our table in a short skirt, and I'm sure they'll be fighting over who gets to hit on her within the next five minutes.
It's just like I remember it.
That makes me smile.
There's an ease to being in the company of my old high school friends, all home for Thanksgiving, too. They're idiots, the lot of them, making even the García twins look like saints, but they're familiar and a surefire way to get shit-faced, which I desperately need.
I'd sat through dinner with my mom and Chloé Thursday night, exchanging thankful speeches and eating delicious food, and then I'd hightailed it out of there before Cat could make it over from her own family dinner.
I'm happy we made up, and all is forgiven, but being shot down again was heartbreaking, especially when I realized I'm not the only one suffering.
I still don't get it. If we want each other, then why can't we have it?
"Here you go," Chris says as he slams the beer down in front of me so hard the liquid splashes all over my hand. "Whoops, sorry, man."
He doesn't look sorry.
I wipe my hand on my pant leg and take a long swig of my drink, holding in a sigh.
Sometimes it's also exhausting to be around these guys.
I've spent the last few nights on the couch at Benji's dorm. He's the only one of us who stuck around the area, and after spending Thanksgiving with his dad, step-mom, and their offspring, he's all maxed out on family time. So we've been fucking around during the day, getting greasy lunches, and spending hours at the arcade before meeting up with the other guys again in the evening at some random bar, drowning our sorrows in alcohol.
Well, that's what I'm doing. The rest of them just wants to get laid.
Benji won the competition over the long-legged chick, and now he's running a hand through his beach blond hair as he swaggers over to her table. She flutters her eyelashes at his approach, and I know I'm fresh out of luck for a place to crash tonight.
Chris is sharing a room with his older brother this weekend already, and Ahmed's parents would kill him if they knew he'd been out drinking with us.
I trust the rest of them as far as I can throw them.
"Why are you being a grump?" Ahmed asks, nudging me with his shoulder. Out of all the guys, he's the most down-to-earth, and maybe we'd have stayed close if we'd gone to the same college. But he went south, and I went east. He's also the only other guy from our group who made it onto a college football team.
