Page 14 of Caught Up

“That bad, huh?” Taylor guessed.

“Junior was there,” I said, but it was so muffled by the cushion that I had to raise my head and repeat myself.

Ryan winced when they heard the name.

Taylor looked between us, confused. “Who’s Junior?”

Ryan and I met over a decade ago, during my senior year at my new school, when I was still a mess after everything that happened, so they knew all the sordid details. We’d met Taylor five years later, after I’d banished thoughts of Junior from my mind. This was the first time I’d ever even spoken his name around her.

Ryan unfolded their tall frame from beside Taylor and strode toward the kitchen. “We’re going to need mimosas for this story.”

Taylor’s eyes widened as she looked from them to me. “Oh, really?”

I nodded. Walter chose that moment to round the chaise and shove his toy in my face. The stench of drool hit my nose, and I recoiled. “Let me go change, and I’ll tell you the whole story.

I was halfway up the stairs when my phone rang. “Nonna” flashed across the caller ID, and I answered, thinking she had one last bit of gossip to fill me in on.

“Are you okay?” she asked, sounding out of breath.

I frowned. “Yeah, why? What’s going on?”

“Someone slashed a bunch of tires in the church parking lot,” she said. “I was worried that you’d been picked up by street youths.”

“I’m fine, Nonna,” I assured her.

“Oh, thank god,” she said. “The neighborhood is going to shit, I tell you.”

6

Lauren

“So, what happened?” Taylor asked.

Love Islandwas paused, and she, Ryan, and I sat facing each other on the couch, mimosas in hand.

“Well,” I hedged, “do you want the longer version involving my AO3 addiction in high school, or the abridged version?”

Taylor made a face at me. “The long version,obviously.”

I dragged in a steadying breath. “There was a boy a year ahead of me in school that I was obsessed with.”

“The aforementioned Junior?” Taylor asked.

I nodded. “He was your standard bad boy type. Tattoos. Family had mob ties. Was once suspected of putting the principal’s car on the cafeteria roof.”

Ryan snorted. “How?”

I shrugged. “Crane? Helicopter? There are many theories. None have ever been proved.”

Taylor crossed her legs and leaned closer. “Say no more. I’m invested.”

“We went to the same church,” I told her, “so we kind of grew up together, but we were never close. Junior was socool, and I was this shy, quiet bookworm. Back then, I could hardly bring myself to speak in his presence. Then, one weekend close to the end of my junior year, our church had its annual fundraiser. It’s this big fair with booths and face painting and donkey rides for kids, all to raise money for the diocese. I looked forward to it every spring.”

I dropped my gaze to Walter, splayed out beside me, as my mind went back in time. “I was a volunteer that year. My friend Kelly and I ran the ring toss booth. Across from us, Junior and his brothers were in charge of the bean bag toss, but they did so much goofing around that I don’t think they even remembered to take people’s tickets. Kelly and I got dragged into their shenanigans at one point, and it was the first time I remember Junior looking at me.Reallylooking at me. We flirted a little during the day, nothing wild, just some light teasing that still sent my pulse into the stratosphere becauseoh my god, Junior Trocci actually talked to me.”

Ryan shuddered and drained the rest of their mimosa. “Teenage hormones were hell.”

Taylor nodded. “The absolute worst.”

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