Page 3 of College Town

“Dana.” His heart hammers, and his palms prickle with sweat where they’re stuffed under his arms, and every part of his being is goingno, no, no, no, no. Hecan’tgo to a reunion, can’t even be involved in planning it, sending emails, checking names off lists, ordering fucking cheap champagne, because a reunion means a homecoming, and a homecoming means…couldmean…no. Just no.

Dana sighs tightly through her nose, and presses on anyway, despite the way he starts wagging his head back and forth exaggeratedly. “Harmony has to go out of town to help her sister, and she called me last night in tears, begging me to take over the Committee for her.”

He stops shaking his head to huff out an, “Ugh.” Harmony crying is a sad, sad, Disney movie affair, all giant eyes and hitched breaths and an uncontrollable swell of sympathy that leads people to do anything to stem the tide of tears.

“And, so…” She shrugs. “I’m now the de facto head of the Reunion Committee.”

He pulls an exaggerated face, one that normally makes her laugh.

Now, she frowns, and says, “I’m nominating you as co-head.”

Lawson takes a deep breath, and says, drawn out and slow, “Noooooo.”

Her posture collapses, from straight-backed Executive Woman in Charge, to something slumped and pleading that reminds him of high school. Of earlier. Middle school, elementary.Come on, Law! That’s not faaaaiiiir!No, life isn’t fair. He’s learned to live with it. Mostly. But not so well that he can dothis.

He hitches up straighter in his chair and presses his clammy palms to the table edge. Fixes her with as steady a look as he can manage. “Dana. Honey. I would die for you, you know this.”

She nods, corner of her mouth curving upward in a smile.

“But I will absolutely not, under any circumstances, get within fifty feet of this fucking reunion.”

She considers him a moment, nails idly scraping the sides of her cup. “He won’t be there,” she says, finally, quietly, little more than a whisper. “You know that he – that the two of them won’t come.”

“I don’t know anything.”

Her head tilts, and the sympathy in her gaze sends his gaze skittering out through the window, where a woman tries unsuccessfully to drag a tantrum-throwing toddler past a window display at the gift shop next door.

He sees her hand cross the table from the corner of his eye, but still flinches when it settles against the back of his. He recovers fast, though, and turns his palm up to tangle their fingers. God, they’re holding hands in public; they’rethosepeople.

“Well, I know some things,” she counters, voice supportive in a way he both craves and hates – hates that he needs that reassurance. That he isn’t stronger than this. “I know that I love you, and that you’re one of my favorite people in the whole world, and I know that you’re going through kind of a shitty time right now–”

“Don’t,” he interrupts, a lump forming in his throat. “Just…don’t, Dana.”

She squeezes his hand and says, “I also know that those two shitheads won’t show up to our reunion, so there’s nothing to worry about on that front.”

He dares to glance back across the table at her, and sees a ferocious sparkle in her blue eyes. “Because they don’t give enough of a shit to come.”

“Because they know we’d rip them new ones and they don’t have the balls to come,” she corrects.

A middle-aged woman sits down at the table beside theirs, gaze going to their joined hands and lingering longer than is polite, open curiosity writ on her face. She probably thinks they’re lovers having a meaningful heart-to-heart.

Dana squeezes his hand once more, then withdraws hers, and Lawson folds his arms again. She takes a deep breath, and dons a businesslike air once more. “Come on. You’re better at this sort of thing than I am.”

He snorts. “That’s demonstrably untrue.”

“Stop selling yourself short.”

“Stop trying to upsell me.”

“Law.” She pouts. “Come on, Law, pleeeeeaaaassse!”

He has no natural immunity to begging; it’s always tripped him up.Please, Law, God, please. Hands twisted up in his shirt, breath hot against the base of his throat.

He squeezes his eyes shut against memory, not that it helps. He does things physically, sometimes, in the hope it’ll slam the door on harmful mental practices. It doesn’t, but he goes through the motions anyway.

“Fine.” When he opens his eyes, she’s grinning, and he throws his hands up. “Fine! Fine, I’ll help you run this fucking reunion!”

Dana’s grin widens.

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