Page 15 of Fresh Start
Somebody called Melody’s name and she had to run before she got the chance to introduce me. I hesitantly pulled the empty chair, but I didn’t sit down.
The man straightened his body again, holding a phone in his hand with a smashed screen, and he looked right at me.
“I’m sorry this table is tak—” he started, but once he realized who I was, he froze.
I couldn’t blame him. I also found myself unable to move. What was he doing here in the middle of nowhere?
“Dawson,” he said.
“Leo,” I said at the same time.
He looked around him, probably thinking he was being pranked on live TV. I had the exact same thought. But there were no hidden cameras.
"What are you doing here?" he finally said and turned to me.
“I’m visiting my parents. What are you doing here?” I asked, and I detected the defensiveness in my tone too late to do anything about it.
“Your parents don’t live in Cedarwood Beach. They live in Chicago.” He grimaced.
“Well,” I said and took a definite stand against his negativity and sat down opposite him. “They live here now.”
“I’m sitting here,” he said before I even finished my sentence.
I pointed inside toward Melody and explained what she’d told me.
“Bitch. She could have at least warned me,” Leo muttered.
“There’s no need to call the poor woman a bitch, Leo. She’s just doing her job,” I said.
“Oh, shut up. Don’t tell me what to do,” he responded.
“Why are you here?” I asked him to distract from the fact that we hated each other’s guts. Him more than me.
“That’s none of your business,” he said.
“I told you why I’m here.”
“Well, if you ever paid attention to me when I was talking to you, you’d remember this is where I’m from. But you never did, did you? All you ever cared about was yourself,” he said, and his voice was starting to get the attention of the other tables.
I put my hand on the side of my face and dipped my head a little so people didn’t recognize me, which only seemed to anger Leo more.
There had been so many sleepless nights where I imagined what a reunion with Leo would be like, but none of them ended up like this. Sure, we hadn't seen each other in almost two decades and hadn't left things on the best of terms, but I’d at least expect some false niceties instead of whatever this was.
I understood why he’d been so angry back then, but I couldn’t believe he was still angry to this day.
“Oh, now you’re ashamed of me and don’t want to be seen with me? That’s rich, Dawson, even for you,” Leo said, and then Melody approached so he forced his mouth shut and smiled.
“Everything okay?” she asked staring at Leo.
“Sure, sure. Everything is peachy,” Leo replied with a pout.
Melody took our order and left the table, and I could tell she was unconvinced by Leo’s reassurance.
"It's—it’s been so long, how have you been?" I asked after the silence was growing unbearable.
"I've been good," was all he said and gave his undivided attention to his phone.
I tried to do the same, but it was impossible not to look at him after all these years. We’d met when we were just boys, and he had grown into a man. A seriously sexy, smoking hot man.
