The Boys Are Back in Town Read Online Free PDF Page B

to sit back just slightly, and in groups they protruded from the edges of a conversation as though they might slip away at any moment.
    Will waded into the room, into a sea of hard kisses and firm embraces, of compliments and questions and pats on the back. To his relief he found that he could remember at least the first name of everyone he saw, if not the last. Adrenaline surged through him, along with a kind of high he had not expected. It felt good to be around them, to laugh and smile and reminisce. He knew without a doubt that in an hour he would for the most part have forgotten who lived where, had how many children, or did what for a living, but that seemed less important in the moment than the simple act of reconnecting.
    He had been shanghaied by a pair of old friends who had also written for the school newspaper when, beyond them, he saw Ashleigh coming his way waving both hands over her head. Will laughed.
    “Excuse me, you guys,” he said, then he slipped between them.
    Ashleigh punched him in the shoulder. “Goofball,” she chided him, wearing that mischievous grin that always silently reminded him how much she meant to him. “I've been waving to you for like an hour.”
    “I've been here for three minutes.”
    “Well, you're blind. We've been trying to get your attention the whole time.”
    She gestured toward the far corner of the room, where Eric sat with Danny Plumer and his wife. With them were the ethereally beautiful Carrie Klaussen, whom Will had dubbed “PixieGirl” during high school, and Lolly something, whose real name Will didn't think he had ever known. They were all grinning, waving at him like fools.
    Ashleigh took him by the hand and dragged him over to the table, where he said hello to Eric. Danny got up to give him a bear hug—he was a burly guy and could lift Will right off the floor. They spent a minute pretending to reminisce about how long it had been since they'd seen one another—in reality ten days—and each commented that the other looked like shit and had clearly aged very poorly in that time.
    Will kissed Danny's wife Keisha on the cheek. Then he smiled over at Carrie, who rose from the table to hug him.
    “Hey, Pix,” he said as they broke their embrace. He looked into her eyes. “It's really good to see you.”
    “You, too,” she replied, nodding as though to punctuate her sincerity. “But nobody calls me that anymore.”
    “Except me,” he teased. His gaze ticked toward Lolly, whose dark skin and sculpted features were such a dramatic foil to PixieGirl; it had always made their status as best friends that much more fascinating. Two beautiful girls—women now—who couldn't look less alike. “Pix and Lolly. You guys will always be Pix and Lolly in my head. You should've gotten together. As girlfriends, you know? It always seemed so right.”
    Lolly laughed. “We tried it once. Didn't like it.”
    Will smiled in appreciation. “You know, I can't tell if you're bullshitting me, but if you are, please just let me go on believing that.”
    He bent to kiss her on the cheek as well.
    There followed just the slightest awkward pause, a silent moment filled only by the music being played at the other end of the room and by the strange feeling that there was a ghost among them. Pix gave him a look that was sort of sad.
    She had been there that day—the day he was supposed to have married Caitlyn. Pix had been the maid of honor. Panicked and humiliated, Will had jokingly asked her if she wanted to stand in. And PixieGirl had cried for him.
    He smiled at her now and leaned close in so that no one else could hear him. “I'm fine,” he said.
    “No,
I'm
fine,” she teased. “You, you're just okay.”
    “Will, what'll you have?” Danny asked. “Have you eaten? Want a drink? What's your pleasure?”
    Before he could answer something hit him in the back of the head. Will spun just in time to see a maraschino cherry bounce on the ground. When he touched his head where