Sitting in the corner of a crowded and noisy hotel ballroom, I was reflecting on why I had even bothered to come to my high school's ten-year reunion. Going into this whole thing, I told myself that I was showing up out of a mixture of nostalgia and morbid curiosity. Unfortunately, those thin excuses had evaporated, leaving me in a rather dejected state at a half-empty table for two. Nostalgia was a farce—my high school years held no memories worth reminiscing over. None of the usual social circles had ever accepted me, so I wound up as an outcast that stuck out like a sore thumb wherever I went.
Fixing all that horrible awkwardness had taken years. University helped, and an intense focus on my career afterward even more so. It took a great deal of work, but time had molded me into someone much more colorful and social than my old high school self. I had a respectable job, picked up some real hobbies, and developed a sense of fashion that didn't involve mixing cargo shorts with collared shirts. Though I was trying to deny it, I had come to my high school reunion in the hopes of defying some people's expectations. But history was repeating itself, and once I again I was feeling invisible and insufficient.
Everyone else had also been busy living their lives in the decade since graduating high school—and I wasn't the only one who had gotten their act together. Looking around the room created a panorama of successful and attractive-looking people, but I didn't recognize any of them at all. Social anxiety was something I hadn't experienced in a long time, but with each passing minute that I continued to sit alone at that remote table, more woes of the past kept appearing to gnaw at my thoughts. Here I was, 28 and single, practically a spectator at my own high school reunion.
The feeling became unbearable in no time at all, so I abandoned my table and wove through the crowd of socializing cliques to seek out the ballroom's exit. I stumbled out the doors and into the hotel's lobby, where I took a moment to savor how refreshingly quiet it was. The deafening racket of people talking at the top of their lungs over atrocious throwback pop music already felt like a world away, replaced by the gentle sounds of a live piano coming from somewhere nearby. The hotel possessed an older and more refined aesthetic, so the presence of a piano was rather fitting.
My curiosity piqued—and in desperate need of distraction—I followed the sound across the lobby to discover a lounge tucked away on the other side of the ground floor. It was a humble affair: no more than a dozen tables and chairs altogether, with the piano resting in the middle of the room and a bar occupying the back wall. By that point, I was more than receptive to the idea of a few drinks, so heading towards the bar was a natural choice.
Approaching the counter, there was only one other person occupying the row of bar stools—and all it took was one sidelong glance at them to send me ten years into the past. Back to a time when I had to eat lunch in the same crusty cafeteria every single day, and the only person who would sit with me was one of the school's other outcasts.
Her nickname tumbled right out of my mouth. "Sam?"
The woman at the bar turned to meet my look of disbelief with a similar expression. It was unmistakably Samantha—though her raven-black hair had adopted far more subtly-blended cobalt highlights, she was still sporting the same mixed silver and gold helix piercings on her left ear, with a familiar crucifix earring to boot. Her haircut was cleaner and more refined but still maintained heavy bangs and a fringe that kept the left side of her face obscured.
Her sense of surprise was tangible. "David?"
"Yeah, it's me," I nodded, already smiling. "Been a while, hasn't it?"
"You started wearing contacts."
"And you started wearing sweaters," I commented, taking a seat on the bar stool next to her. "Where'd the band tee-shirts go?"
The briefest hint of a smirk tugged at her lips, followed by a sip of some fluorescent blue concoction from the hurricane glass she was holding. "Probably the same place you dumped all your khaki pants."
The recollection of my former wardrobe made me physically wince. "Jesus..."
"Now you really need that drink, dont'cha?"
"Yeah, definitely," I wheezed. "What sort of potion do you have going on over there?"
She raised her glass to let me inspect it. "A Blue Hawaiian. I doubt it's your style."
"It's not," I admitted just in time for the bartender to come by. "A gin and tonic, please."
"We have a selection of Gin on hand, sir. Any preference?" he replied.
"Uh, Bombay Sapphire, if you've got it."
"I'll have it to you in just a moment."
"Bombay Sapphire, huh?" Samantha said with a sense of amusement in her voice. "You've gotten classy."
I shrugged. "Well, after college, there's room to explore alcohol that isn't just the potent cheap shit."
"Oh, please, it's just for sophistication's sake. Fruit punch and Everclear still blows most of these frilly-ass cocktails I get out of the water. Taste and proof-wise."
"So you were a jungle juice kinda girl in college," I mused with an inquisitive smile. "That seems about right."
"What's that supposed to mean, huh?" Samantha shot back, a faint blush dusting her cheeks.
"Ah, nothin'," I chuckled, looking gratefully towards the bartender as he arrived with my drink. "I take it you're a castaway from the ballroom as well?"
She immediately scoffed. "God, I couldn't stand it in there. Nothing but weird glances and way too much noise. I swear my ears are still ringing from all that garbage music they had going."
"So no enthusiastic greetings for you either, huh?" I said, grimacing and taking a sip of my drink.
"Nothing of the sort," Samantha laughed with the roll of her eyes. "Just a few preppie girls trying to contain their jealousy after realizing that my former washboard chest is even bigger than theirs now."
I had been trying my hardest not to focus on it, but Samantha's sweater drew serious attention to her now impressive bust—which was a shocking change from the flat and nearly androgynous girl I'd known in high school. It seemed as though all of her various charms had been drawn out by time, from her sharper makeup and more expressive face to her softer and more approachable body language. I realized that before our current conversation, I had never seen her smile so often.
"Must have been entertaining to watch them fume about it, though."
She gave me an amused shrug. "It's a little funny, but the back pain isn't worth it. Thinking back to high school just takes me back to a time when my spine didn't ache."
"I think joint pain is just a part of getting old."
"It's a part of getting tall, in your case!" she giggled. "I know I haven't gotten shorter in the last ten years, anyway."
"Oh, yeah, I had a weird final growth spurt during college," I explained with a sheepish grin. "Kinda came out of nowhere. Probably the reason I have back pain now."
"Look at us, complaining about our aching bones like a couple of seniors, and we're not even thirty yet." Samantha raised her glass and looked me in the eye with a wry smile. "To back pain."
"Sure, why not? To back pain," I replied, tapping our glasses together. "Cheers."
There was a moment of shared silence while we each took a sip of our drinks, after which Samantha picked things right back up.
"So... you wanna take this conversation back to my hotel room?"
I narrowly managed to avoid a spit take. "What?"
"My hotel room," she repeated with perfect composure. "I booked one upstairs with since the reunion was happening here. Made things real convenient. What do you think?"
"You didn't even ask if I was single," I replied with a near-accusatory look as I set down my empty drink.
Samantha set her drink down as well, leaning an elbow against the bar top and resting her chin in her hand. "You're definitely single, David. I can tell because I'm in the same boat. Now, do you want to come upstairs with me or not?" She was staring right into my eyes with an insufferably mischievous smile, already confident that she'd guessed correctly.
I let out a small sigh. "So much for improvement."
"Trust me, you've made a lot of improvements," Samantha said in a hushed tone that was rapidly turning flirtatious. She brushed the tips of her fingers across the knuckles on my right hand, and that was the last bit of convincing I needed to crumble.
"Alright, lead the way."
We stood up from our seats at the same time, and I fell in behind her on our way to the elevators. As we walked, I took note of the ripped black jeans she was wearing while desperately trying not to fixate on the sway of her hips. I had been doing my best to keep things cordial, but now there was a distinctly non-platonic tension creeping into things that I wasn't sure how to handle.
But there was no stopping what I had put in motion once we were inside the elevator—and there was no hiding our faces from each other once the doors closed. I watched Samantha's eyes slowly drift from mine to my lips, my neck, and then my exposed collarbone. There was a strange and thrilling eroticism to watching her size me up. A litany of perverse thoughts were flickering through her mind, blatantly betrayed to me by the blush on her face that was only becoming more prominent.
I spoke up to try and alleviate some of my mounting anxiety. "I'm not gonna lie to you, I have no idea where this is going."
"Good," Samantha whispered, her salacious stare drifting back upwards to capture my gaze. "Because I don't either. But I think I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to go."
The elevator reached its destination with a soft ding, and I returned to following her lead once we stepped out onto the floor. The pounding of my pulse had become a tangible force, made worse by the subtle scent of her perfume drifting back to me as we walked through the hotel's twisting, identical hallways. At some point she recognized one of the doors as her own, though, stopping our journey to open it with her key card and step inside. I followed her without hesitation,