I was ready to go home before we even sat down, but I'd promised myself that the start of my senior semester wouldn't be as lame as high school was. I could be a whole new person here, someone extraordinary, someone fun: no more know-it-all, Four-Eyed-Lyon, school loser, and village idiot.
God, I hated high school.
"Excuse me," someone said, stepping up to our table. The server carried three full mugs of beer on a tray, and she carefully served them to us. She was trying to smile, it looked like, but she didn't look happy to be doing this. "From the guys at the bar."
I turned in my seat to look towards the bar, eyes landing on three guys sitting together, watching us. As my eyes meet each of theirs, something in my throat tightens. A ball of nausea formed in the pit of my stomach, and my breath hitched as the urge to vomit overcame me. Carly squealed with delight, and Jami flushed red.
"Fuck," I mumbled, but neither of them heard me.
Matthew Nelson, the man in the middle, watched me with his dark, haunting eyes. Despite the hit he took to the face years ago, he looked just as disgustingly perfect as ever. His hair was still black as night, and I yearned to run my fingers over the stubble on his jaw.
The two others were flanking him. A bulkier man with almond-colored hair and an athlete's physique - maybe football. Sexy. Confidence. Arrogant. Jake was always the mean, loud, obtuse, and aggressive one.
The guy on the other side of Matt was more slender than the other two but just as attractive. He was in jeans and a button-up shirt. His pants were painted as if he had just left an art studio. His name was Aaron, and I'd recognize any of these men at any moment.
I fought down the burning bile in my throat, shifting my eyes from their all-too-familiar faces.
"Damn," said Carly. "Could you say hotties?" Still flustered at the idea that some guy had bought her a drink, Jami chewed her lip anxiously. She was looking in their direction now and waved a couple of perfectly manicured fingernails in a thank you.
"Do we have to send them anything back?" she asked the bartender, who shook her head.
"Sweet, free booze." Carly started sipping on her beer at once, as did Jami, but the orb of nausea growing in my stomach expanded, threatening to spill over, and I pushed my beer away, wishing a hole would appear and swallow me up, never to be seen again.
"What's the matter?" Jami asked, resting her hand on mine. I was so startled I jerked away from her, almost spilling the beer all over the table.
"Yeah, you look like you've seen a fucking ghost," Carly added, barely looking in my direction. Her eyes had slightly wavered from the beer she was gulping down like a fish.
I cleared my throat and shook my head, but my eyes were still locked on the man in the middle. He stared back at me, his bold, dangerous eyes never wavering. A smirk played on his lips, self-assured and cocky. I'd recognize that smirk anytime, anywhere.
It was the smirk I prayed every day I would never see again after transferring schools.
"Excuse me," I said, grabbing the bartender's arm before she could hurry away. She looked at me, clearly annoyed, but I didn't care. Not anymore. Not right now.
"What?"
"Take this back, please." I pushed the mug towards her, ignoring the frothy foam as it spilled over the glass and onto the table. Carley's jaw dropped, and Jami looked horrified as though I'd declared war on the three men across the room.
"Is there something wrong with it?" the bartender asked like she really cared.
I shook my head. "Not with it, just with them."
"Renee, are you alright?" Jami asked again.
The bartender opened her mouth, probably to argue, but I shook my head, cutting her off. "Just take it back, please."
"Sure thing." The woman nodded once, grabbed the spilled beer, and hurried away. I watch her approach the three men as she leans in to speak to them, shrugging her shoulders a bit. The guy in the middle jabbed one of his friends with his elbow, laughing, then peered around the bartender and back at me. The smirk hadn't faded from his face, which pissed me off more than anything else.
"Do you know those guys?" Carly asked. I took my gaze away from the middleman's smirk and looked at her.
"Yeah, I know them."
"They're cute," Jami said carefully, figuring things out because the look on my face hadn't wavered. "How do you know them?"
I looked back at the guys. The three of them have turned around, their backs to us. I felt a slither of gratification down my spine. I'd throw something across the room at them if I were petty.
One hundred points each for three headshots.
"I know them from high school," I said.
"Were you friends?" Carly was slurring a bit, getting drunker by the second. Usually, I wouldn't care. Carly had been a lush since I met her. But tonight, I found it annoying, an irritating click in the back of my mind that wouldn't waver.
"I wouldn't say friends."
"What would you say?" Jami's cheeks were reddening now on account of the booze, and the rigid posture she usually maintained was slowly turning to jelly. I swallowed a tight lump in my throat and reached for the ice water the bartender had dropped off with the beer, taking a sip to soothe my frayed nerves.
"Their names are Matt, Aaron, and Jake," I said, unable to tear my eyes from burning holes in the back of their heads. "They were my high school bullies."
Carly bursts into giggles, spewing beer all over the tabletop. "Come on, Susie Q," she said with a laugh. "We all had high school bullies. Who the fuck cares?"
"Carly, knock it off," scolded Jami, turning to me. She rested her hand on top of mine and squeezed, shooting me a sympathetic look. I smiled back, but it was forced. All I wanted to do was lean over and throw up all over the floor.
"Matthew Nelson and his two goons made my life a living hell," I breathed. "They're why I had to transfer schools in the middle of my sophomore year."
"It couldn't have been that bad." Carly pushed aside her empty beer mug and turned away to scope the place for fair game. "You're still here, aren't you?"
"Yeah," I agreed, and tears pushed against the back of my eyeballs, threatening to spill over. "But I almost wasn't."