Free Class Reunion by Juliet Chastain

Chapter One
    Hunched over his computer, Nicholas Barberis logged onto his e-mail and checked his flight confirmation. Again. And the hotel reservation. Again. Yep, there it was, spelled out on the screen. He’d fly out on Friday afternoon and return Sunday morning. And he was booked into the best suite in the Hotel Aurelia.
    Once again he pulled out the invitation and checked the date. He knew he was being ridiculous. He flew all over the world, for heaven’s sake, and never behaved like this. He never double-checked times or dates no matter how important the meeting or the people involved. He paid his assistant well to take care of details like this, and she always did—flawlessly. She’d been her usual efficient self when he’d asked her to book him into the sole hotel in the tiny, back-of-beyond town of Aurelia, Ohio. She knew he had been born and bred there. In fact, anyone who was into multi-player video games or who paid attention to business news knew that. But the third time he’d asked her to confirm his itinerary, she’d looked at him funny. So now he closed the door to his office and checked it himself.
    Then he pulled out the invitation to his high school reunion. Studied it for the umpteenth time. And the note from Jay Bunter, reunion chairman, that had come with it:
    Hey Barberis, my best bud, I sure hope to see you at the dinner dance. I know you and I have so much to talk about.
    Nicholas shook his head and thought back to all the times Jay and his crew made his life a living hell, pushing him around and making fun of the fact that his clothes were off-brand.
    “I’ve got nothing I care to discuss with you.” He tore the note in two.
    He didn’t give a damn about those guys. Or the girls who’d looked at him funny and giggled when he walked by in the school halls. He tore the note some more and threw the pieces in the wastebasket. He was an adult now, and if they still thought him a weirdo he didn’t care. He wasn’t going back to see them; he was going to the class reunion for one reason and one reason only: to see her , Dana Mitchell.
    He’d been in love with Dana since he’d first met her the day she toddled over to him and asked him to join her next door in her sandbox. She’d been a cute, plump four-year-old then. Now, years later, his feelings for her were unchanged.
    He opened up her last e-mail. He knew it by heart but he read it anyway.
    Hey, Nicholas, you going to the reunion? I’ll go if you go. I want to see if everyone in our class—except you—was really as horrible as I remember them.
    It didn’t sound like she was particularly anxious to see him. So he typed, Yeah, I’d like to check that out myself. See you there.
    He’d thought it over and added, How about lunch on Saturday?
    She replied immediately. Okay. And here’s my cell number in case we can’t connect.
    He grimaced and ran his fingers through his hair. It had been years since he’d heard her voice. When the Mitchells first moved away, he couldn’t afford a cell phone, so they’d e-mailed each other—he’d had to do it from a computer at the library. Once he could afford his own phone, he waited patiently for the time Dana would say they should call each other. Somehow that had never happened. He sighed. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to talk...
    At least she hadn’t turned his lunch invitation down. His fingers itched to reply that he couldn’t wait to see her. To ask her to have dinner with him Friday, breakfast Saturday, and could they get together on Sunday? He’d be happy to change his schedule. But he refrained. He’d always been very careful not to e-mail her more often than she e-mailed him. And to keep his messages brief. He didn’t want to appear too anxious, too needy. Didn’t want to let her know that he lived for her e-mails. Didn’t want to show how much he cared.
    Yeah, he could have—maybe should have—gone to see her in Baltimore once he could afford the plane fare. He groaned at the