Spandex was very forgiving, and it wrinkled in the right places to hide the small belly pouch I still carried all these years later from having Travis. Not that I'd trade it for the world.
I heard Beth coming before she pulled up. When she drove into the driveway, I realized why. She was in a bright red convertible with the top down, blaring pop music from our high school and college years.
Oh, blast from the past, hello. I hurried around the car and slid into the passenger seat. “Hey, hon!” I called over the music. “Our youth called. It wants to go to bed.”
She burst out laughing and backed out of the driveway as I yawned for the first time, but not the last.
The songs effortlessly wove in and out of one another, dredging up all kinds of memories. The song that everyone was obsessed with our senior year came on and I burst out laughing.
"I can't believe you have this on a playlist. Didn't you get sick of it?" I asked, faux surprise on my face as I secretly loved listening to it again.
Beth grinned. "I mean, yeah, but it's good to reminisce. Remember when Charlie fell on her ass carrying her lunch and ended up covered in chocolate milk and tomato soup? This was playing on that stereo the popular kids had. See? Memories."
"Oh, remember when Jimmy and Kristen got written up for dancing too provocatively to this at the homecoming dance?" I gasped, the memory coming out of nowhere. I hadn't thought about either of them in decades.
"Detention for a week! How could I forget that? Biggest scandal of the year!"
The song changed to one that was slightly more obscure. "Oh, I bet you don't remember all the lyrics to this one," I said, daring her.
"Please! I know these songs from front to back," Beth said a second before she jumped in on the lyrics, singing along flawlessly.
Her enthusiasm was such that I couldn't help but join in. The wind whipped my hair around and I lifted my hands, letting the air rush over my skin as I felt the joy at simply being with one of my best friends and singing songs we grew up with fill my heart. We used to do the same thing back in the day. Drive around, sing songs, gossip. For a moment, I flashed back to us as teenagers and wondered what my teen self would think of my adult self. Whatever it was I didn't care. I was happy. It may have just been for a few minutes, but I was truly happy. It had been much longer than I cared to admit since I felt this way. This relaxed, this much myself.
I sang at the top of my lungs until Beth pulled off the road and into a parking lot. It was pretty much the only club in town, considering we were barely big enough for a second grocery store. The concrete and metal facade had a bit of an ultra modern look to it. All sharp angles and rectangles.
It looked like every twenty-something in town was here, based on the line at the door. “This doesn’t look like a vampire club,” I said when Beth shut off the engine.
She grinned at me. “Just you wait.”
14
Emma
The line took an eternity, or at least that's what it felt like. Figuring we’d been standing here at least an hour, I checked my phone, and it had only been about ten minutes. Shit. It was awkward standing with all these young people, each of them looking like they could be hanging out with my son. The guys trying to look suave and badass at the same time while the girls were tittering with each other in dresses that were crazy short and heels that would have given me vertigo.
Those ten minutes passed like ten hours.
Each one dragged like the last class of the school day.
Beth kept up a steady stream of conversation with me barely participating, too distracted by everything around me and the prospect of entering a vampire club. She didn't seem to mind too much, though, as she filled me in on what everyone from our high school was doing now. How many kids each of the popular crowd had now, and how many marriages they'd been through. I felt a pang of disappointment that I would now be in the list of divorced members of our high school class. Honestly, the thought of getting married again was exhausting. I didn't know if it was for me.
Daniel's face flashed in my mind, his jade green eyes pinning me with his stare.
Nope.
Not going there.
He might be pretty to look at, and I might have crushed on him super hard in high school, but my heart wasn't ready for anything just yet. I wasn't sure if it ever would be. How did I learn to trust again when the person I trusted most in the world just betrayed me in every way imaginable?
I looked at my surroundings, forcing myself to focus on the present. Beth's voice was soothing in my ear, and I tried to listen to what she was saying, I really did, but my mind drifted. I couldn't help but wonder if some of these people knew what they were walking into.
How many of them thought they were going to get sparkly vampires and how many thought they were going to get men in long black capes? Were either of them even accurate for that matter? I certainly had no idea.
Were some of them hoping to be bitten? Was that even how you became a vampire? Or did they just like the idea of feeding a vampire? I really needed to find out some of these basic details before we left for an exclusive club next time.
Eventually, it was our turn at the front.
