Chapter Three

The two of us stood awkwardly for a while. The longer I looked at Roland, the more of my best friend I began to see. The sharp jaw that I had always thought was his most attractive feature still remained. He was still taller than I was, though he was no longer gawky and uncoordinated. The person before me was fit, muscular, and carried himself with confidence. His green eyes still held that vulnerability that I had known when we were children, somehow.

I was surprised to find that I was attracted to the man who stood before me, far more than I ever had been and far more than I ever thought I would be. I knew without needing to feel them that this time my cheeks were definitely warm. It was a good thing that my color never revealed such things. I wondered if Roland remembered what I looked like when I blushed – he had always been the only one who was able to tell when I was blushing.

“Did you know that she wanted to introduce us?” I asked.

“No,” Roland said softly. His voice was rich, deeper than I remembered. “She did say she wanted to introduce me to her other guest of honor. I have to admit I did consider it might be you, what with our birthdays and all. I didn’t think it would be your kind of scene.”

“Yeah… It isn’t really. I only came because she made me feel bad about the whole guest of honor thing.”

“Ah, the old guilt trip. Typical Alyssa. No consideration.”

The corners of my mouth twitched upwards and I could see the amusement glinting in his eyes. “Tell me about it.”

“Shall we sit?”

I nodded absently, unable to tear my eyes away from him. We sat down at the table. My heartbeat was racing in my chest and before long; I felt the old sensation in the pit of my stomach. “It has been a while…” I said.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

I bit my lower lip. Roland didn’t look at me. His eyes were lowered and he looked like he was concentrating on a spot on his jacket. The longer he avoided my eyes, the more uneasy I felt.

Eventually, Roland looked up. His eyes met mine. They were disarming. I couldn’t tell if they were sad or if they simply looked that way but I knew that if they were, it was my fault. I should not be surprised. The last time he had tried to reach out to me, I had stood him up. I had broken a pact, a promise to my best friend that I would be there.

“I thought that it might have been you, too,” I whispered.

“What?” Roland asked.

“The second guest of honor. I thought it might have been you, but then I thought better of it because you live so far that it seemed ridiculous that you would come all this way for a reunion party.”

Roland watched me for a while, one of his well-shaped brows arched. They were dark, adding to the almost Latin look he had going for him. “You only live once, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I guess you have a point.”

“Besides, I’m actually moving back into town.”

My heartbeat spiked at that and my breath caught in my chest. “You are? Why?”

Again, that glint of amusement stared back at me. “I want to start my own business.”

“Your business?” I picked my cup up, wanting to have something in my hands. It had been taking everything out of me not to fidget with my clothes. “As in, the same one we always talked about?”

“The very same,” Roland said with a nod.

Roland and I had spoken about opening a business since we started high school. The plan was always to go off to college and study, come back to our hometown, and begin a graphic design business. Roland always had the artistic talent, while I had the financial and business-oriented brain. Not to mention I could do my fair share of running around, literally.

After we had gone off to college, however, we had lost contact. Both of our schedules were busy and our holidays never took place at the same time, meaning we were generally home at different times. He studied several states over so driving through for the weekend wasn’t an option either and neither of us could afford the air fares as students. Admittedly, there were times where I had avoided contact with Roland. I had wanted him to get over me and I knew that the only way for that to happen was for me to distance myself.

Seeing him at the party, I realized how much I had actually missed my best friend. I had become a recluse of sorts without his presence in my life. If I didn’t have a job, I probably would have gone full hermit. The thought made me laugh aloud.

“Is there something funny?” Roland asked. His eyebrows were raised in question.

“I was just thinking about how I have practically become a hermit since you last saw me.”

“Oh? How so?”

I shook my head, taking a sip of the punch. “Well, this is the first time I have been anywhere in months. By that, I do mean it quite literally. My life has consisted of the grocery store, work and home. Honestly, it’s a wonder that I’m even dark-skinned.”

Roland chuckled at that. It was low, deep as his voice was, and something inside my belly twisted pleasantly at the sound of it. I wouldn’t have minded hearing that laugh more often. “Yet, here we are, and you still look like chocolate.”

I didn’t answer. In truth, I didn’t know how to. If anyone else had told me that I look like chocolate, I might have laughed. I might have been incredulous. I might have rolled my eyes. What a line. Did people really use lines like that? Somehow, though, it seemed different coming from Roland.

Despite having known Roland longer than I had known anyone, the person sitting before me seemed like an entirely different person. I felt like I barely knew him at all. The longer I lingered on that thought, the more it became clear to me that I probably didn’t know him at all. If he had changed so much in his looks, how much had he changed in personality? The man before me was a lot more confident and comfortable with himself than the boy I had grown up with. He had changed. I felt the same as I always had.

“You look completely different,” I said softly. I took another sip of my punch. “I actually didn’t even recognize you when you first walked in.”

“Oh? Were you looking for me, then?”

“I didn’t say that…”

I watched Roland’s face, watched as the left corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “I’m going to go and get something to drink. Do you want a refill?”

“Thanks,” I said.

Roland took my cup from my hand and made his way over to the table with the snacks and punch. I tried not to look. Really, I did. His back was straight and I could see the strong curve of his muscles through the suit. His dress pants clung to his legs, revealing that they were well-shaped too. Yes, I looked at his butt, too, probably longer than I would like to admit.

I averted my eyes as quickly as I could when I saw him returning, pretending not to have been staring at him like some kind of creep or stalker. He had a smirk playing around his mouth that made me think he had known I was watching all along as he walked back toward me.

“Here you are,” he said. He handed me my cup and I immediately sipped from it, feeling the alcohol warm my throat on the way down. I was hoping it might make me calm down or feel like a normal human again.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” He sat back down beside me. His chair seemed to move closer to mine than it had been before. “So, I want to catch up. Tell me all the things I’ve  missed out on.”

“That would be like, twelve years’ worth of information, Row.”

Roland took a sip from his own cup. “Then I guess you had better start talking. I do have all night, after all. What are you doing with yourself these days?”

The way that he was holding my gaze was so intense that I actually blushed, feeling the warmth all the way down to my neck. “Well, I’m working as a financial adviser at the moment. I take on the occasional consulting job too, mostly project management work.”

“Ah. It’s good to know that you stuck to that line of work. Do you still enjoy it?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. I was smiling. “Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I wish that I was my own boss. There are some tasks which are mediocre and I find that they bore me. If I were working for myself, I could do more of the projects that I’m actually interested in. In the end, I’m still doing something I’m passionate about. And I’m good at my job, too.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that you are. You always had an eye for the business world.”

“You always had an eye for the artistic world,” I replied. “Are you still in art?”

Roland nodded. His fingers were tracing the rim of his cup as he spoke. “I’m still a graphic designer, yes. I am looking to start my own business actually.”

My eyebrows shot upwards at that. “Really? That’s great, Roland! I’m really happy for you. How long have you been looking at starting it up?”

“It has been three years in the works, now. I’ve been slowly building it up. The hardest part has been trying to reach client bases all around the world but I’ve managed to accomplish that and it has started to properly take off. That’s actually why I am here.”

“And here I thought you were here because you were the other guest of honor.”

Roland snorted. “Still hilarious, I see.”

I didn’t get a chance to respond as Alyssa and Freddie came into sight. The two of them were talking animatedly and I had a feeling that they wouldn’t be going home alone that night. As they arrived, Freddie grinned at me. They both held their own cups full of punch.

“You guys mind if we sit?”

“Not at all,” I said.

Freddie pulled the third chair out from beneath the table and Alyssa gave a girlish giggle as she slid into it on Roland’s opposite side. Freddie then took his place between us.

“I see you have made a new friend,” Freddie said. He turned to Roland and held out his hand. “I’m Freddie.”

“I know. We’ve met.” Despite that, Roland extended his arm and shook Freddie’s hand. It took everything in me to maintain my composure at the interaction. The confusion was inscribed all over Freddie’s face as he stared at Roland, trying to figure out where exactly he knew him from.

“I’m sorry, man. My memory is quite obviously not what it used to be. What is your name?”

The corner of Roland’s lips twitched. “My name is Roland.”

I did laugh. It was a struggle to stop laughing. It was probably one of the funniest encounters I had ever had the pleasure to witness. Freddie was so shocked that he physically leapt out of his chair. His eyes were wide as he looked from me to Roland and back again. Alyssa watched with obvious surprise, her eyebrows arched.

“You two know each other?” she asked, directing the question at Freddie and Roland.

“We all know one another,” I said. “The three of us were in the same graduating class together.”

“The same class!” Freddie exclaimed. “Man! Y’all were like, inseparable. Never mind the same year, these are two best friends being reunited up in here.”

Roland chuckled, making my belly do that twisting thing yet again. “Indeed,” he said. “Thank you for that, Alyssa.”

Alyssa covered her mouth with her hands, mirroring Freddie’s reactions from a few moments earlier as she glanced back and forth between us. “Oh, my gosh, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Roland asked. His face had assumed a puzzled expression.

“I’m going to go ahead and guess that she’s sorry for attempting to set us up.”

I felt kind of sorry for Alyssa. As pale as her skin was, the pinkness of her blush was easily visible. Her whole face was warm as she looked at us. Freddie took his seat again and gave a boisterous laugh.

“You tried to set these two up?” he asked her.

Rather than answer, Alyssa gave a sheepish shrug. She looked adorable, if embarrassed. “It seemed like a good idea. I didn’t know that they knew each other, of course. You guys didn’t appear to.”

“It has been a very long time since we last saw one another,” I said. “Roland has changed so much that it took me a second to recognize him. I mean, look at Freddie’s reaction when he realized who he was introducing himself to. We were all friends back then.”

“Yeah, but then someone decided to disappear off of the map.” Freddie said. His voice was full of playful accusation.

“Hey, I went to study,” Roland said, sticking his hands up in surrender.

“So did I, my man. I came back though.”

“Fair enough. I’m here now,” Roland said. He shrugged slightly.

“For good, or?”

“Yeah, for good. I got myself a place with Alyssa’s help. I decided it was time to come back home.”

I stared at him, trying to process the information. He met my gaze and gave me the smallest of smiles and nodded. I don’t think that the other two noticed the small interaction.

“Whoop!” Freddie cheered. “I’ll drink to that. Welcome home, dude.”

Freddie raised his cup into the air and Roland, Alyssa, and I did the same. We touched plastic cups and took a swig from them. I noticed Alyssa pulled a face that time. In the background, a slow song had begun to play.

Standing up from his seat, Freddie sat his cup down on the table. He held his hand out to Alyssa. “Would you like to dance with me?”

Alyssa smiled and put her cup down before taking his hand. She nodded and the two of them walked away. Freddie winked at me over his shoulder as they made their way out onto the dance floor.

“He’s as smooth as he has ever been,” Roland remarked.

“Yeah, Freddie hasn’t changed much at all.”

Roland looked at me and I set my cup back down on the table. “I would ask you to dance,” he said, “but I somehow don’t think you would be up for that…”

“Why not?”

“Would you?”

My heart raced in my chest as I looked at Roland. He looked partially amused and partially surprised. I would have liked to dance with him. I really would have. There was a part of me that didn’t know where that would lead, though. Things had changed in a matter of hours between us. I didn’t feel like I was sitting next to the person that had lived in my memory anymore. I wanted to get to know this new one, but at the same time I was painfully aware of the fact that he was still the same person that I had grown up with and I couldn’t pretend that there was no history.

Roland smiled at me, reaching out and touching the back of my hand softly. “It’s okay, Lyle.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to…”

He didn’t reply to that. We sat there in silence for a while, the song playing out. It was another one that threw me back to a different time and place. Everything felt more like a dream than reality that night.

“So, have you been seeing anyone?” Roland asked.

“Ha. No, I haven’t. What about you?”

“I have. His name is Nathan, but with the move and everything… Let’s just say that I don’t think that it was going to work out anyway.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. It was both the truth and not the truth.

“There is nothing to be sorry for. I think it’s better this way. Besides, I have other interests.”

“Such as?”

Roland fixed that intense gaze on me once more. I felt something heat up within me and shied beneath it. The way he was looking at me made me breathless, but I had no idea what it meant. “My business,” he finally said.

“I see.”

“Do you remember that idea that we used to have? We wanted to grow up and start a business together and you would handle some things and I would handle other things?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I remember that.”

“Is that something that you would still be interested in?”

“I mean, I did say that I would like to be my own boss…”

Roland smiled at me. His smile was adorable and it touched his eyes. “Good. Then, I’d would like to get together with you to discuss it. I’ve  rented out an office space if you want to come by on Monday to talk about things. I can wait until after your shift is done.”

“Okay, I see no reason why not. I’ll see you then.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. He handed it to me. It had the address of the office as well as his details. I knew that he had designed the cards and his own logo by himself. “So, you know where you’re going. You can call me when you get there.”

I nodded, putting the card into my jacket pocket. As Roland stood from the table, I felt underdressed once more. He really did look good in his suit. I stood, too.

“I should be going,” he said. Rather than shake my hand, Roland wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a hug. I could smell his cologne, rich and expensive. It was heavenly and I didn’t want to let go of him when he pulled away. “It was good to see you again, Lyle.”

“It was… uhm. Yeah, it was really good to see you again too, Row.”

He smiled at me and began to leave. I watched him as he walked out, a myriad of feelings and emotions washing over me. Confusion, guilt, happiness, desire, and apprehension being some of the ones that stood out the most.