This isn’t my first beer of the night, or even my second, though I had the other two long enough ago now that they’ve settled into a background buzz.

Or maybe it’s just being near Reggie like this that’s making me feel drunk.

She’s holding herself away from me like I have the fucking plague. Is she really that pissed at me for what happened back at the lake? I’m trying my damnedest to remind her that we’re friends—or at least we were—but she’s not having it.

Reggie stares out over the lake, not looking at me. “How can you know if you’re really close with someone?” There’s a sharp edge to her voice.

I’m trying my best, but I just don’t know what the fuck she’s hinting at. “I don’t know. I mean, kissing you in that chapel was probably a good way to tell.” I mean it casually, because it was all such a damn intoxicating dare back then, and she went through with it as much as I did.

She just gasps, whipping her head around toward me. “I can’t believe you would—” But then the beer gets the better of her and she burps, the sound echoing in the night. It’s a hell of a belch and Reggie slaps her hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide.

I can’t stop from laughing. It’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve seen all day at this reunion, and it’s classic Reggie. This is the kind of thing she would have taken serious pride in when we were kids. Not so anymore.

She’s frozen like that for a few long moments, and then something cracks open between us, breaking like a wine glass falling to the floor. Reggie dissolves into laughter, too. It’s not every day that a charged conversation like this gets interrupted by an earth-shattering belch.

“Jesus, Reg, don’t look so mortified.”

She draws herself up primly. “I’m not mortified.” Even then, she can’t stop her body from shaking with laughter. “It took me by surprise, is all.”

“What, you don’t normally throw back beers like that?”

She shakes her head, and maybe I imagine it, but she scoots a little closer to me on the rock. Another flash of lightning heats up the sky and we both watch it, counting down to the boom of far-off thunder. “I’m busy, Adam. I don’t have time to get drunk with...people.”

“With your oldest and best friend?”

Reggie still has a half-smile on her face when she looks at me again, but it looks so sad that it makes my chest ache. “My oldest and best friend? That guy left town a long time ago.” She shakes it off. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure you had things to do. Like attend college.”

I nudge her with my elbow. “You can’t be mad at me for going to college.”

“I can be pissed as hell that you never even called.”

“That is a falsehood, Reggie. I came home for your graduation.”

Reggie rolls her eyes so outrageously that I’m actually shocked that her eyeballs don’t fall out onto the ground. “Please. You didn’t come home for my graduation. You came home to chase girls and go to parties with your friend Gordon.” Her mouth turns downward into a scowl. Why? Is she still that embarrassed about that kiss? The memory comes back to me in a flood that definitely has a tent-like effect on my pants.

“It’s Gideon.”

“Whatever.” She waves her hand dismissively. “After that, you never called, never emailed...nothing.” The beer must be wreaking havoc with her filter, because she snaps her lips shut. “Whatever,” she repeats. “None of that matters now.”

“Hey.”

She turns her eyes back to my face. They’re liquid pools of darkness in the dim light, and I want to fall right into them. I want to lean forward—a few inches is all it would take—and kiss the beauty mark underneath her right eye.

“I know you don’t care—” I gesture grandly with the beer in my hand. “But I’m sorry for being such a forgetful prick. I should have called. Or at least emailed you.”

Reggie shrugs, one shoulder rising up by her ear and falling back down again. It’s impossible not to see her like she was back in high school, shrugging like that. Do you want to come by my place tonight for the sociology paper? Shrug. And even earlier, when she was just ten. Do you want me to fix your bike? Shrug. She can say she doesn’t care all she wants, but the gesture is so familiar that I can’t help reading it like she’s an open book.

“Apology not accepted, Adam Lane,” she says, the corner of her mouth curving up in a smile that she tries and fails to hide.

“Zeller,” I correct her.

She looks at me with widened eyes. "What?"

“My mom's maiden name, remember?” I remind her.

“You don't go by Lane any more?”

I look her in the eye. “Do you blame me?”

For a second her eyes go soft and sympathetic. I nudge her again, this time letting the contact linger just a moment longer, because damn, she’s close. And damn, I’ve missed her. My chest is filled with some strange ache just sitting with her on this enormous boulder. “Come on, Reg. I’m sorry about leaving. What does a man have to do to be forgiven these days?”

She cuts a glance at me and leans in. Her hip is just grazing mine now. “I’m honestly shocked that you thought a six-pack of beer would be enough to get back in my good graces. You don’t know me at all, do you?”

“I know a lot about you,” I say, and grab my second beer, letting the first bottle fall to the grass with a whisper of a thud. “I know you always pretended to hate pink.”

“I do hate that color,” Reggie says, chin in the air.

“I know your favorite coffee mugs of all time were the ones my mom bought in the city. The ones with pink on the inside.”

Reggie laughs. “I forgot about those mugs.”

“I didn’t.”

She takes another drink of beer. “Anyone can remember things from back in the day,” she says, keeping her voice carefully neutral. “But a lot has happened since then.”

“Tell me about it.”

Reggie looks at me out of the corner of her eye, like she’s trying to tell if I’m joking.

“I’m serious.” I down the rest of the beer, the buzz getting stronger by the second, and open it with a crack. “What happened? Tell me, Reggie. Tell me everything.”

That makes her laugh. “Fine.”

We sit on the boulder, watching the thunderstorm roll across the lake, and Reggie gives me a rundown of what she’s been doing since high school. Working at Indigo, the new fancy restaurant in town. Doing extra shifts up here at the country club. Going to college, saving up a credit at a time.

Somewhere between the second beer and the end of the third, everything turns hazy, and I’m caught up in all the details of her. That beauty mark. Her white teeth flashing in the dark when she laughs. We’re not talking about current life bullshit anymore, we’re talking about all the shit we used to do as kids, with endless time and a partner in crime.

“You saved my life,” Reggie laughs, almost doubled over. “That tree was rotted through. I could have fallen and died.” She’s making fun of me, because Reggie would never have let a little thing like a rotted tree be the end of her.

“It’s the thought that counts,” I tell her.

“Oh, yeah? What are you thinking about right now?” She straightens up with a little wobble.

“You.” My heart is thudding, aching, with all the time we haven’t spent together since then, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. Why, when I feel like a live wire next to her, even three beers in, in the middle of the night.

“What about me? I’m not that interesting.”

“Just that—” I can’t help myself. I reach out and curve my hand around her face, my thumb brushing against that beauty mark. Reggie leans into it, and damn it if she’s not still trying to pretend it isn’t happening.

“Just what?” she whispers.

That’s when I lean in and kiss her.