My Ex and My Best Friend Planned My Reunion Roast. The Town Chat Roasted Them Instead. novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Welcome Hug
Shayla hugs Britta in a parking lot while Brock films, and the town chat floats up to show her the plan: a surprise roast at the reunion. She says yes out loud, near five phones.
Shayla Pfeiffer hugged me in the middle of the Piggly Wiggly parking lot while my ex-fiance filmed it.
It was four o'clock on a Wednesday, and half of Tern Lake was loading groceries into trucks.
I had been back in town for nineteen minutes.
"Britt!" Shayla squealed, and then her arms were around me, and her hair smelled like a vanilla candle.
I had last seen that hair at my wedding rehearsal, on a pillow that wasn't mine.
"No hard feelings," she said into my ear. "None. I swear."
Brock stood three feet away with his phone held up sideways and his golden-retriever grin on.
"For the memory," he said. "Look at you two."
"Hi, Brock," I said.
"Hi, Britt." He had the nerve to look misty. "God, it's good to see you."
Three years ago, I drove out of this town with a wedding dress in the back seat and my own name still on the cake.
I had not planned to come back until the cabin papers made me.
My grandmother had died in August and left me her lake cabin.
I had ten days to clear it out before the listing went up.
Shayla let go of me and held me at arm's length by both elbows.
"You're staying for the reunion, right? Saturday week, at the Legion Hall?"
"I hadn't decided."
"Oh, you have to." She tilted her head to the left. "Everyone wants to see you."
"We just want to say hello properly," she added. "A little hello. That's all it is."
That head tilt was her tell.
She had done it in fourth grade when she told Mrs. Kessel the hamster died on its own.
I should have noticed it right then.
Instead I opened my mouth to say what I had been saying since second grade.
"Of course," I started. "It's fine, it's..."
That's when the first line of white text slid across the air in front of my face.
【Oh no. She's falling for the hug.】
I stopped talking.
It floated right over the shopping cart return, in square brackets, with a tiny timestamp.
A second one drifted in under it, and then a third.
【PontoonPete: Twenty bucks says she cries in the parking lot by Saturday.】
【HotdishHelen: Bless her heart, they look so happy to see her.】
【SpellCheck_Sue: *Saturday week. Not "Saturday." There are two Saturdays and one of them is a trap.】
I blinked hard, and they were still there.
I looked at Shayla, and she was still smiling, and it was clear she couldn't see them.
"Britt?" Brock said. "You okay?"
"Fine," I said, which was my favorite lie.
Then the lines began to stack up faster, pouring down from the Piggly Wiggly sign.
【Reunion Committee (Shayla, Brock + 4)】
【Shayla: She's at the Pig. Brock, film the hug. Close up, I want it to look like SHE needs it.】
【Brock: On it. Wide shot or tight?】
【Shayla: Tight. Then we post at 7 so Helen's group sees it first.】
My stomach went cold.
The lines kept coming, and I read them faster than I have ever read anything.
【Operation Welcome Home, final run of show:】
【8:00 Slideshow, "Britta's Greatest Hits" (the church, the dress, the Greyhound station).】
【8:20 Award: Most Likely to Run Away. Trophy is a tiny bus.】
【8:30 Brock does his closure speech. Forgives her. Everyone cries.】
【8:40 SURPRISE MIC. Britta's Blessing, on camera, for the giveaway. She thanks us for being brave.】
【Shayla: Sponsors want to see she's not bitter. If she cries it's even better.】
I stood in that parking lot with a ten-pound bag of dog food in my arm and my face perfectly still.
Behind Shayla, a kid in a store apron was gathering carts, and he had his phone out.
Behind me, a woman in a quilted vest was pretending to look at her receipt.
On my left, a man loading a boat battery had gone very quiet.
Everyone in that lot already knew the story.
The story was that I had run out on my own wedding, and Shayla and Brock had been very brave about it.
【Pete: This is the part where she says "it's fine."】
【Helen: She's so gracious.】
【Sue: She's pale. Pale is not gracious, Helen.】
I decided it in one plain sentence.
I was not going to be fine.
"You know what?" I said, and I said it loud.
I turned so the cart kid and the vest woman and the boat man could all hear it.
"I would not miss Saturday week for anything."
Shayla's smile got brighter.
"And I'll say a few words," I said. "I'd love to."
Her smile stopped moving.
Brock lowered the phone about an inch.
"A few words?" he said.
"Sure," I said. "Since everyone wants to hear from me."
The cart kid was typing already, both thumbs, with his tongue between his teeth.
【Pete: She said it to the cart kid. Thumbs are going.】
【LakeLou: BRITTA SORENSEN SAYS SHE WILL "SAY A FEW WORDS" AT THE REUNION!!!】
【Helen: Oh, how nice, I bet she wants to apologize.】
【Sue: That is not the script. She was supposed to cry. The script has a "she cries" on it, I can see it, it's bolded.】
【Pete: Pool's open. Eight to one she doesn't make it to the dessert table.】
Shayla hugged me again, a little too hard and a little too fast.
"Perfect," she said. "That's perfect. We'll text you the details."
I knew exactly what the details were, and I smiled all the way back to my car.
I had my hand on the door when I noticed the gray pickup idling at the far end of the lot.
A man sat behind the wheel in a black ball cap, one forearm out the window, looking straight at me.
Every other person in that parking lot had four or five comments floating over their head.
He had none.
Nobody was typing anything about him at all.
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