Ronnie pulls the car into a parking spot in front of the club. He turns towards me and says. "Are you ready to have some with a few guys from school?"

A smile spreads across my face. "Of course I am. It is a reunion before the reunion with the rest of our classmates from high school."

"Who are you looking forward to seeing the most?" Ronnie asks, knowingly.

Nina turns towards me as well and waits for my answer.

If I say her sister, I'll sound desperate, but I don't care what she thinks of me.

"Eliza, she's the girl I want to know what happened to after we finished school."

"She hasn't been up to anything." Nina opens the car door and walks away. She walks past the security team, who let her on right away.

How would she know that her sister isn't up to anything? I don't think she's been home in a while to know that.

After graduating from high school, I saw Eliza's siblings move to the city and leave our small town for good.

The usual saying for our small town is that most of us never leave, but everyone from my graduating class did that, except Eliza.

Who had a reason to stay behind? The classes below us didn't have many people leave the town for school because their parents asked them to help run stores.

As a close friend of one of the founding families, I learned that they want to redevelop the area and build a shopping mall with an indoor swimming pool and an ice rink.

That will bring more sports into the community besides football, soccer, basketball and tennis.

Tennis was part of my PE education, and I was good at that sport. When I was younger, my mother put me into lessons, and I loved it. As I grew up, my interests shifted, and football was the game I wanted to play.

I got injured in college, and that's when I changed my courses and decided to become a lawyer. I wanted one of the highest-earning jobs.

I was smart enough to pull it off and was told I would be a partner shortly. I've wanted to be a partner for years, and now that dream is coming true.

If I keep my record clean, they won't be able to deny my partnership.

Ronnie stops next to me and says. "Are you ready to go in?"

"Yes, I am." Checking my pocket for my wallet and phone, I start walking towards the door.

As I get closer to the door, I see my girlfriend and some of her friends trying to get in.

Walking over to the security guy, I say. "Let those six girls in. They're with us."

"Okay," he opens the barrier, and the girl walks through.

Casey walks over to me and kisses me. "Thanks for letting us in, baby. I was hoping you'd see us in line."

"What are you doing here?"

"Lena wanted to go to a different club, and I remembered about this one opening recently. I knew that you wouldn't mind us coming here. Enjoy your boys' night." She walks through the door with her friends.

Ronnie and I are the next ones through the door. As soon as we enter, there's a hallway with flashing lights that leads to a huge dance area.

A girl is dancing with a guy, and he has his hands down her dress while dancing.

They should get off the dance floor before they end up fucking each other on the dance floor.

At the end of the huge room is a roped-off staircase, and there's a sign that says VIP.

The security woman smiles at him when we get closer to the sign. "Hello, Mr Abercrombie. How are you?"

"I'm good, Lysa. This is my best friend, Austin Wilde. Please, be kind to him tonight. I know how you get when new people are in our fold."

She crosses her arms and looks closely at me. "I'm not that bad. He's just pissed that I didn't trust that bitch, Casey."

My Casey?

Lysa looks across the room and shakes her head as she watches a girl dry hump a guy on the dance floor.

As I take a closer look, I see it's my girlfriend. "Excuse me," I say as I walk through the crowd of people and pull Casey away from him. Yelling over the music, I say, "What the fuck are you doing, Casey?"

"I'm enjoying my girls' night out. You should be in the VIP area with your friends pretending to be single. Isn't that why you wanted to come to the club alone? So, your friends would see you're not attached."

"They know I have a girlfriend. For once, I just wanted to be away from you. You made that difficult tonight because you showed up at the spot I'm supposed to be at." I look around the room. "You're coming upstairs with me. I don't want you around another guy for the night."

She waves at her friends, "I'll see you all later." I hold her hand as I drag her over to the VIP section.

Lysa looks disgusted. "Why are the hottest guys in this city into the trash like her?"

Casey is about to do something to her, but I drag her up the stairs. When we make it to the top, I see Nina sitting at a table with the woman, and she's laughing.

Turning towards Casey, I say. "Join them. I'm sure you'll make some friends." She walks over to the group, and Nina makes room for her.

Moving over to the table, I sit with the guys. "Hey," I say and grab a full glass of beer from the tray sitting on the table.

Cal takes a drink of his beer and says. "Who's everyone looking forward to seeing the most when we go to the school reunion?"

Once everyone has answered, they wait for me to answer, and I say. "I can't wait to see Eliza Donoghue. She was the best part of going to school."

"You're ex-girlfriend?"

"Yes,"

Ronnie leans forward and says. "Let's have a wager for and against Austin and Eliza. I bet two thousand that you can't get with her."

"Two thousand that he can," James says.

I decided to go with the bet and say, " For four thousand dollars, I can make her fall in love with me, and we'll go all the way."

"You're on," Ronnie says. He stands up and heads over to Nina. He whispers something into her ear and pulls out a paper and a pen. He walks back over to the table and writes the bets on it. "I'll pick up the money from you after the reunion."

"Okay,"

After that, we started drinking until the girls walked over to us and asked us to dance with them. I took Casey's hand and pulled her down the stairs towards the dance floor. Holding her hand, I pulled her closer to me, and we swayed to the music.