The High School Reunion From Hell - Saranna DeWylde Page 0,9

the keys to her heart, doesn’t he?” She smooched Vlad’s head. “Yes, he does. Mine, too.”

“Not that I’m not immensely glad to see you, but…” I could tell she wanted something by the half grin on her pretty little heart-shaped face.

“But?” She laughed as she walked into the kitchen.

Ryder picked up my water bottle, sniffed it, and considered. “Must have been a hard night, huh?”

I snatched it back from her. “Just never you mind.”

“You and dad have a fight?” Then she grinned. “A sexy fight? I came home this morning and the coffee table was suspiciously absent.”

“That, child, is none of your concern.”

“But it is! How do I know what sort of Parent Trap Style shenanigans to engage in to get you two back together if I don’t know the current sitch?” She sighed and looked skyward, as if the answer might be written on the ceiling. “This would be so much easier if I had a twin.”

Remembering her childhood, I took another drink. She was a great kid, but man, had she tested every nerve in my body. I couldn’t have handled two. I didn’t think anyone could. “There’s just too much awesome packed in that tiny body. One is enough.”

“Auntie Lila, are you going to the reunion?” Ryder trotted into the kitchen and snagged a pastry.

“I was just here to try to convince Margie that she needed to go. Then Presley crashed the party.”

“Oh, I see how it is. You assholes brought out the big guns.” They were ganging up on me.

Ryder grinned. “Dad wants you to go, too.”

“Your dad wants me to go? Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he wants to dance with you at Prom. Maybe he wants to make out in the back of your car by the river. Who knows? You should find out.”

I had so many more important reasons to go. I shouldn’t care about dancing with Marc at Prom to some stupid 90s ballad that would make me cry every time I heard it.

Yet, part of me really, really did.

I’d always wished I’d had the balls to dance with him that time he asked in middle school. I’d said no because I thought it was a joke. I didn’t even realize it was the real thing until we’d started dating as adults.

This whole reunion was a recipe to break my heart. It had already been crushed. I didn’t think it could take another blow.

Ryder shoved a bag at me. “I made you something for Prom.”

Presley cackled like a bog witch. “Haha. Now, you have to go.”

“You really do,” Ryder said.

“Open it,” Lila Jean prompted.

I reached into the giant brown shopping bag and found a dress. A ridiculous, beautiful red dress and I unfurled it and held it up to my body.

“The pattern called for a bustle, but…” she shrugged.

“Bustle? What did you…” Holy shit. I gasped with pure glee. Ryder had made me a reproduction of Mina’s red gown from Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. It was sweet and so damn sarcastic. A vampire slayer wearing Mina’s dress?

I shook my head. “Ryder, you’re just too much.”

“I’m exactly enough, and now, you can’t let all my hard work go to waste.” She held up her hand. “Before you say you can’t, the hotel agreed to make allowances for Vlad. There is nothing stopping you from going to this reunion.”

“Except my good sense,” I said half-heartedly.

Right on cue, Lila Jean grabbed my hand. “I’ll be there.”

“Why do you all want me to go so badly?” Everyone here seemed unreasonably invested in my twenty-fifth high school reunion. I didn’t like it.

“Honey, it’s your best shot at getting your husband back. Remind him of the woman he fell in love with. Remind him of the boy he used to be who wanted to be the man he is,” Lila Jean said.

“This is pathetic.” I clutched the dress tighter. “I’m not chasing a man who doesn’t want me.”

Only, that was a lie. I was going to chase him with a butterfly net. Two birds with one stone. Or was that three? I could figure out who was after him and why. Reclaim that sense of purpose I’d been missing since the Council “let me go” as a slayer. And make him fall in love with me again.

That might have been asking a lot out of a long weekend.

But it had been a long weekend when rogue vampires had attacked and revealed themselves and slayers to the world during the Great Reveal. My life had transformed in three