The Boys Are Back in Town Read Free

High teased him, Will looked at her thin, elegant features and lush brown hair and saw the girl he'd gone trick-or-treating with every Halloween since birth, the girl who had cried on his shoulder the first time she had ever kissed a boy, because the little shit hadn't kissed her back. Will had punched Jimmy Renahan in the head for that one, and Jimmy hadn't had a clue as to why.
    Will's parents had never had any other children, but in Ashleigh, he had a sister.
    When he walked into the restaurant she rushed to meet him. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her several inches off the ground in a bear hug.
    “Hey, Ash. Welcome home.”
    She grinned and hugged him again. “You have to visit more. I miss you so much. You haven't come down to see us since New Year's!”
    Ashleigh and Eric lived in Elmsford, New York, where she was a lawyer and he was the athletic director for a private high school, and where they still somehow managed to be fantastic parents to their twins. Though he knew it wasn't, they made it look easy, and that gave him faith.
    Will made an effort to go down and see them a couple of times a year and always came away pleased that Ashleigh had married Eric. It could be difficult at times—when he had been with Caitlyn the four of them had often formed a social quartet—but his pleasure at seeing Ashleigh happy far outweighed whatever discomfort his own regrets might bring him.
    With his arm around her he walked to the table and shook hands with her husband.
    “Good to see you, Will,” Eric said. “Have a seat.”
    They hadn't been seated for thirty seconds before Ashleigh leaned over and gave him a conspiratorial grin. “So, come on. You know you want to go.”
    “I really don't.”
    Eric shook his head and picked up a sweating bottle of Sam Adams from the table. “You do. You just want to make us all suffer and prove our love by begging you to come along. So no more of that shit.” His eyes were alight with mischief. “One comment from me, Will, then we're done. If I was single, I would take this opportunity to spend the weekend banging all the girls I wanted to have sex with in high school but never got the chance to.”
    Ashleigh leaned over the table, chin rested on her palm, hazel eyes narrowed with interest. “Oh, really. And which ones were those, honey?”
    “Nah, I'm not talking about me, sweetheart. But Will, he was a horny dog back then. I'm sure he's got a list.”
    His wife pretended to look scandalized and Will just rolled his eyes and reached for his menu.
    Ashleigh sighed softly. “Is it Caitlyn? Please don't tell me you don't want to go just because you don't want to see her. Otherwise I'll have to lock her in a closet for the weekend.”
    “No. I don't think I'd enjoy seeing her, but it wouldn't kill me. Time heals all wounds, right?”
    He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Will's relationship with Caitlyn Rouge had survived high school graduation and four years of college, only to fall messily apart on what was to be their wedding day. It was an old wound, but the truth was that five years after their breakup, it still had not healed.
    “So?” Ashleigh prodded, nudging him, knowing with absolute certainty that he loved her too much to take offense.
    As he perused the list of salads Will shook his head slightly. Even if Caitlyn did show up, years had passed since the last time they had seen one another. The world had moved on, unmindful of whether or not he still loved her. Which was fine, in a way. A lot had happened in those intervening years, and it was not as though he had any illusions.
    “I'll regret this later if I don't go, won't I?” he asked without glancing up from the menu.
    “Horribly. Particularly because of the torment you'll suffer at my hands,” Ashleigh promised.
    Slowly, Will lowered his head to the table and thumped it once against the wood.
             
    W HEN HE RETURNED to the office the first thing he did was check his