Anna took her phone out and asked for my number and said she’d text me the details toward the end of the week. That gave me a few days to block it out of my mind completely, I thought.

As the four said their goodbyes to the table as a whole, re-congratulated Holden and me, and headed out, I coached myself to take in a deep, steadying breath. What kind of social moron was I?

Most times, I wasn’t. I would never, ever be Ms. Social, but I could handle a few hours with four or five people who seemed to be kind and welcoming. I just needed to get out of my head, forget my history, and embrace that my world for the next twelve months was in Dragonfly Lake.

Chapter 16

Chloe

Saturday night, I made it into the Barn Bar thanks to two things. One, Presley came into town to go with me. Two, we had a generous glass of wine at Holden’s—my—house, so I was feeling warm and buzzy.

The Barn Bar was on the way out of town, past the schools and Tripz. The building was—shockingly—an old barn that’d been converted. I’d been by it a thousand times but never inside. The double doors were centered, as was the main bar when you walked in. The counter formed a central square, with three sides lined by stools, and the back was a tall wall where all the liquor was displayed. There were pool tables and dartboards and plenty of high-top tables, plus what looked like a dance floor to one side, and the decor was rustic and minimal.

When Presley and I walked in, it felt like everyone in the place turned to check us out. I pretended not to notice, tried to steer my brain away from freaking out or feeling the attention in a bad way. Thanks to the wine, I mostly pulled it off.

“Drink first?” Presley asked, well aware of my trepidation in general and a firm believer that a little alcohol could make most things smoother.

I didn’t disagree and nodded, scanning the place for any of the girls we were meeting. It was a big room, and there were already a lot of people there, from twentysomethings to my age and older. I probably knew who a lot of these people were, but since I hadn’t seen them for a decade and a half, I didn’t readily recognize many.

As soon as we had our drinks—wine for Presley and a hard seltzer for me, I heard someone calling my name from the front corner of the bar. When I turned, I saw Anna, Olivia, Emerson, and Maeve at a high-top table for six. There was a trio of guys gathered around the end where Maeve, the birthday girl, was. Olivia waved us over as she laughed at something someone said.