Never Always (NaNoWriMo 2014)

Chapter One

Chapter One

"Name."

"Page Townsend."

The greeter nodded. "Page." Pause as he riffled through the papers. "Townsend. Townsend. Page Townsend."

Even I would get annoyed at how he was saying my name. By the looks of him, this was not for the pleasure of volunteering. He was a frat boy doing this because his girlfriend blackmailed him in to it. Nice to see some things never changed.

"Ah! Here you are, Page Townsend!" He pulled out a white sheet of paper, placed it over a gallon-sized flyer filled Ziploc bag and held the whole kit and caboodle out to me. "Welcome to your ten year reunion!" He blinked. "You don't look old enough to be at a college reunion. Are you sure you're in the right place?"

"Excuse me?"

The shock on his face, paired with the comical hair swiveling on his head, I almost let up the stern crinkling of my brows.

"I didn't mean anything by it."

I snatched the bundle from him and plucked my nametag off the table. "Uh-huh."

"I'm sorry! Really, Page-" he had to think about my last name for a second "-Townsend!"

"Would you stop saying my full name like that?"

I walked past him, ignoring the continued pleas for forgiveness, and headed into the conference room. Peeling off the sticky nametag proved fun with only one hand but I managed it and slapped it on my shirt.

When I'd gotten the invite to this thing, I did not want to come. I'd flat out refused and told Sterling my refusal when she called to confirm I'd received my invite.

"No, Sterling," I told her. "I'm not going."

"Come on," she pleaded. "It'll be fun!"

"I wouldn't call a gathering of overachieving-"

"You need a break. This is your chance. You're going!"

It took her two months and one night of consuming my favorite bottle of white wine with me for her to convince me to go. By then, I ended up agreeing just to make her stop nagging. According to her, this would be good for me. Fun. Awesome. I'd enjoy myself so much, I'd pee rainbows!

"You're not wearing singlemomdom very well. You need a break."

"I should turn you into a magic mirror for when I need to know how you really feel."

"Page-"

"FINE!"

And that's how I ended up here, in an oversized room with a bunch of people I didn't remember even if I wanted to. I'd waited until the last day to confirm my attendance and even then, I regretted hitting the send button seconds after I did it. Especially when I received the last flyer for this shindig.

My phone vibrated and somehow I found a way of shuffling everything around to slip a hand into my back pocket to grab it. STERLING lit up the screen and I used my chin to answer.

"What?"

"OoOo I can tell by your tone and the noise in the background that you're here. Where are you, bitch?"

A group to my left let out a rather loud cheer and I sidestepped away from the noise in surprise but looked to see what was going on. A premature graying man was hugging the hell out of a curvy short woman, lifted her off her feet, and twirled with her still in his arms.

I wrinkled my nose in distaste.

"I just walked in. People are very touchy-feely."

"Girl, you have no idea. Maybe we can peg you down a date-"