The room was the definition of hot and cold. They might as well have had the furnace cooking on one end and the AC blasting on the other.
It was actually a big laughable game. The men almost universally had a little paunch, no matter how tall or buff they had been back in their heyday. The woman, well, they were all a little too done up. The fake tans were a little too sprayed on, a shade too dark. They wore a little too much makeup and stood comfortably on heels that were a little too high.
And the stone cold stares that they shot to their husbands when their eyes would invariably wander over to the far table lingered a little too long not to be noticed. Each married lady there would have their gaze fall on their husband's face just as his jaw would begin to slacken, just in time for his eyes to lightly glaze over, just as the light of imagination and lust flickered behind those eyes. And the flicker would extinguish just as quickly when the men would turn and see that they had been caught, that their surreptitious glances were anything but. They would look quickly away but not nearly quickly enough and the heat of their eyes would be replaced by the whoosh of cold air that followed the cold stare of women who sipped lightly at their drinks.
Kevin watched the dynamic play out maybe twenty times in the first 15 minutes that he sat there. This was a million times more entertaining than he'd thought it would be. But the one person who should by right be enjoying it most, wasn't enjoying it at all. She didn't even know any of it was happening.
Because she hadn't once looked up from the table since they'd entered the room and sat down and every pair of eyes fought to keep free of her.
Brooke looked like a trope. She looked like a setup on Candid Camera, or a gag from an old Charlie Chaplin silent film where the movie starlet walks out of a film and into real life. She was more than stunning. She was unbelievable. You got the feeling that no one could look that good in a room of people that looked so...middle America...without having planned to upstage everyone for the last 10 years. Her hair was styled, sure, with her little blonde curls like a cloud of gold on her head. Her makeup was light, her blush was especially artful. And the dress was...the dress might at first seem extravagant. But if anyone actually looked at the cut of the dress itself and not the whole package, it really wasn't. It really was just a red dress. It's just that this particular normal red dress had probably never looked better worn by any other woman on the planet. The blood red of it was making blood boil all around them but it wasn't anymore daring or revealing than anything any of the other women were wearing. She just filled it out with her phenomenal figure the way the dress was meant to be filled.
No, Brooke hadn't tried to upstage these women and steal the show. Truth was, she was so terrified of even coming to this 15 year reunion that she only threw herself together this afternoon.
That probably wouldn't get her any faster into the good graces of the women with their cold stares and watered down drinks.
Kevin held her hand on the table and could feel her trembling. "Your missing a treat, babe. This here is...social dynamics at its best. I hope for your sake that these bitches left their knives at home," he said with a chuckle under his breath.
Her worried eyes looked quickly up at him before casting down again. "Wha...whaddya mean?"
She wasn't fishing for a complement like so many other hollow women. She really...really didn't know.
"I don't know how far up your ass your head must be to not already know this...but you are a solid iron clad '10' and I can see only one gal in this room that might break a 7. You know how they say don't fuck your siblings? The mouthbreathers in this room are the reason why. This room is a cautionary tale for fucking inbreeding," he muttered. "You grew up with these people?"
At that she snorted. "Can we just go? I don't need you to say that...make me feel better. We came. Now I just wanna go..."
Kevin's eyes narrowed. "Fuck you, we're not going anywhere! I want to see who's the first hero who'll make the move."
"What move?" she asked.
He smiled. "Man up, walk over here and try to start up a convo without me catching him staring at your tits." His eyes scanned the room. "I honestly don't think any of the James Bonds in this room could walk and chew gum at the same time let alone pull that off. I'd be impressed if they kept from motorboating you the moment their face got within range of your chest."
Finally, she smiled, blushing. "You're fucking sick...Trust me, they don't even know I'm here. I can almost hear them talking about other things. Except for the ones talking shit about me."