Disclaimer
This is an original work of fiction. The copyright belongs to this author. Any reproduction or use of this piece without express written permission from the author is against the law. Any likeness to real people is purely coincidental. All characters in this story engaging in adult activities are age eighteen or older.
A note from the author...
I am not a professional writer. I always appreciate honest, constructive feedback and comments from readers. However, it is unnecessary to make sardonic and rude comments berating a non-paid writer for a few mistakes or when the story isn't your cup of tea. Thank you for your consideration.
I hope you enjoy!
~Mireille
*****
Standing at the swanky bar in the hotel's lounge, with its neon under-lighting, stainless steel counters, and black vinyl-topped barstools, twenty-eight-year-old Rhys Connolly could hear the din of the dance music and feel the pumping base coming from the banquet hall at the other end of the spacious hotel lobby. He sighed as he placed his right palm flat on the counter, his left hand on his hip, with the side of his gray suitcoat tucked behind his wrist.
The bar lounge was nearly devoid of patrons. There were two bar stations in the banquet hall where the reunion party was being held. The drinks there were free, so it stood to reason why none of the attendees would be in the hotel bar paying for drinks. But Rhys was.
The bartender wiped the counter with a black bar cloth as he made his way down the counter to where Rhys was standing. "What'll it be?"
Rhys' lips quirked at the barkeep's thick Long Island accent. He couldn't hide it if he tried. It was a reminder that Rhys was no longer in California, the place he now called home. "Good evening," Rhys greeted the bartender with a friendly half-smile. "I'll have a Sidecar. Thanks," he replied with a nod of gratitude as he pulled a money clip from his left pants pocket and retrieved a ten and a five from the folded bills. He held the money out to the bartender, "Keep it." The bartender thanked Rhys and walked back down the bar to make the cocktail, leaving Rhys alone with his thoughts.
*****
Rhys hadn't wanted to attend the ten-year high school reunion in his hometown in New Jersey. He hadn't stayed in touch with any classmates, not to mention that the few other smart-geek students he'd associated with in school were not in attendance. He didn't care to reinvent any relationships with these people, none of whom he would likely ever see again. So, what was the point in coming? There
was
none, in his opinion. Yet, he'd let himself be persuaded to fly across the country to attend.
For many of his classmates, nothing much had changed. Being in a well-populated affluent area within close proximity to New York City, why go elsewhere? Many of them lived somewhere within driving distance, and they seemed to belong to the same old social circles and cliques, even after having attended college and joining the work force.
Rhys, however, had attended the University of California at Berkeley and now lived in a beachfront home in Half Moon Bay on the coast of California, which is about thirty miles south of San Francisco. Following their only child, his parents had retired to northern California, so there was nothing tying Rhys to New Jersey.
He thought about what he'd been like in high school, and he chuckled with a shake of his head, remembering the tall, thin, young man with bad posture, ill-fitting glasses, and no sense of style. He'd been teased and name-called by some of the other students, and not necessarily the ones who are often stereotyped as bullies.
It's probably unrealistic to think that anyone who is bullied escapes it without it affecting them to a certain degree, but it had been minimal for Rhys. He didn't really relate to his peers. Their rituals of teasing, flirting, and game-playing seemed like a waste of time and energy to him. His interests lied in learning about computers and robotics. As smart as he was, he was in Robotics Club as well as a national tech competition team through his school. When he wasn't doing a project for one of those or for school, there was always some personal geek-tech project that took up most of his spare time. For instance, by the age of fourteen, he'd built his own computer, and by fifteen, he was building websites.
It was during college that Rhys had 'come into his own,' as they say. He owed some credit to his roommate, Matt, who was a baseball player and a business major. Matt had not only easily accepted Rhys for who he was, which was a gawky, awkward computer geek, but Matt even invited Rhys to workout at the gym with he and his teammates. Rhys had been reluctant to go. He felt odd enough... tall and thin with no muscle tone, not to mention that fitness and gym equipment were foreign to him.
Matt assured him it was a piece of cake, and Rhys had an honest desire to improve his physique, so he went outside his comfort zone, and accompanied Matt to the gym. Rhys was easily folded into the flock of Matt's teammates, and the guys took turns instructing him on the various machines. Rhys had to admit, it wasn't what he expected from a group of jocks, and he was grateful for it. Before long, Rhys knew how to use each piece of equipment, and he started to build muscle himself.
Sophomore year, Matt was dating a fashion major, Allison. She had a bubbly, bright personality and had a passionate way of talking about her major and the things that she loved. It was that passion that seemed to pull people in, like she was an enchantress, putting people under her spell to persuade them to do as she wished. At least that's how Rhys thought of it. There just wasn't any other reasonable explanation as to how she'd managed to talk him into being involved in one of her final class projects that required Allison and two friends to makeover hair and clothing for a person and present their "work" to the class.
While being on display in Alison's class was quite possibly one of the more embarrassing moments in his life, in the end, Rhys had been so pleased with the results that he'd enlisted Alison to help him select some new clothing for his wardrobe, since style was an area where he felt completely inept. So, Alison began to educate him in fitted dress shirts, V-necks, cuts of jeans, styles of shoes, and everything in between. Rhys absorbed every meticulous detail.
Alison promised that when she was done with him that he would be turning heads. His formerly unruly brown hair was cut short on the sides and in the back, but longer on top, accentuating his natural curls, His new, more fitted style, complimented his physique that he'd worked so hard to develop over the past year. Rhys was skeptical, since he'd never received much attention from girls in high school, and while he might have been disinterested in his peers in high school, he became much more interested in his female peers in college, and couldn't deny that he wouldn't mind some attention from the fairer sex.
Good to her word, Allison was right, and Rhys began to receive attention from the young ladies on campus. It was fascinating to Rhys that college women seemed to appreciate his smarts, contrary to high school where all anyone seemed to care about was whether you were "cool or popular" or not.
While Rhys' interest in socializing with his peers increased, especially with the girls, he managed his time well. He dated, while maintaining a nearly perfect grade point average, graduating at the top of his class and landing a fantastic job right out of college. Three years later, he was sitting in his dream job, working for the Fortune 100 computer and tech mogul, a leader in innovation in the computer and tech industry.
*****
So, the Rhys Connolly standing at the bar that evening in his $1,200, gray, Tom Ford, three-piece suit, was a far cry from the skinny, awkward young man from ten years ago. Slender and fit with modest muscles, sexy curls that women loved to run their fingers through, eyes as blue as a cloudless sky, and a genuine smile, he turned heads in any room. His intelligence was celebrated at his job at the tech giant in Mountain View, California, where he was a computer hardware engineer, earning a sizeable six figure salary. He had every reason to be the confident man that he was.
The bartender delivered Rhys' drink, with a curl of lemon peel on the edge of the cocktail glass. After swirling the golden liquid, he brought the glass to his lips, taking a long draw of the ice-cold, orangey-flavored liquid. As he was setting his drink down on the steel surface, he heard loud voices and a scraping sound on the polished concrete floor as someone banged into a chair. Obnoxious laughter followed. Rhys glanced over his shoulder to see who was causing the ruckus. Recognizing the two former classmates who had hassled him in high school, he rolled his eyes, let out an annoyed puff of air, and turned back to the bar, reading the time from his watch, 9:54 PM.
The next moment, the two men invaded Rhys' personal space, sidling up to the bar on the left side of him, alcohol permeating from their pores. Nearly knocking into him, the one Rhys remembered as Trevor yelled to the bartender, ordering two cheap beers on tap. He then turned to Rhys, studying his nametag.
"Rhys Connelly..." Trevor mumbled, standing in a typical contemplative stance with eyebrows knitted, one hand across his mouth, and the other arm across his body supporting his elbow. The light bulb was slow to flicker on, but as it did, Trevor guffawed with boorish, drunken laughter, "Hey, geek squad!"
