"The girl voted most likely to die a virgin." "So
unpopular, she attended her prom alone." "The queen of geek
chic."
Zoe Gaston sneered at the labels people had scribbled under
her senior picture. She hated labels. Although, she sighed
as she glanced at the photo, sometimes it was hard to deny
them. An ode to the dark side, she'd called her teen years.
Black spiked hair, black-lined eyes, black glossy lips.
She'd been a pudgy-cheeked brainy Goth-girl.
In other words, a total misfit.
"You think I should attend my ten-year reunion… why?" she
asked Meghan with a grimace.
"To relive happy high-school memories and reconnect with
all your friends, of course."
Zoe's sister-in-law actually believed that. She was the
kind of gal who'd liked school. Plenty of friends, good
times, general acceptance. The total opposite of Zoe's
experience. Other than one brief weekend when the hottie
football star she'd crushed on had seemed to return her
interest, she'd spent her high-school years as persona non
grata.
"Oh, yeah, the good ol' days." Zoe squinted at Meghan and
nodded sagely. "That would be when the cheerleaders hated
me, the jocks were terrified of me and the teachers, ah,
yes,
the teachers. They were just as happy when I cut class as
when I showed up."
Meghan shrugged and snatched the yearbook away, obviously
sensing the trip down memory lane wasn't helping her
argument any. She tossed it on Zoe's electric-blue couch,
the glossy cover swooshing across the slick leather.
"You publicly mocked the cheerleaders," she pointed out
with a dirty look.
Oops. Zoe bit her lip to hold back a laugh as she realized
perky Meghan probably had a pair of bronzed pom-poms hidden
away somewhere.
"Zach told me you kicked the quarterback in the balls,"
Meghan continued, sounding shocked and irritated. Zoe
raised her brow as if to ask what was wrong with that, but
managed to keep her mouth shut as the other woman
continued. "And he said you regularly argued with the
teachers."
A quick grin escaped. Okay, so her school days hadn't
totally sucked. "Exactly. I didn't fit in. I didn't want to
fit in. And nobody wanted me to try to fit in. So why on
earth would I go back?"
"To show them all how hot you are, how successful you are
and how wrong they were about you."
"Sure. Because I still don't look like a Kewpie doll, I
change jobs more often than most people change hairstyles
and it's been so long since I had sex that I might as well
be the lifelong virgin they dubbed me."
"So what? Those things don't mean they were right about
you, do they? And it's not like you have to fill out some
sexual-activity roster if you attend."
Zoe smirked, then picked up her margarita glass and took a
sip. Before she could come up with a clever response,
Meghan puffed up her cheeks so she looked like an angry
blond chipmunk, then blew out a gust of air. "If you don't
go, they're all going to think they were right. Are you
going to let them win?"
Zoe opened her mouth to say she didn't care if they won or
not. Then she sighed and shut it again. She couldn't deny
it. She did love to win. It was almost an irresistible need
in her, that inability to step away from a competition, the
compulsion to try to get the last word, to fight to the
often-bitter end. It'd been the only thing that'd kept her
in school after her parents' deaths—that need to prove all
the gossips wrong.
Of course, as soon as the challenge was met and she'd won,
she lost all interest. Boredom was Zoe's major downfall.
"I can overcome my need to win if I don't step up to play,"
she muttered, adding a silent maybe. She picked up the
flashy neon invitation to the weeklong reunion and
grimaced. "And returning to Central High's school of
torture is good incentive to stay out of the game."
"And a rotten excuse for being afraid they might be right."
Zoe glared, but didn't respond to the direct hit.
"Why are you pushing this, really?" she asked, turning the
tables. Zoe pointed to the bright reunion invitation that
Meghan had brought over with an explanation that it'd been
mailed to Zoe's brother when the committee hadn't been able
to track her down. "You don't care if I relive my teen
years or not, so what's behind it? The truth this time."
Meghan picked up a fuchsia pillow and ran her fingers
through the fringe, her diamond wedding band sparkling.
Finally, she looked up at Zoe with puppy-dog eyes and
said, "Zach's in trouble."
Zoe sat upright so fast, her margarita sloshed over the
edge of her glass. She ignored the icy stickiness trickling
down her fingers and grabbed Meghan's arm. "What's wrong?
What happened to Zach? Is he sick?"
"Nothing like that," Meghan hastened to assure her, her
blue eyes wide and shocked at the vehement response. Zoe
realized she might have overreacted a smidge, but Zach was
all she had. "He's fine. Overworked and overstressed, as
usual. It's not his health that's the problem. It's his
business."
The fear slowly released its hold on her muscles. Zoe
forced herself to breathe. Once, twice, then a deep,
relieved sigh.
"Z-Tech?" she asked, referring to Zach's company. When the
dot-com boom had gone belly-up, Zach had struck out on his
own, creating a video-game company that catered to niche
markets. Since she specialized in business consulting, Zoe
had advised him more than once to expand his horizons, but
Zach had always claimed he liked the cozy feel of
specializing. He had decided last year to risk it all on
his own platform. To compete with the likes of Sony and
Microsoft, he'd gone with the concept of cheap, functional
and expandable.
"Is his new system having problems?"
Meghan nodded. "He'd be furious if he knew I was telling
you, but yeah. He sank everything, all our money, into this
idea and now nobody is interested in the system. Not
without something extra. If it doesn't take off, Z-Tech
won't survive through the end of the year."
"Damn," Zoe breathed, sinking back in her chair.
Z-Tech was everything to Zach. Oh, sure, he adored his
wife. But he'd loved that company first. He'd talked about
starting it, had planned it way back when they were kids.
Their parents had moved to Bradford, Idaho, when Zoe was
fifteen. Zach, at eighteen, had stayed behind to try his
luck in Silicon Valley. When their parents had died, he'd
set aside his dreams, moved to the small Idaho town to let
Zoe finish high school and gone to work in the dot-com
industry to support his sister.
Zach had given up everything for her. Zoe never forgot
that. She owed him. Owed him for keeping her in school, for
pushing her to excel instead of curling up in a ball of
misery. Owed him for reminding her what family was, and
what it meant to be loved when the whole world as she'd
known it had turned into an upside-down hell. Not that he
saw it that way. The few times she'd tried to express
gratitude, he'd rolled his eyes and changed the subject.
Three years ago, after she'd quit yet another job, it'd
been Zach who'd suggested Zoe pile all her qualifications
into a portfolio and call herself a consultant. She could
step in, boss people around, fix their problems, then leave
before she got bored. Specializing in startups with growing
pains, she evaluated, assessed and created business plans
to help companies move to the next level. Or, a lot of
times, to realize that they'd tapped out their market, in
which case she pointed out options to reinvent themselves.
It'd turned into the perfect—and very successful—solution
to all of Zoe's career woes.
And now her brother, who'd essentially given her her
career, was losing his own company. She set her glass on
the side table with a frown. Nothing like the heavy taste
of debt to ruin a perfectly good margarita.
"He had this idea, though," Meghan said, her tone hushed as
though she was sharing secrets. "Zach was saying if he
could get a hook, something special, he'd be able to make
it work."
"Something to convince buyers to try his system? That they
could only get with it?" Zoe clarified.
"Exactly."
"That's a great idea." Something Zoe had actually tried to
suggest a few months back, but Zach had been in a weird
macho I-can-succeed-myself-and-prove-I'm-not-a-loser mood
so it hadn't sunk in. If his business was in this bad
shape, that probably accounted for his attitude, she
realized now. What boredom was to her, failure was to her
brother— pure hell. "What's the problem?"
"Zach figures he needs one killer game. An exclusive
attached to his system. And there's only one game designer
out there who's really exclusive, you know? Who everyone's
heard of but who's never worked for one of the big
companies."
Starting to see how this would circle back to her high-
school reunion, Zoe waited.
"Apparently there's this guy. He goes by Gandalf the Gaming
Wizard. He's the hottest video-game designer in the
industry and he's a total mystery. Nobody knows who he
really is. Zach's tried to reach him through Leeton, the
company he works for, but no luck." Meghan got up with a
bad-tempered "huff and stalked to the large plate-glass
window to stare out over the San Francisco skyline. "I
tried to help Zach research him, but it's like digging in
the dark. Nothing to go on but a few rumors."
Which was where the reunion issue came in. Zoe reached for
her margarita glass and downed the rest of the watery
contents. Oh, yeah, she'd heard plenty of rumors about
Gandalf.
Meghan turned and, apparently seeing the recognition on
Zoe's face, pointed in triumph. "You know him, don't you?"
"No." Not a lie. She had no idea who Gandalf was.
"But he knows you. He's got the hots for you. Even Zach
admits it, although he growled a little bit when he did.
It's obvious based on his launch game—Class Warfare."
"Circumstantial," Zoe dismissed, even though she knew
Meghan was probably right. Five years ago, after hearing
Zach rant about it, she'd checked the game out herself. The
designer had obviously lived in Bradford at some point. The
similarities were glaring: landmarks, sayings, class
slogans. Her.
She gave a little shiver. She'd never been able to pinpoint
if she was flattered or freaked that the main character, a
busty heroine named SweetCheeks, had been based on her. Not
so much in looks—or bra size—but in attitude. Some of her
catchphrases, her habit of tapping her lip when she was
thinking. The purple-tipped, spiked black hair she'd
sported in school. And more specifically, the one-of-a-kind
tribal wings tattoo on her shoulder blades Zoe had gotten
at sixteen in memory of her mother.
It was like a strange homage to her teenage self. A nice
antidote to the ignominy of being voted most likely to die
a virgin. The guy obviously knew her. But him? As far as
she knew, nobody had a clue who he was.
"Circumstantial my ass," Meghan returned, slapping her
hands on her denim-clad hips and glaring. "The answer to
Zach's prayers, the hottest video-game designer in the
country, is from your town. And chances are, given that he
knew you in school well enough to see your naked back, he's
likely your age. So he'd be at this reunion. Doh… it's a
connect-the-dots win. Even you can focus long enough to
connect dots, can't you?"
"Nobody likes a smart-ass," Zoe muttered, her lips
twitching as she uttered the lie.
"Sure they do," Meghan claimed, sensing Zoe wasn't going to
slam the door on the discussion. "Zach and I love you."
The trickle of guilt intensified.
Needing to move, Zoe got up and crossed the apartment to
the kitchen. A push of the button on the blender whirred a
nice loud distraction, as well as mixing up another batch
of margaritas.
Central High. Cliquish, snotty and judgmental. Zoe had
never fitted in. She'd been an odd dichotomy. A moody
fifteen-year-old Goth-girl brainiac with a chip on her
shoulder. She'd taken to the exclusive small town and its
high school like a cat to water. Thankfully she'd had Dex.
Because of him, her one friend, she'd been able to ignore
how poorly she'd been accepted. Until she was sixteen and
her parents had died in a car accident and she'dhadto deal
with another nasty small-town reality. Gossip. While she'd
been trying to deal with her shock and grief, the gossip
mill had gone into overtime, whispering on every corner
rumors of her parents' pending divorce and claiming it was
over her mom having an affair with the school principal.
Zoe had wanted to drop out, go anywhere and hide. But Zach
had insisted she graduate. He'd set aside his dreams to be
responsible. Despite the rotten high-school experience, she
was grateful that he hadn't let her wienie out. Wasn't it
her job, now, to set aside her irritation with the past to
give his dreams a chance? After all, she wanted him to
succeed, And even more, she wanted to prove herself. To
him. And to herself.
Zoe sighed. Talk about pressure. She carried the pitcher
into the living room and refilled both glasses.
"You know he'd be pissed if he found out you were doing
this," she muttered to her sister-in-law as she sat back
down. But she still picked up the invitation. "Nobody's
even sure if Gandalf is from Bradford. You know that,
right? He could have just passed through. There's no real
reason to believe he's going to be at the reunion."
"Zach thinks he will be. Anyone that sentimental about his
hometown would go to his reunion. The timing, a bunch of
things in the game, suggest he's your age. Zach's been
racking his brain to figure out a way to find the guy."
The guilt was a waterfall now.
Seeing the crack in Zoe's armor, Meghan moved in for the
kill. She gave a perky smile and tugged a fat envelope out
of her purse. "Look, here's more information on the
reunion. I found the link when I used that Web site, you
know? The Classmates one? When I saw your class was having
a reunion, I e-mailed them to send me the invitation
package."
Zoe's eyebrow arched. So that's how they'd really found
her. She'd wondered. It wasn't like she'd left a trail of
breadcrumbs for her ex-schoolmates to track her down.
"There was even speculation about Gandalf there on the
message boards," Meghan continued, once she was sure Zoe
wasn't going to chide her for the behind-the-back
maneuvering. "People wondering if he's really from your
school. What class he was in. If he'll come to the reunion.
That kind of thing."
Figured. More gossip, this time cyber-style. Zoe just
rolled her eyes.
"Even if he is there, it's not like he's going to be
wearing a sign. The guy's managed to keep his identity a
secret from major competitors for five years. He won't show
up wearing a pointed hat and carrying a game controller."
Seeing the stubborn look on Meghan's face, Zoe sighed.
Then, as she did when faced with any impossible business
challenge, she started breaking it down into smaller tasks
to research, areas to consider, things to do. In other
words, her brain had gone into strategy mode.
While she mulled all the angles, she absently took the
reunion booklet Meghan held out. When she flipped the neon
cover open, all thoughts of strategy fled; Zoe's stomach
knotted. With narrowed eyes, she looked at the grainy black-
and-white picture of the king and queen. Brad Young and
Candice Love. Her crush and the girl who'd stolen him away
from her.
She gave a low growl. Candice was the mean, snotty bitch
behind making Zoe's high-school life a living hell.
Galaxies apart socially, the two girls had been in direct
competition in most things academic. Zoe snickered,
remembering that four out of five times, she'd beaten
Candice.
But Candice had had her revenge. Her whispers had taken
Zoe's one spark of happiness and turned it into a worthless
misery. Buzz of Zoe's parents and the affair had surfaced
the same week she'd won the Governors' Award for
Excellence. Candice had been the one whispering loudest,
saying that since Zoe's mom had been fooling around with
the principal, his recommendation and support of Zoe were
based on her mother's bedroom skills. Zoe hadn't believed
the gossip. She knew her parents were having problems, but
cheating wasn't one of them. But she'd never forgiven
Candice for starting the ugly rumor. Or for planting those
doubts in Zoe's head.
Which meant helping out her brother was also her chance to
go back, show the stuck-up cheerleader and her gang of
friends that she was all those things Meghan tried to
convince her she was. Hot and successful.
"Okay, fine," she decided with a determined thrust of her
chin. "I'll go."
"Thanks, Zoe." Meghan's gratitude, apparent in her blue
eyes and huge, relieved smile, gave Zoe a warm feeling.
Helping was good. Meghan picked up the reunion folder and
flipped through the pages. "You need a costume. And you're
late sending an RSVP, so it might be hard to get a room at
the reunion hotel."