The Boys Are Back in Town by Christopher Golden

that's great.”
    By then they were inside the gates of the stadium and it was time to part ways. Will stepped to one side and let the crowd flow by and around him. He watched the others for a moment as they were swept away by the human maelstrom. Then he began to glance around.
    Teenagers. Families with kids of all ages. A teacher or two that he recognized. At the concession stand just beside the entrance to the bleachers he saw Kelly Meserve and a couple of other former classmates but did not bother trying to get their attention. He wanted to get settled first. It took him a moment to visually confirm which bench would be for the home team. Danny, Eric, and Nick would be seated on the Cougars' side of the field.
    Will started toward the stands.
    Beyond the shifting crowd that ebbed and flowed ahead of him, he saw a single lone figure leaning motionless against the bleachers. Stacy Shipman shot him that mischievous grin, eyes sparkling, and he wondered how long she had been watching him before he had become aware of her presence.
    Will arched an eyebrow, pleasantly surprised, and sidled through the long line in front of the concession stand. The whole reunion weekend thing had a strange, bittersweet quality to it—even without the oddness of the previous night's events—but somehow all of that had dissipated the moment he had spotted Stacy there.
    “Hey,” he said as he approached.
    “Hey,” Stacy replied. “Fancy meeting you here.”
    That sly grin remained and her chin dropped slightly, a charming gesture that he was certain was unconscious. She did not move away from the bleachers or shift her position in any other way. A spark of hope ignited in his chest that she had been waiting for him.
    Will scratched at the back of his head, unsure how to continue. “Listen,” he began slowly. “About last night. If I seemed weird at all—”
    “I always thought you were weird, Mr. James. It's one of the things I admire most about you.”
    He blinked and felt his smile grow wider. “I'm going to take that as a compliment. And by the way, I hope everyone told you how incredible you were last night. I'd like to hear you play again sometime.”
    Stacy arched an eyebrow, the freckles across the bridge of her nose darker in the sunshine. The chilly breeze blew a thick lock of dark hair across her face, and with one finger she tucked it behind her ear.
    “Time will tell,” she said. Then she pushed off from the wall and grabbed Will by the hand. “Come on. Let me buy you a hot dog. They're awful, but it's all part of the Homecoming experience, y'know?”
    Will felt her fingers clasped in his own and let her pull him to the back of the concession line. “If you say so.”
    “I do.” And there was that grin again, the look that said she was a woman of great mystery and many secrets, and if he discovered them, he might be just as amused by them as she was.
    They waited in the line, which soon grew even longer as the duo running the concession stand seemed incapable of filling even the simplest of orders without at least one mistake. Yet even though Will was vaguely aware of the antics behind the counter—of hot dogs with the wrong condiments and diet Coke instead of regular, of miscounted change and wrongly tallied totals—the delay did not bother him in the least.
    Stacy told him about her life after Eastborough High, her disastrous and truncated college experience, and the short stint she had done in rehab, thanks to a certain white powder. She was remarkably candid about the whole thing, but when Will thought about it that wasn't so remarkable at all. It was just Stacy. Her real life of late was far less sexy than her raspy-voiced stage persona would lead one to think. She had always been interested in old homes and architecture. Cocaine had prevented her from getting a degree, but she and a partner had started their own business restoring historic homes, and it gave her a pleasure that was evident in every nuanced