I came home from work one day and noticed that the answering service on my phone was blinking. Wondering who it could be I pressed the play button.
"You have one new message."
I played back a male voice that sounded vaguely familiar though I had not heard it for a few years. "Hello Matthew," he said, "it's Chris Sampson. I have not seen you in a while. Please call me back."
Chris stood five foot eleven with a muscular build. We had played hockey together for a few years when we were in our late teens to early twenties.
My marriage had failed even though my x wife and I had not argued often. The arguments we did have never became overly emotional. Some 8 months into the marriage I had come out to her as a homosexual after already having an affair. She took the news about as calmly as a woman could take such news. At the time I was in my 24th year.
My old friend had always seemed not only straight but quite the the womanizer. Generally he seemed to favor curvaceous blonds with buxom boobs but he was not fussy. I could still recall clearly a tall slender auburn haired girl who dated him.
In any case his romances reminded me of a teen. At the age when men thought about settling down, his mindset was young.
I dialed the number given. There was one ring then a second. He picked up.
"Hello Chris," I answered.
"Matthew I'm glad you called back," he said.
"Yeah," I said. "What's going on?" I asked him.
He asked if I wanted to meet him for a beer and named the pub inside the local hotel. I agreed to go there later that same evening. It would be good to see him I thought.
An hour later I had come in through the hotel lobby, headed down the main corridor to the pub and walked inside. Chris Sampson should be easy to locate in the sparse crowd I told myself. Seconds later I found him seated at a small round table for two just left of the bar.