I looked away and choked down a laugh. It was a little late for her to be worrying about being caught sneaking in, under age. How had she even gotten past the door in the first place? I glanced over at the door. Rodrigo had his back to me but; nope, he hadn’t left the gate unguarded. If he was getting lazy with checking the IDs again, he was going to be in some deep shit. I rose a fraction of an inch off my stool, full of good intentions, but a clatter on the bar in front of me drew my attention. Mr. Hottie, his jailbait companion, Rodrigos’s laziness—all were forgotten. Jenni had returned but instead of a steaming cup of coffee, she had brought out a big cupcake, complete with a lit candle sticking up from its mound of buttercream frosting. “Happy birthday bestie! Make a wish!”
I glanced up at the clock, open-mouthed with the intent to protest, and froze. The minute hand had already struck midnight. As I watched, it clicked over to 12:01.
I felt my stomach drop.
“Jesus, Cat! You’re white as a sheet—are you all right?”
For a moment, everything threatened to go dark. I kept a firm grip on the edge of the bar while the wave of dizziness washed over me. The room suddenly felt thirty degrees warmer, though a cold sweat had broken out on my palms. A pounding headache slammed into me all like a freight train. The dim mood lighting seemed to grow a million times brighter for just a brief second, lining everything and everyone in a strange, fuzzy golden glow. My stomach churned and, for a moment, I feared it was ready to return Jenni’s generous alcoholic gifts—but I certainly wasn’t going to admit that. I’m no stranger to the Porcelain Goddess and have had my share of nights bowing before her, praying for her to do away with my sorry ass quickly, but I’d never had trouble handling a few drinks. If I wasn’t able to keep down four measly glasses of wine, I would just have to take myself out into the woods and shoot myself.
So, instead of confessing to the wussy way I was handling turning thirty—or, even worse, to holding my liquor—I flashed her a weak smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little shock to the system, hittin’ that big 3-0. Guess I know now why you spent the first twenty minutes of your birthday locked in a stall at eXstasy.”
Jenni’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. Despite the glare, her tone was playful with resignation. “You are
never
going to let me live that down are you?”
My answering smile aimed for angelic, complete with a batting of the eyelashes. “Nope, not until you do something even more pathetic on your fortieth.”
She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Bitch. Make a wish and blow out your candle before you get wax in the yummy frosting.”
I’ve always taken things like wishes very seriously. I’ve probably wished on the first star I see in the evening hundreds of times over the years, and I’ve always given a lot of thought to the last thing that crosses my mind before blowing out the candles on my cake—or in this case, the delicious red velvet cupcake. I can remember quite a few birthdays in my youth where my mother would get exasperated over how long I was taking to make the big blow, holding the whole family up from devouring the slowly melting ice cream cake. (That never mattered much to me, as I was never a fan of ice cream cake. I only ever enjoyed the chocolate crunchy bits they used to separate the vanilla and chocolate layers.)
So, making a wish on one of the landmark birthdays in my life wasn’t easy. Especially when there were dozens of things I wanted. It was probably a little late to wish to be taller, but it would be nice to have a car that didn’t rattle like it was going to go to pieces whenever I turned a corner. Or to have a boyfriend who lasted for more than a few months and who wasn’t constantly between jobs, begging me for gas money every week. Oh—and it would be nice if he didn’t call me Lisa on our last night in bed together. That would be great. Maybe even a new job, where my boss wasn’t a useless asshat and I wasn’t bored to tears every day. Or, at the very least, a raise so I wouldn’t have to live off ramen noodles every summer when the office cut back our hours.
So many choices. None of them were really all that realistic, of course, but all were equally important to me. Besides, wishing for a sale at Coach so I could get that cute little red patent leather bag I’d been mooning over for months didn’t really feel like an appropriate wish for such a momentous occasion. Feeling a little reckless—and not to mention still a bit dizzy—I left it up to that bitch called Fate and let my thoughts coalesce on their own as I closed my eyes and blew out the tiny flame:
Please let me figure out who I am.
Chapter Two
Huh. Where did that come from?
That had been rather a surprising summation to my litany of pie-in-the-sky wishes. Of course, it made perfect sense, even without the hindsight. Being lost in the proverbial forest of life minus a helpful trail of breadcrumbs was pretty much my M.O. Having a clue what to do next, to maybe finally improve my boring, broke-ass life would be nice. I could be satisfied with a birthday wish like that.
Jenni produced a knife from under the bar. She plucked the extinguished candle out with one hand while the other neatly sliced the cupcake in two.
“Mmm, this is totally the best part of birthdays,” she proclaimed around a mouthful of the sweet treat.
I took a tentative bite, making sure not to miss out on all that gooey frosting, and was thankful that my settling stomach welcomed its deliciousness. The cake was soft and moist, with just a hint of cocoa, and I was a sucker for all that rich, sinfully sweet vanilla buttercream. My half was devoured in a shameful amount of time. “Holy crap that was good. Calories don’t count on birthdays, right?”
“Nope.” To prove her point, Jenni licked the remaining icing off of the candle. Her mouth thinned into a line as she looked at me. “You’re still a little pale. Are you sure you’re all right?”
I shrugged and made a show of looking down at my arms. “Me, pale? How could you tell?” She rolled her eyes at me again but that frown didn’t go away. I said, “I’m fine. Promise. Apparently I’m just too old to be out drinking past midnight anymore.”
“Psh—there’s no such thing. I’m living proof. It’s like riding a bicycle or something. You fall off? You just get right back on.”
“I think that one is about never forgetting how to do something or other, but close enough.” My stomach was happy now that is was filled with the fuel of a major sugar rush, but my headache dug in its heels, threatening to split my cranium open if I moved too fast. The freaky migraine-halo glow around everything had died down, but I sensed a date with a hefty dose of Excedrin in my future.
Jenni disposed of the plate and pulled out a damp rag to wipe up the evidence of our little calorie splurge off the bar. “Can I get you that coffee or do you need to go?”
I pulled my cellphone from my pocket and considered my options. Tomorrow was going to suck, no two ways about it. My boss was going to be her usual useless self, talking about her damn kids all day to whatever poor soul she could waylay, while the rest of our tiny four-person department answered a zillion phone lines. Nothing would change that. An extra hour or two of sleep might help keep me from strangling her with her own headset for another day, however. I shook my head. “Nah, I better go. Besides, I think the shock of getting old has sobered me up.”
Her mock-pout still lacked the sympathy I thought I deserved. She said, “Not old, just older. Gimmie a sec. I’ll call you a cab.”
I turned around in my seat and slowly scanned the bar in hopes that I would catch another glimpse of the nearly forgotten Mr. Hottie’s backside one more time. No dice. It appeared that he and his little friend had ducked out while I had been busy trying not to yack on my birthday cupcake. Perhaps his little friend had gotten cold feet. Fake ID or no, she hadn’t been fooling anyone. Well, except maybe Rodrigo. Which reminded me…
I slipped off my stool and took a moment to curse myself for wearing heels. They were so not my thing—give me sneakers any day—and Jenni’s insistence that I wear them seemed even dumber now, since they certainly hadn’t helped me land any male companionship throughout the night. I retrieved my cute little burgundy leather jacket from the rack at the end of the bar and waved her back over before shrugging into it. “I’m gonna go to talk to Rodrigo for a minute, then I’ll wait outside. Some fresh air might not be the worst idea.”
She came around the bar and engulfed me in a big hug. “Okay. Text me when you get home so I know you got there safe, okay?”
I planted a big ol’ sloppy kiss on her cheek before letting her go. “You bet. Thanks for everything. You’re the best.”
She batted her eyelashes and held a hand to her forehead in her best swooning damsel impression. “I know. I am, aren’t I? You’re just so darn lucky to have me.”
“Totally am. Talk to you later.” After another quick hug, I made my way carefully to the door, stopping to lean casually against the wall of the alcove where Rodrigo was glued to his phone. The sight of a big, burly guy who was tattooed from head to toe playing Angry Birds with furious concentration made me smile. I cleared my throat. “That’s a dangerous game you’re playing there. I’ve heard it’s a hard addiction to ditch once you start.”
Without looking up, he smirked. “Damn right. Blame the wife. She put it on my damn phone.” He scowled at the glowing screen. “Stupid game.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Hey, it’s your birthday isn’t it?”
I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
He laughed. “Yeah, they stop being fun this late in the game don’t they? Happy birthday anyhow.” Despite my whining, I accepted his hug with good grace.
“Thanks.” I liked Rodrigo. He and his wife Sarah were good people, and they had their first baby on the way. Mr. Gilroy was a pretty easy going boss, from what Jenni told me, but if he caught word of anyone underage in his bar, it would be Rodrigo’s ass on the line. “Hey, I know it’s none of my business, but what was the deal with that girl who came in here earlier? She looked waaaaay too young, no matter what her ID said.”
He gave me a puzzled look. “What girl?”
“She was in here about five, maybe ten, minutes ago, with some tall, not-so-dark and handsome hottie.” I described them both and watched his look of confusion deepen.
“I remember the dude, but he didn’t have a girl with him.”
“Really? Maybe she slipped in after him or something? It definitely looked like she was with him. She got all freaked out when she saw me looking at her.” I was a bit lit, true, but I didn’t think I was drunk enough to start imaging that sort of shit. I turned back to scan the bar again, hoping I had been wrong and they were tucked away at one of the tables in the dark corners. “Sorry, Jenni distracted me with a cupcake. Maybe they left after I spooked her.”
“Shit, that’s all I need right now.” Rodrigo stood and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll take a look around and make sure.”
If he hadn’t been so engaged in flinging little red birds at pigs, he might have been more up to speed on who was coming and going—but I kept that thought to myself. Feeling pretty noble for having my good deed of the night, I waved goodbye to Jenni and turned toward the door just as it opened inward. Perhaps if I had been one less sheet to the wind I could have avoided slamming head-on into the poor stranger who came through the door, but that was so not the case given my wobbly state. I grabbed a handful of the guy’s coat to keep from bouncing off his rather solid chest and falling to the floor, though it was a near thing. I righted myself fairly quickly and tried to brush the tangled mess of my hair out of my eyes as I looked up at the newcomer. “Sorry about that! I’m usually not this cl—”
The words died in my throat. Fear alone kept me from jerking back and falling flat on my ass. I went rigid as my mind tried to process what it was seeing. Towering a good foot and a half above me, there was nothing human in the face that looked down at me. Ringed by a shaggy mane of thick, black hair, the proportions of his head were all wrong. The jaw hung too low and the forehead bulged like a shelf above deeply sunken, piggy eyes. His deeply wrinkled skin was the mottled blue-gray of a week old corpse pulled from the river. My stomach dropped for the second time that night.
I looked back over my shoulder, trying to keep the panic off my face while hoping to see someone coming to my aid. Jenni and Rodrigo were chatting by the end of the bar, caught up in some tale that involved a lot of spastic arm-waving on Jenni’s part. The couple seated at the closest table returned my stare with puzzled looks of their own for only a split second before returning to their intimate conversation. No one seemed phased by the hulking Neanderthal blocking my path.
My brain screamed
Oh my God, oh my God!
and tried to run and hide in the corner of my cranium, but a calm, collected center I was surprised to find I still had deep inside took over. It told me to keep my cool and not lose my shit. Something seriously fucked up was going down and, given the calm of everyone else in the bar, I had the inkling that that thing might be me. I turned back. My voice cracked, but I kept it from trembling too much. “Sorry there, sir. Didn’t mean to run into you like that. I might have had a few too many tonight.” It was a struggle to keep my ditzy grin from faltering, but I played it up like a champ.
He cocked his head to the side like a puzzled dog, and I took that moment to edge around him toward the door. He turned slowly, never letting me out of his sight. Those dark, piggy eyes seemed to be all pupils, with no whites to speak of. His massive nostrils flared as he leaned in and sniffed at me, jowls wagging with each deep breath. His mannerisms were so bizarre, so canine, that they made my skin crawl.