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“Hello, bleautiful,” he says, slurring his words.
“Hi.”
“I’ll take a beer,” he says with his eyes half closed, “and your phone number.”
A vile taste hits the back of my throat.
These are my options when it comes to men. Drunks, drunks, and more drunks.
“How about a piece of cake and then you leave?” I say with a forced smile.
“Is it your blirthday?” he says with a hiccup. “How old are you?”
“Old enough to be your daughter,” I say with a grin.
“I’ll tell you what,” he says as he pulls a deck of cards out of his cargo shorts. Why does he have a deck of cards? “If I blow your mind with a magical trick, you give me your number.”
I stare at him, more curious than anything.
“Has that ever worked for you?”
He doesn’t answer. He pulls out the deck and tries to shuffle, but he’s way too drunk. The cards explode out of his hands and rain down on me. A few land on the cake.
“What’s going on over here?” Lauren asks as she returns. “Playing fifty-two pick up?”
“Exactly,” I say with a laugh. “He’s fifty-two and he’s trying to pick me up.”
We both giggle as we take the cards off the cake.
“Here,” Lauren says as she puts a piece of cake in front of him. “Eat up and leave the magic to the professionals.”
The guy dives into the cake, making a mess all over his face with the pink frosting.
Where can I find a real man? Not in here, obviously.
I want someone accomplished and driven, but I’m realizing that I can’t exactly expect that in a partner if I don’t have it myself.
“Don’t despair, Norah,” Lauren says. She knows me too well. She can see it all over my face. “Things are going to look up for you. I can feel it.”
“Yeah,” I say, not believing it at all.
She gasps and grabs my wrist.
“What?”
She turns my hand over and pulls a card from the sleeve of my giant hoodie. My sweater is unzipped and hanging loose on my shoulders so a card must have slid into the armhole and fallen down it.
Her face lights up when she shows it to me.
An ace of hearts.
“An ace up your sleeve,” she says with her eyes lighting up. “It’s a sign.”
Lauren is always believing in stuff like that. I never thought that data scientists were the type to obsess over horoscopes, but here we are.
“A sign?”
She’s nodding like crazy. “A sign! Good things are about to happen. I told you!”
