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June 2003
Twenty-fucking-one.
That was how many years I’d been on the planet.
You’re supposed to go out and get shitfaced on your twenty-first birthday to celebrate finally being old enough to buy alcohol, but considering that I’d started my drinking career before I started my period, the appeal of showing my ID to a waitress at Bahama Breeze was completely lost on me. Instead, I decided to drown my birthday sorrows at Fuzzy’s. The dirty beer steins and splintery barstools just seemed to fit my shitty mood better.
I don’t know why the big two-one felt like such a kick in the cunt. Maybe I was annoyed because drinking, one of my all-time favorite bad-girl things to do, wasn’t a bad-girl thing to do anymore. It was just a regular, legal, grown-ass woman thing to do. And that made me sad. Maybe I was in a bad place because Jason wasn’t there to help me celebrate. Or maybe, just maybe, I was in a shitty mood because I was dating a guy who was weird about birthdays and hadn’t given me so much as a high five all day.
It felt like Valentine’s Day all over again. I’d kept telling myself not to expect anything. That Ken didn’t do birthdays, and no amount of pouting was going to change that. But, of course, that didn’t stop me from pouting like a motherfucker anyway.
I looked at the people gathered around the conglomeration of wobbly wooden tables that we’d pushed together at Fuzzy’s and tried to feel some sort of enthusiasm—or at least appreciation for my friends who’d come all the way out to Athens to celebrate with me—but…meh. Allen and Amy were making eyes at each other, the Alexanders were hitting on the waitress, Ken was vehemently trying to talk his sister out of investing in a tax-sheltered annuity—whatever the fuck that was—and Juliet was on her way back from the bar with yet another annoyingly girlie drink prepared for me by Zach.
“Sex on the Beach for the birthday bitch,” Juliet slurred into my ear as she plopped down beside me. “I can’t believe you’re all growns up.” She reached over and ruffled the angled bob I’d spent an hour straightening to perfection.
I smacked her hand away and smoothed my hair back down with my palms. “Am not.”
“Are, too.” Juliet lifted a hand and began counting things off on her long, slender fingers. “You’re almost done with college. You’re practically living with Ken. You’re old enough to buy your own booze…” Juliet sniffled and pretended to wipe a tear from her black-rimmed, eyelash-free eye. “It seems like, just yesterday, I was teaching you how to inhale.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re, like, six months older than me.”
Juliet was just about to reply when a big ole teddy bear put his hands on my shoulders from behind.
“What’s up, slim?”
That familiar voice had a genuine smile splitting my face for the first time all day. I craned my neck back to find my favorite co-worker grinning down at me.
“You came!” I squeaked, turning around backward in my chair and sitting up on my knees to hug my bodybuilding buddy.
Juliet cleared her throat.
“Jules”—I turned toward her, one arm still around Jamal’s neck—“this is Jamal. Jamal, this is my best friend, Juliet.”
“What the fuck, B?” Juliet snapped. For a minute, I thought she was really pissed, but the smile on her face gave her away. “You have another black friend? When were you gonna tell me?”
“Oh my God, I hate you,” I muttered, releasing Jamal so that I could bury my face in my hands.
“That’s what I’m sayin’.” Jamal chuckled as he walked around to sit in the empty chair next to Juliet. “I thought I was special.”
The two of them began joking and laughing at my expense while I nursed the disgustingly sweet concoction in my glass. Everyone at the Frankentable was now happily paired off, engrossed in their conversations, except for me.
I grabbed my purse off the back of my chair and shoved my arm in elbow deep, looking for something entertaining. I was hoping for a pack of cigarettes or maybe a set of throwing knives, but my hand pulled out a buzzing, vibrating cell phone instead.
I deduced in a tenth of a second who was calling without even looking at my caller ID. I’d already had my traditional pizza-and-lopsided-homemade-birthday-cake dinner with my parents—most of which, I’d fed to the dog—so I knew it wasn’t one of them. My closest friends were all sitting within ten feet of me, so I knew it wasn’t any of them. I was fairly certain that Hans had already forgotten my birthday, and Harley was still in jail.
But Knight…Knight didn’t forget shit.
“I’m going to smoke,” I mumbled as I pushed my chair out from the table.
Ken turned away from his sister and glanced at the phone, now silent in my hand. Lifting his eyes to mine, he said, “You can smoke in here.” There was accusation in his tone. It matched his chiseled, stoic features.
“I don’t want to,” I snapped, pushing the creaky old thing I’d been sitting in back under the table.
God, I’m being a bitch. Ken hasn’t done anything wrong.
Exactly. It’s your birthday, and Ken hasn’t done anything. At all. At least Knight still calls you on your birthday.
Yeah, but he only calls to scream at me.
