Grace grimaced and debated sticking her head in the olive jar. It would either be death by embarrassment or brining. “I don’t really love celebrating it. It’s just the kickoff to the season of constant social functions where everyone wonders if thefamily spinster will truly die alone.” She shook her head. “One of my aunts looks at me like she just knows my cats will eat my dead body one day.”
Alix’s smile didn’t falter. “Which is, I suppose, better than them eating your living body?”
Grace chuckled, shifting her weight between her feet. “I’ll be sure to tell her that at Thanksgiving this year.”
“I can tell her for you,” Alix replied.
“What?”
“At Thanksgiving, I can come to Miami and tell your auntie that neither Sheila nor Icarus are getting their fancy little claws in you.”
Stunned, Grace couldn’t decide what to react to first. The fact that Alix remembered her cats’ names off the top of her head, or that she’d just offered to endure Thanksgiving with her and her family.
Grace focused her attention on eyes that were more glassy than glistening. On the flush over Alix’s cheeks. “Are you drunk?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
Forgetting about the unserious offer, Grace held the phone closer like she could will herself to see better. “How are you getting home?”
“I’m not driving, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ll probably split an Uber with Lola and Oscar and whoever else crams in to bring down my passenger rating.” She shrugged, like getting around a city late on a night like this was no big deal.
“Do you have to go far?”
Alix’s brown eyes brightened. “Are you worried about me?”
“Obviously,” Grace replied. Before she could stop herself because anxiety had hijacked her mouth, she asked, “Will you share your location with me? Just until you get home. So I know you made it okay?”
“Maybe,” Alix replied noncommittally. “If you answer one question truthfully.”
Grace would’ve rolled her eyes playfully, but she was caught up in an unexpected feeling. Alix hadn’t acted like her concern was strange or like she was too much for worrying. That she was too much for anything.
Tiny little lump in her throat, Grace nodded.
“Has anyone sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to you today?”
“Nope,” she replied, although her mother would have been thrilled to celebrate. But after a thirtieth birthday surprise gone wrong, her mother had agreed to focus on Halloween and not her birth.
“Well, we’re correcting thatpost haste!” Alix stuck her pointer finger in the air, revealing the scissors tattooed on her middle finger. Grace refused to let herself react to it.Alix is a hairdresser, she chastised herself.
“You’re not selling me that you’re not in glittery Sherlock cosplay,” Grace teased.
“Lucky it’s your birthday, Gator,” she said with a sideways glance at the camera, but her smile hadn’t wavered. Not for a moment. “All right. Hang on.”
Suddenly on hold, Grace became aware that it was hot as hell in the pantry. She was still debating whether it would be more or less weird if she changed locations while she waited when Alix reappeared.
Standing up on something high, Alix angled her camera to show Grace a crowd packed shoulder to shoulder in the bar behind her. Over a loudspeaker, a woman’s voice boomed, “On the count of three, ready?”
Three seconds later, hundreds of people she’d never met were singing her “Happy Birthday,” and it was all Grace could do not to cry.
Chapter Six
ALIX
The glitter wouldn’t comeoff.
Alix stood over the bathroom sink, blinking at the mirror while fine silver flecks clung to her cheekbones, collarbones, even the curve of her ear. Like she’d slept in a snow globe. She dragged a damp washcloth over her face, and more glitter surfaced, multiplying in the hard light. Her short, shaggy hair — tousledjust sowith enormous effort last night — now slumped sideways in defeat. The gray peacoat she’d worn lay collapsed on the tile like a glamorous corpse.
Too hungover to care.
