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I remember the mimosa in my hand.Shit!I can’t keep my hand steady as I place it on the table. It tips over and spills into Dana’s place setting.
Dana jerks back. I can’t find words to apologize.
“Oh no! The mimosa!” Amy whimpers. “Excuse me, can you get the birthday girl another mimosa?” Amy calls out to our waitress.
She beams. “Birthday?! We didn’t know there was a birthday.”
I try to get up from the table, but it’s too late. A horde of servers encroach around me, our waitress counting them into a rousing version of “Happy Birthday”. I can’t even hear the singing over the din of my brain.
Late. Pregnant. Mimosa. Vasectomy. Orlie.
This is a nightmare. A happy-birthday-singing-servers-late-period-lying-boss nightmare.
No wonder I hate my birthday.
18
ORLIE
A weekendaway from Kira has been far too long. I’ve been thinking about her day and night, thinking about what I’m going to say to her when I walk into her office on Monday.
I want to tell her how I feel. What I really want. What I think we could be.
It’s not so easy to come up with the words to say, though, especially when I’ve never been good with words to begin with.
Though I’ve scripted everything out in my brain, I have enough life experience to know things don’t typically go the way you’ve practiced them in your head. I have to be alright with reality taking over.
So, after my first meeting of the day on Monday morning, I head down to the basement. I need Kira to know as soon as possible.
There’s a spring in my step. A smile on my face. And even though my heart beats at a rate I don’t think it’s ever reached, my nerves are at bay. I’m confident that this is the right thing to do. Kira and I can make it work together. Out in the open with the world looking at us. In fact, there’s nothing more that I want than the world to know that the brilliant Kira Solace chose me.
When I get to her office, I take a deep breath and rap on the open door. “Can I come in?”
Kira looks up from her desk. And where I expect to see some amount of excitement in her face, there is only darkness. “I’m busy.”
The record in my mind scratches.
Um, what the hell?I can’t say I ever expected this. That was my mistake, though. I didn’t plan for a worst-case scenario. I’m a cocky son of a bitch, I guess. Don’t know how that happened. When it comes to women, I’ve learned to tamper my expectations. “Um, this is important.”
Kira sighs and clicks out of some applications. “What can I help you with, Mr. Wynters?”
“Mr. Wynte –” I nearly fall back on my ass the way it feels to be referred to in such a formal way by Kira, who only a few days ago invited me inside her with the wildest smile on her face. I step into her office. “Are you alright if I close the door?”
“I assume you will regardless of what I say, so…” Kira’s eyes fall to a pile of papers on her desk that she begins to sift through.
What the hell is happening?
I shut the door and try to find the next thing to say. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Does this have to do with the important piece of business you needed to share with me?”
“I never said it had to do with business.”
Kira’s eyes narrow. “In that case, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m not following. What the hell is going on?”
She lowers her gaze. “I can’t continue doingwhateverwe’re doing. I’m not in the business of entertaining liars.”
