Under Wraps
Page 7
“Mr. Garcia! I knew this was your girl!”
Alex and Luci broke apart. In front of them, Andre and Molly stood, smiling. The older woman gave her a little wink.
“You made the right choice, Luci.”
Luci winked back. “The perfect choice.”
Thank You
Thank you so much for reading my novella. Did you enjoy it? I’d love it if you left me a review on Amazon!
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About the Author
Brynn North's goal is to write fun and relatable romance. Her characters may not always be perfect people, but hey, neither are we, right?
She is a Minnesota native, and still resides in Minneapolis with her family, loving it for approximately eight months out of the year. The winter months she deeply regrets her zip code and spends time contemplating moving to a warmer climate. She is a total cat lady, with the two best cats in the entire world. #sorrynotsorry
In addition to writing romances, she is a IT manager and a career coach, helping others get from where they are to where they want to be.
Six Times Six
Coming December 2019
I stared at the ceiling, willing myself not to go to sleep. Maybe if I could stay awake throughout the night, I could prevent myself from becoming thirty years old in less than two hours. Just the thought alone sent more chills down my spine than the time my older brother Del made me stay up and watch “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” with him when I was ten. Some big brother he was, too scared to watch it himself, so he made his younger sister by six years watch it with him.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Or at least that’s what I heard in my head anyway. I didn’t really have an actual alarm clock, I mean, who does any more in the age of cell phones? Rather, I think the sound was coming from my ovaries. I reached down to where I thought they might be and gave them a good poke. Giving them a little exercise now and then couldn’t hurt them, I figured. Considering the last date I had was over eighteen months ago, and my last boyfriend, was, well, not worth thinking about on the eve of one’s thirtieth birthday, I wanted to make sure they weren’t filling up with dust or something. And I wasn’t even sure yet if I wanted kids or not. Better safe than sorry, I told myself. Right?
Smoothing down my raggedy old college sweatshirt over my stomach, I sighed. I was being stupid. I knew that. But nonetheless, I was terrified of what was to come in the morning. Me. Hitting the big three-oh. Me, slightly-flabby-but-not-really-overweight single woman living alone with her cat in her brother’s basement. Technically mother in law apartment, but it was in the basement, so despite my brother-in-law Toby’s amazing interior design abilities, I still felt like a loser. Dead end job. Closest thing to a love life was when a drunk man shouted “just a peak, love!” at me from the corner last week when he was begging for spare change.
Groaning, I turned over onto my stomach, wanting just wanted five minutes of fantasy that I could make myself fun and vibrant in my twenties and sail smoothly and classily into my thirties like I always promised myself I would when I was twenty five and still optimistic. Unlikely to happen in the next two hours, I guess.
I’m not always this down and dramatic. Really, its true. But I think everyone is entitled to a few days a year to wallow, no? I turned over again and punched my pillow just as Franklin jumped up on my bed.
“Nice kitty…” I murmured into his fur as he arranged himself into a ball on my chest. I breathed in deeply. As much as I loved him, Franklin was a good twenty pounds of love, and it hindered my breathing, just a bit. Still. His presence was comforting, and I mindlessly stroked his ears as I willed myself to fall asleep.
Fifteen minutes later I was almost there when Franklin stretched out his paws, needle-like nails punching directly onto my chest. “Ow!” I shrieked as I pushed him off. Guilty, I gave him a quick belly rub. “Sorry about that,” I told him, feeling slightly stupid for apologizing. Really, he was the one that scratched me, shouldn’t he be apologizing? By the indigent look on his face, he disagreed. With a swish of his tail, he hopped off the bed, leaving me alone again.
Groaning, I sat myself up, wondering if it was worse to be completely alone in my bed on the eve of my thirtieth birthday or sleeping with a cat. Either way, I figured, it wasn’t much to write home about. Reaching my hand out toward the side table, I grabbed my cell phone.
Instead of scrolling through my Facebook feed stalking former classmates and crushes like usual, I immediately fired up the Notes app. “Time to make a list,” I muttered under my breath. Me, Jessica Peterson, the most boring of boring names, to go along with my most boring of boring life, was going to make a list to accomplish. Forget a bucket list, I was going to make a life list.
“Number one…” I typed furiously, my thumbs going wild. “New personality.” Ok, maybe that was a tough one to start with. One can’t simply remake themselves when they have no idea what they need to become, can they? I thought about it for a second, then hit delete until the sentence disappeared. “Get new boyfriend.” I thought briefly of the last time I tried Tinder, and all the losers I met for a cup of coffee or drinks just to find out that they were unemployed, didn’t have a full set of teeth, or, even worse, the guy who showered me with spit when he talked. I spent the whole night dodging flecks of spit and called the night off early even though the place he brought me to had a great wine list. Cringing at the memory, I hit delete on that one again.
My thumbs hoovered over the keyboard for a long time, totally out of ideas on things to do in my thirtieth year to make my life amazing. Learn to cook instead of rely on my brother for good meals? Volunteer for the homeless? Finally learn how to build a decent wardrobe? What did other 30-somethings do that I didn’t know how to?
Finally, I gave a deep sigh.
“Be happy,” I slowly typed out. I stared at what I wrote for a few minutes before throwing the phone next to my pillow. I bunched up my blankets and, in a fit of restlessness, fell asleep dreamlessly.
***
I managed to creek my eyes open after hitting snooze 3 times. Shit, I thought to myself as I noticed the clock said 7:45. By the time I got ready and into the office, it would be past 9. Oh well, I thought to myself. If was I was going to be late any day, it may as well be my birthday.
Stealthily, I opened my work’s instant communicator app and marked myself as “In a Meeting” until 9:30. There. When anyone tried to see if I was in, they’d see my icon and figure I was just in a conference room or something.
Pleased I had bought myself some time, I finally tapped open Facebook. May as well see how many generic “happy birthday” messages I received already from people I haven’t seen or thought of in years. Ten. Not bad, considering that I pretty much had no social life and these people probably barely remembered who I was. I scrolled past messages from old high school classmates and my aunt, pausing to smile at the picture of flowers my grandma posted on my wall. I paused when I saw what my brother, Del, wrote.
Happy big 3-0 to my favorite little sister! I snorted at that. I was Del’s only sister. Hell, his only sibling for that matter. I have a little surprise for you to make this the best year ever! See ya tonight!
With that, I pushed myself out of bed, wondering what Del had arranged for me. I considered running upstairs right then and there and demanding an answer from him, but knowing him, he probably had been at work for at least a good hour.
An hour later, I heard “Good morning sunshine!” sang at me as I snuck my way into the office, late. Bridget, our annoyingly cheerful IT admin was in an even better mood than usual when I stalked past her desk en route to the gray fabric box where I spent approximately 50% of my waking life, give or take. “Happy birthday to youuuuuu!”
“Shhhhh!” I hissed, pausing at her doorway and looking around to make sure nobody heard. “I don’t want anyone to remember it’s my birthday!”
Bridget cast her eyes down, which, after over seventeen years of best friendship, ever since eight grade,
I immediately knew was a guilty look.
“What? What did you do?” I demanded. Her eyes involuntarily shifted upwards and to the left. In horror, I looked in the direction of my cube. It was absolutely covered in streamers and balloons.
“Happy birthday, Jessica!” Harold, my manager walked past me, wheezing. “Looking forward to that cake later on!”
I visibly groaned and shot a look at a guilty Bridget. “You know how I feel about turning thirty!” I accused her in a sharp whisper.
“Yes, well…you deserve to be celebrated! And it’s not like Harold didn’t know about your birthday! He even asked me to make you my special hummingbird cake!”
Bridget gave me a tentative smile, and I gave a halfhearted one back. “Please,” I said. “You know he could care less about my birthday. He just wants the cake.”
Bridget wheeled her chair closer to me, changing the subject on me. “I heard a new director was hired. Starts tomorrow,” she said in a low voice. “I hope he’s cute.”
Rolling my eyes, I backed away from her desk. Sometimes it seemed like Bridget was on a one woman mission to find any and any available guy at Suntrust and introduce me. Last month it was someone in accounting old enough to be my dad.
“You know I don’t date!” I hissed, heading to my cube. Bridget may be married with the 2.5 kids (ok, just 2 gorgeous cherubs), dog, and white picket fence, but not all of us were as lucky as she was, or had her fabulous long, shiny hair. I preferred to stay in, work on my reading, and hang with Toby and Del when they were cooking something really good, which was most nights. Going out on dates with guys who would inevitably reject me after an evening of listening to him drone on about mundane topics like his last dentist appointment or, only slightly better, that would turn out to be an ax murderer was too much to bother with.
At least I knew I’d get a birthday lunch out of Bridget today, that had to count for something good, right?
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