Chapter 1
“Chin up, Princess, or the crown slips.”
Piper Manning closed her eyes and plugged her ears against the horror. She’d known this would happen even as she’d begged against it, but sometimes there was no stopping fate. She shook her head. You’ve survived worse. Just push through it. Pretend you’re on a warm beach, and there’s a hot surfer coming out of the water. Wait, scratch that. A hot Australian surfer coming out of the water, heading for you with a sexy smile and that accent—
Someone tugged her fingers from her ears. Her best friend and EMT partner, Jenna. “The torture’s over,” she said. “You can look now.”
Piper opened her eyes. No warm beach, no sexy surfer. Nope, she was still at the Whiskey River Bar and Grill, surrounded by her coworkers and so-called friends and way too many birthday streamers and balloons, all mocking her because someone had thought it’d be funny to do up her thirtieth in gloom-and-doom funeral black.
“You do realize that turning thirty isn’t exactly the end of the world,” Jenna said.
Maybe not, but there was a reason Piper hadn’t wanted to celebrate. She’d just hit a milestone birthday without being at any sort of milestone. Or anywhere even close to a milestone. Certainly nowhere near where she’d thought she’d be at this age.
“Hey, let’s sing it again now that she’s listening,” someone called out. Ryland, no doubt. The hotshot firefighter was always the group’s instigator.
And so everyone began singing again, laughing when Piper glared at them and tried hard not to crawl under the table. She’d rather have a root canal without meds than be the center of attention, and these asshats knew it. “It’s like you all want to die,” she muttered, but someone put a drink in her hand, and since she was off duty now for two days, she took a long gulp.
“I was very clear,” she said when the alcohol burn cleared her throat, eyeing the whole group, most of whom were also first responders and worked with her at the station or hospital in one form or another. “We weren’t going to mention my birthday, much less sing to me about it. Twice.”
Not a single one of them looked guilty. “To Piper,” Ryland said, and everyone raised a glass. “For gathering and keeping all us misfits together and sane.”
“To Piper,” everyone cheered, then, thankfully, conversations started up all around her so that she was finally no longer the center of attention. Everyone was well versed in her ways, which meant they got that while she was touched that they cared, she didn’t want any more attention. Easily accepting that, they were happy to enjoy the night and leave her alone.
“So, did that hurt?” Jenna asked, amused.
“What?”
“Being loved?”
In tune to the sounds of the bar around them—someone singing off-key to “Sweet Home Alabama,” rambunctious laughter from a nearby table, the clink of pool balls—Piper rolled her eyes.
“You know one day those eyeballs are going to fall right out of your head, right?”
Ignoring this, Piper went back to what she’d been doing before being so rudely interrupted by all the love. Making a list. She was big on bullet journaling. She’d had to be. Making notes and lists had saved her life more than once. And yes, she knew she could do it all on a notes app on her phone instead, but her brain wasn’t wired that way. Nope, she had to do everything the hard way and write that shit down by hand like in the Dark Ages. She flipped through some of her pages: Calendars, Grocery Lists, Future Baby Names (even though she didn’t plan on having babies), Passwords (okay, password, singular, since she always used the same one—CookiesAreLife123!).
And then there were some random entries:
Life Rules
Occasionally maybe make an effort to look nice.
Don’t cut your own bangs no matter how sad you are.
Never ever, EVER, under any circumstances fall in love.
She also had a bucket list of wishes. Oh, and a secret secret bucket list of wishes . . .
Yeah, she clearly needed help. Or a little pill.
“New journal?” Jenna asked.
“Maybe.” Piper’s vices were simple. Basically, she was an office supply ho—a never-ending source of amusement to Jenna, because Piper was also a bit of a hot mess when it came to organization and neatness. Her purse, her car, her office, and also her kitchen always looked like a disaster had just hit. But her journals . . . those were pristine.
“How many journals have you started and either lost or misplaced since I’ve known you—a million?”
Piper didn’t answer this on the grounds that she might incriminate herself.
Jenna pulled out the pack of stickers that were tucked into the journal. They were cute little thought bubbles with reminders like DOC APPOINTMENT, EMPTY DISHWASHER, and CAFFEINATE.
“I feel like stickers are cheating,” Jenna said.
“Bite your tongue, woman. Stickers are everything.” So were pens. And cute paper clips. And sticky notes . . .
“Come on. There’re far more important things than stickers.”
“Like?” Piper asked.
“Like food.”
“Okay, you’ve got me there.”
“And sex,” Jenna said. “And that should go above food, actually.”
“I’m going to take your word on that since it’s been a while.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” Jenna leaned in, trying to get a peek. “What’s today’s entry?”
“A list for figuring out what’s next on fixing up the property.” Piper and her siblings had inherited from their grandparents a house and some cottages on Rainbow Lake. “It still needs a lot of work. I’m in way over my head.”
“I know.” Jenna’s smile faded. “I hate that you’re going to sell and move away from Wildstone.”
Wildstone, California, was Piper’s hometown. Sort of. She’d moved here at age thirteen with her two younger siblings, Gavin and Winnie, to be raised by their grandparents. But in the end, Piper had done all the raising. It’d taken forever, but now, finally, her brother and sister were off living their own lives.
And hers could finally start.
All she had to do was finish fixing up the property; then she could sell and divide the money into thirds with her siblings. With her portion, she’d finally have the money and freedom to go to school and become a physician assistant like she’d always wanted.
So close. She was so close that she could almost taste it. “I plan to come back to Wildstone after school.”
Because where else would she go? Her only other home had been following her parents all over the world, providing healthcare wherever they’d been needed the most. But her mom and dad were gone now. Her family was Gavin and Winnie, and everyone in this room.
“But why the University of Colorado?” Jenna asked. “Why go so far? You could go thirty minutes up the road to San Luis Obispo to Cal Poly.”
Piper shook her head. She’d been stuck here for seventeen years. She needed to go away for a while and figure some things out—like who she was if she wasn’t raising her siblings. But that felt hard to explain, so she gave even her BFF the ready-made excuse. “U of C is one of the really strong schools for my program. And I think I’ll like Colorado.”