Jenna looked unconvinced, but she was a good enough friend to let it go.
“Don’t worry,” Piper said. “I’ll be back.”
“You’d better.” Jenna took another look at Piper’s list. “I can’t even make a shopping list.”
“That’s because you don’t go food shopping. You order in.”
Jenna smiled. “Oh, right.”
Outside the bar, they could hear a storm brewing. The news had been talking about it all week. Wild winds pushed against the building, making the lights flicker and the walls creak, but nobody even blinked. Wildstone people were a hearty bunch.
“Paint samples!” Piper remembered suddenly, and wrote that down.
“You know you’re a bit of a control freak, right?”
When you ran your world, everyone in that world tended to depend on you to do it right. That’s how it’d always been for her. She’d been in charge whether she liked it or not. Piper chewed on the end of her pen. “I’m forgetting something, I know it.”
“Yeah,” Jenna said. “To get a life.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do here?”
Now it was Jenna’s turn to roll her eyes. “Everyone else is talking about the new hot guy in town, and you’re over here in the corner writing in your journal.”
“Hot guys come and go.”
Jenna laughed. “Yeah? How long has it been since you’ve had a hot guy in your life, or any guy at all?”
Piper looked across the bar to where Ryland was currently chatting it up with not one but two women. Her ex was apparently making up for lost time.
“And whose fault is that?” Jenna asked, reading her mind. “You dumped him last year for no reason, remember?”
Actually, she’d had a really good reason, but it wasn’t one she wanted to share, so she shrugged.
“What you need is a distraction. Of the sexy kind,” Jenna said. “You carry that journal around like it’s the love of your life.”
“At the moment, it is.”
“You could do a whole lot better.” Swiveling her barstool, Jenna eyed the crowd.
“Don’t even think about it,” Piper said.
“About what?”
“You know what. Fixing me up.”
“And would that be so bad?” Jenna set a hand on Piper’s writing arm. “You’re the one always fixing everyone’s life, everyone’s but your own, of course. But even the Fixer needs help sometimes.”
It was true that she’d gone a whole bunch of years now being the one to keep it all together. For everyone. Asking for help wasn’t a part of her DNA. But Jenna did have a point. Today was her birthday, a milestone birthday at that, so she should do at least one frivolous thing, right? She turned the page of her journal and glanced at her secret bucket list.
Take a cruise to Alaska.
Get some “me” time every day.
Learn to knit.
Buy shoes that aren’t nursing shoes.
“Okay, no,” Jenna said. “You’re not sitting at your birthday party eyeing a list about buying nursing shoes.”
“About not buying nursing shoes,” Piper corrected. “And this isn’t my party.”
“It’s your party. And if you’d told Gavin and Winnie about it, they’d be here helping you celebrate too.”
Just what she needed, to give her twenty-seven-going-on-seventeen-year-old brother and her not-quite-legal-to-drink sister a reason to party. “I told them not to come. Gavin’s busy at his job in Phoenix, and Winnie’s working hard on her grades at UCSB.”
“They’re lucky to have you, I hope they know that,” Jenna said genuinely. “Look, you work so hard keeping all of you going. But today, at the very least, you should have some fun.”
“I hear you. But keep that in mind.” She pointed to the sign hanging above the bar:
WARNING:
ALCOHOL MAY MAKE THE PEOPLE IN THIS PLACE APPEAR BETTER-LOOKING THAN THEY REALLY ARE.
Jenna laughed but wasn’t deterred from taking in the closest table to the bar, where three guys sat drinking and talking.
“Don’t you dare.”
“Who here is single?” Jenna asked the table.
Two of the guys pointed to the third.
“You?” Jenna asked him, clearly wanting confirmation.
He took a beat to check Jenna out. She was channeling Beach Barbie tonight, with her wild blond hair rioting around her pretty face, her athletic build emphasized by tightly fitted fancy yoga gear.
“Yeah,” the guy said. “I’m most definitely single.”
“Good. Because it’s my friend’s birthday.” She turned to gesture at Piper, who froze in the act of trying to sneak off.
“Why is she hiding in the corner writing in a book?” Single Guy wanted to know.
Jenna looked at Piper. “Well, we’re not all perfect. But she’s got a lot going for her. She’s friendly . . . ish. And she’s got all her shots, and is potty-trained to boot. I mean, yeah, okay, sometimes she hides out in bars writing in her diary. But hey, who doesn’t, am I right?”
Looking alarmed, Single Guy turned back to his friends.
“Gee,” Piper said dryly. “And you made me sound like such a catch too.”
Jenna shrugged. “Maybe he’s not a diary fan.”
“Yeah. That’s definitely it. And it’s a journal.”
“Don’t you worry,” Jenna said. “I’m not done.”
“Please be done.”
But Jenna was now eyeballing the man who’d just taken a barstool a few seats down. Ohmygod, she mouthed. That’s him. That’s New Hot Guy!
He was in military green cargoes and a black Henley that hugged his long, leanly muscled body. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and dark scruff, all of which went with his quietly dark expression that said not feeling social.
Jenna started to stand up for round two of Let’s Embarrass Piper.
“Don’t you dare!”
“Hey,” Jenna said to the man, who nodded in return. “So . . . you’re a guy.”
“Last time I checked,” he said.
Jenna jerked a thumb toward Piper. “It’s my best friend’s birthday.”
Hot Guy’s gaze locked on Piper, who was wishing for an invisibility cloak.
“She’s made herself a list,” Jenna said, and helpfully turned the journal his way.
Honest to God, Piper had no idea why she loved this woman.
Hot Guy read the list, rubbed the sexy scruff on his jaw, and then spoke to Piper. “Is this for you or your grandma?”
Jenna snorted. “That’s actually her nickname. Grandma.”
“Some wingman you are.” Piper snatched up the journal and closed it.
“What does the ‘me time’ entail?” Hot Guy asked.
“Pretty sure it involves batteries,” Jenna said.
“Okay.” Piper pointed at her. “You know what? You’re cut off.”
“Notice that she didn’t answer the question,” Jenna muttered.
“It doesn’t involve batteries!” Jeez. No way was she going to admit what it involved was a nap.