GROW UP GINGER

A story about leaving and being followed.

Written by Juliana Resende

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No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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CHAPTER SIX — Birthday

It was somewhere around eleven when Bonnie and Olivia produced a cupcake from a brown paper bag I hadn’t known they were carrying. They lit the candle. They started singing. The whole table joined in. Strangers at the next table joined in. Megan was laughing so hard she had her hand over her face, and I was laughing too, and the embarrassment of being sung to in a club was completely worth it because for one full minute I was the most loved person in the room.

I blew out the candle.

I looked toward the bar.

He was gone.

Something in me — I’m not proud of this — went a little cold. Not because I’d wanted him, exactly. Because I’d refused him and walked away, and now I’d look back to find him gone, and that wasn’t supposed to happen, was it? Wasn’t the script supposed to be that he waited?

The night kept going. The girls danced. I went to the bathroom and on the way back I detoured past the bar, casually, like I just needed a glass of water.

The bartender was wiping down the counter.

“Excuse me,” I said, “did you see the blond guy I was talking to a minute ago?”

He looked up. Recognized me, I think, from how Megan had introduced us earlier. “He just left.”

“Oh. Okay. Thank you.”

A pause. He gave me a look I couldn’t read. “Not you. Your friend.”

“My—” I turned. Megan was standing behind me, eyebrows raised, drink in hand.

“Who are you looking for?” she asked.

“Oh — I was looking for you?”

“I heard you asking about a blond guy.”

“Maybe. I was.” I tried to wave it off. “So this is Bruno?”

“Don’t change the subject, Anna.” But she was smiling. “And yes. It’s him.”

“I’ll go find the girls.”

“Sure.”

I stepped away from the bar. Megan was already leaning toward Bruno, saying something I didn’t catch. My cousin was a one-woman novel.

I was three steps from the dance floor when I felt someone behind me.

I stopped.

“You never told me it was your birthday.”

I turned around slowly, trying to keep my face neutral. He was right there — closer than I’d expected, looking down at me with that same dark-blue attention.

“You never asked,” I said.

He laughed. Genuinely, freely. The sound went straight through the back of my head.

Okay, I thought. Okay. The door is open. Walk through it carefully.

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