Page 83 of False Confidence

“No?” Maggie was staring at her like she’d grown another head. Jazz rolled her eyes and turned back to the bartender.

“Can I get a Long Island with no ice, please?”

“Sure thing.”

Maggie tugged her back from the bar as the bartender started throwing her drinking together. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?”

“I’m not a child. And what happened to a night just like old times?”

Maggie leaned back with an exasperated sigh. “I meant a night without Cal and Liam. Not a night where we tried to test the alcohol tolerance we had in college, for fuck’s sake. We’re too old for that.”

Too old for that. Jazz threw her head back and groaned. “Lighten up, Maggie. What’s the worst that could happen?”

She swiped her drink from the bar and took a big gulp.

Jazz twirled around in time to the music, the beat pulsing through her. What had she been so worried about again? She loved this bar! Everyone was so friendly, the drinks were delicious, the vibes were top tier. Even Maggie was having fun.

As night had fallen, and the dinner crowd had cleared out, the music volume had risen and several of the people still hanging around drinking had started dancing. A group of grad school students on a girl’s night had absorbed them into their midst and Jazz couldn’t remember a single one of their names. They were celebrating something—a birthday? A graduation? She didn’t know, but she clinked her glass and cheered whenever everyone else did.

It was easy to ignore the fact that the girls they were dancing with were closer to Rose’s age than her own when she had multiple kinds of liquor flowing through her veins. Maggie had stopped counting her drinks and protesting eventually; she’d even done a shot herself, then forced herself not to throw up and ordered another old fashioned instead.

But she was up, she was dancing, she was holding Jazz’s hand as they twirled around each other singing along to songs they hadn’t heard since middle school.

“I haven’t heard this song in so long,” Maggie squealed when one of their old favorites came on, jumping up and down and shaking her hair.

“We spent hours making up a dance for this one, remember?”

“Doing it? Yes. The dance? No chance.” Maggie laughed. “Jesus, that was almost twenty years ago. Remember how Hallie used to copy the dances we did?” From the age of eleven, Maggie had been stuck at home most nights, babysitting her younger siblings, which meant Jazz had been there too. Maggie had three siblings and the youngest, Hallie, had trailed them around like a puppy, copying everything they did and swearing she wanted to be just like her big sister when she grew up. And now, like the rest of Maggie’s family, Hallie wanted nothing to do with her sister.

“How old would she be now?” Jazz asked.

“Hallie?” Maggie frowned when Jazz nodded, as if struggling to do the math through her drunken haze. “God, she’ll be twenty-two in September.”

“Fucking hell. How did that happen?”

“She grew up,” Maggie replied with a laugh that sounded more pained than anything else. “We all did. Then my parents got their claws in her, and now my baby sister doesn’t give a shit about me.”

“Maggie—”

“I’m fine, don’t worry. I just got in my head a little.” Maggie waved her away, sipping from the glass clenched in her hand. It was mostly water from the melted ice. Though she claimed to be okay, Jazz could see the hurt in her eyes. She couldn’t fix things with Maggie’s family—she couldn’t even fix things with her own—but she could distract her.

“Come on,” Jazz said, grabbing Maggie’s hand and tugging her toward an empty table by the window. She kicked her heels off and climbed up onto a chair, putting one foot on the table before Maggie clocked what she was doing.

“Jazz! What are you doing? You’ve had way too much to drink for that.”

“Live a little, Maggie!”

Maggie pulled her hand. “Get down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

But Jazz wasn’t paying any attention as she danced on top of the table. The song faded into another one of their teenage favorite and she cheered. “I love this song!”

She jumped, clapping her hands, but when her feet touched down on the wooden tabletop, her foot slid out from underneath her and she toppled from the table, falling to the floor as Maggie cried her name.

Her ass cushioned her fall, but her legs kicked out and she cursed as her foot connected with something hard, blinking in the hope that the room might stop spinning for a second. The fall had knocked the wind from her and her blood was rushing in her ears, which was probably why she didn’t hear Maggie screaming until her voice faded in, “… OUT OF THE WAY!”

Jazz looked up as soon as the words registered, with enough time to see the five-foot statue of a Greek goddess teetering on the edge of the plinth, but not enough time to get out of the way. The statue tilted toward her and Maggie rushed forward, pushing it in the other direction.

It was like it happened in slow motion: the statue smashed through the window and Maggie landed on Jazz, covering her head as glass shattered everywhere. Maggie pulled back just in time for them both to watch the statue hit the sidewalk and break into a dozen pieces, scattering all over the concrete.

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