Page 30 of February

“Yeah. I just wanted to say hi.”

“Oh. Hi. I was… having a drink.”

“Doesn’t your fancy hotel have a bar?”

“Does this one haveyourname on it?” Monica tossed back.

Bridgette laughed and replied, “No. I’m just surprised to see you out of your cocoon.”

“I tried to take your advice.”

“What about your seaweed wrap?”

“I moved it.”

Bridgette nodded and said, “Well, I just wanted to say hi.”

“Right.” Monica looked down at her half-empty drink as if she was considering something. “I’m leaving after this anyway.”

“Okay. I assume your limo will be picking you up?”

“It’s a town car. And yes.”

“I’m not rich, so I don’t know the difference between the two,” Bridgette joked.

“Hey, ready?” Melinda asked on her return from the bathroom.

Monica looked back and forth between the two of them. Bridgette couldn’t read her expression, but she wondered what the woman was thinking.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

When Monica nodded, Bridgette turned around to go with Melinda.

“Who’s that?”

“Just someone having a drink,” Bridgette told her as they walked down the stairs.

“Really? She’s kind of hot.”

Melinda wasn’t wrong. This was also the first time Bridgette had seen Monica in anything other than a business suit. She’d been wearing a pair of skinny jeans, black ballet flats, and an off-the-shoulder sweater that brought out her blue eyes. Her brown hair had been down when she’d been keeping it up in a clip at the office. Her more casual look almost made her look like a completely different person; a person Bridgette tried to force herself not to think about while she enjoyed a drink with her friends.

CHAPTER 8

“Excuse me,” a woman said. “You look like you’re about empty. Can I buy you another drink?”

Monica looked down at the glass she’d long forgotten about and noticed that the ice had melted most of the way. She’d been staring up at the screen behind the moving bartender, watching the pianist but also watching something else. Well, someoneelse. She hadn’t believed it when she’d first arrived. Monica had walked up the stairs because she’d read on her phone that the bar had two floors, and typically, the upstairs bar was less crowded than the downstairs one. Seeing that the downstairs bar was full when she walked in, she’d taken a chance on the upstairs. Upon sitting down at the bar and ordering a gin on the rocks, Monica had glanced up at the screen showing two empty pianos waiting to be played. One pianist, dressed in a tidy black suit, had sat down and begun. It was then that Monica had taken in the surroundings. The camera didn’t just cover the two pianos but the booths around them as well, and she could’ve sworn that Bridgette Musgrave was sitting in one of them.

The light was dim, so she could’ve been wrong, but she wasn’t. She watched Bridgette and the two women she was with. One sat on Bridgette’s side of the booth, and Bridgette had her arm over the back of the booth for a second. They weren’t touching, but they both looked more than comfortable aroundeach other. Monica wasn’t sure what that meant, but she sipped on her drink and watched anyway until someone approached the booth. It wasn’t the waiter; he’d already been by. It was a woman, and soon after her arrival, she and Bridgette had walked off together, so Monica had assumed that Bridgette had left the bar. Then, the bartender had distracted her by asking her if she wanted a refill, and Monica had accepted and asked for a water with lemon as well. After that, though, she’d kept her eyes on the screen, not expecting or thinking that Bridgette could be right behind her. As a result, their awkward moment had caught Monica by surprise, and ever since, her eyes had been back on the screen, watching as Bridgette and the woman who had been upstairs with her and was now back sitting next to her seemed to be enjoying their evening. She tried not to think about the fact that every so often, Bridgette’s head seemed to tilt back as if she was trying to see if Monica was still up there.

“Oh. No, thanks,” Monica replied to the woman who had just offered to buy her a drink. “I was about to leave.”

“Are you sure?” the stranger asked with a kind smile.

Monica glanced back at the screen and noticed that the third woman who had been at the booth was gone, and Bridgette had turned to face her remaining companion, with that arm back over the booth again. The two of them looked like they were laughing about something, and Monica wanted so much to know what it was.

“You know what? Iwillhave one more. Thank you,” she said.

“I’m Amina.” The woman held out her hand to Monica.

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