Page 3 of My Lucky Charm

She straightens. “You’re here on New Year’s Eve. Alone.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Her face softens. “Oh. That’s not. . . You know what I mean.”

“I know,” I say, smiling back. “And I’m not alone,” I clink her glass with mine. “I’m with you.”

Meredith looks around the bar. It’s noisy and getting noisier.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Someone for you to kiss.” She says this without looking at me.

“Uh, what? No.” I frown. “Absolutely not. Are you nuts? I’m not kissing anyone tonight. I mean, I’m all for getting back out there, but maybe with someone who buys me dinner first?”

She turns to face me full on, as if ready to give a Braveheart speech, and puts both hands on my shoulders. “Do you want to ring in the New Year alone? Do you want to be the pathetic single girl everyone feels sorry for? The only person in this entire bar with no one to kiss on the only night of the year when it is imperative that you have someone to kiss . . .”

I start to respond, but she cuts me off.

“Or! Do you want to be the hot, wanted woman who’s already moved on?” She strikes a pose as she says this, and I roll my eyes, even though I’m smiling.

“Did you practice that in the mirror, or . . . ?”

She holds up a hand to stop me mid-sentence. And then she grins. It’s a glimmer-of-an-idea-turned-epiphany grin, and I really do not want to know why.

I dare a sideways glance in Jay’s direction and see he’s met up with a group of other young professionals, but he’s still connected to the brunette.

This is humiliating. Jay pursued me. He was charming and flirtatious, and he assured me my job was safe—no matter what.

And I fell for it. For him. And because I’m very loyal, I was all in. We could make it work, right? And for a few months, we did. We were good together. I made him laugh, and he grounded me. He made me feel like a grown up, which is saying something because until I dated Jay, most of my relationships felt like meeting under the bleachers during recess.

Working for—and dating him—changed that for me. Changed me. I started to see that my sisters weren’t the only ones who could be smart and successful. I started to believe that I could be too.

Yes, I’m a little aimless, and maybe I don’t want to own a restaurant like Poppy or run a big company like Raya, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have goals.

It’s just that my goals aren’t the kind you publicize. I don’t want to be a girl who runs the world. What I really want is a simple life with people I love.

But Jay, like so many other men, proved that putting on a suit doesn’t make a man an adult. His behavior reeked of college frat boy. I caught him with the brunette—Amber—on a Tuesday in December. The week before Christmas, in fact.

Merry Christmas to me!

He fired me that Friday, leaving me boyfriend-less, jobless, and depressed right before the holidays. Which really sucked because Christmas is my favorite time of year.

“Him.”

“Him who?”

She nods toward the bar. “Him. He’s perfect,” Meredith says. “He’s probably close to our age, right? He’s hot, and alone, and not obnoxiously drunk.”

“You can’t be serious.”

I look at her and realize that she’s serious.

“Meredith. No. No!”

She starts smiling and slowly nodding her head rhythmically.

“He’s a stranger!” I say, incredulous.

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