Jealousy hits me, sour as the old champagne coating my tongue.
Ada doesn’t need a gold dress to shine. You could take any old picture of her, and it would come out looking like a Vogue spread. Meanwhile,Ineed stilettos, synthetic lashes and a fashion handout just to feel like Imightfit in at a high school reunion. This is supposed to bemybar, and Davis ismybouncer and?—
“Cee?” Cameron yells. “Could you please smash out some kiwifruit martinis?”
“Sure,” I say, in a tone so fake-cheery it could shatter glass.
Enough, Cecelia.Ada’s helping. Davis is helping. This isn’t a crisis. You’re just overwhelmed.
I refocus on the ever-growing backlog of cocktails; shake, pour, garnish, repeat. But each drink makes my mixer feel heavier until it’s like I’m stirring the full weight of my imposter syndrome in with the liquor.
Just keep going.One more drink. Then twenty. Then you can have your breakdown in private…
“Tables’ are done for now,” Davis says, appearing beside me again. “Need anything else? I can put on a real shirt and come behind the bar if you want?”
“No need,” I say, squinting too hard at the watermelon sour I’m making. “I’ve got this. Besides, I’m sure all the girls love your shirt.”
He raises an eyebrow, but mercifully doesn’t reply. I silently beg my mouth to stop improvising before it causes actual damage.
Davis clears his throat. “Ada says you guys were thinking of the promo pics for socials tonight?”
‘Oh, well, if Ada says so, then I guess we absolutely have to,’a feral bitch in my head screeches. I drown her in my nearest mental ocean and force a smile. “Um, I don’t think we’ll have time?”
“We will,” he says with the unshakable confidence of the young and male. “Dinner’s nearly done. We’ll sort it out after that.”
He turns and heads forthe kitchen, his inked back muscles shifting as he goes. By “we,” does he mean him and Ada? Or him and me?
Him and me.God, I hope he means him and me.
I press a clammy hand to my forehead, trying to wring sense back into my brain. I likeWill. I wantWill, and I am never, ever, day-drinking again… Except at Christmas. I’m not Supergirl.
I decide I need something to keep me going and pour myself a vodka cranberry. As the crowd starts to thin, and the alcohol and sugar work through me, the gloom inside me lifts. I let myself laugh along with Cameron as Krissy tells us about going to a queer poetry night and getting into a fight about whether rhyming a word with itself is a crime.
Ada’s finished serving and is drying clean glasses in an empty booth. She’s not smiling anymore, though. Her face is blank, her dark eyes full of the sadness I’ve seen all too often since she’s come back. I watch her polish a tumbler with a microfiber towel, and a cold wave seems to wash over me. She wears her mask so well these days, it’s easy to forget she isn’t bulletproof.
“Hey, Addy,” I call. “Drink?”
She looks up, her mouth a flat line. “Sure.”
A shield,she once told me,is best made from material you already have.My best friendistough and glamorous, but there are other parts of her, too. Softer ones that need protecting, just like everybody else.
She comes over and climbs onto an empty stool, watching as I shake her a margarita. I’ve just set the glass in front of her when Krissy lets out a little shriek. “Oh my God, I completely forgot, Ada! Someone left a present for you!”
“Huh?”
Krissy ducks under the bar and pulls out a small package, wrapped in lilac paper and topped with the glitteriest bow in existence.
Ada eyes the present like it might detonate. “Did the mafia stop by?”
“No, it came before you got here. Aren’t you gonna open it?”
I understand her hesitation. Her parents used to control her with presents; buying her hideous clothes and fancy pens when all she really needed was a break. From playing the flute, from parenting her siblings, from holding up a household while her mum and dad chased gold stars and collected compliments about their ‘perfect family.’
“Want me to take it?” I ask. “You can open it upstairs?”
She shakes her head and peels off a small corner of paper like it’s a nuclear warhead. When she gets through the layers, her face loses all colour.
“What is it?” I ask. “A finger?”
