Page 1 of Forget Me

1

MIMI

I’d forgotten everything.Except his pretty eyes.

Blue and round, though the tequila had dulled the details. I couldn’t recall the exact shade or if they had flecks in them. Just blue. And glasses. Clark Kent glasses. The pendant light that hung over our heads glinted off the lenses.

The shape and color of the frames were fuzzy in my memory, but I was ninety-two percent certain they weren’t round and metal like Byron’s. Even as drunk as I was, I’d have run the other direction.

How long had I stared into his eyes while we sat at that Divisadero Street bar? It felt like hours, but the tequila. So much tequila.

A flash of memory: blue eyes crinkled in concern and a big hand gripping my arm to steady me on the stool. And another flash, though this one flitted away from me, just out of reach. His gaze burning into me, serious and intense. Something pressed into my hand.

I looked down at my palm like it would still be there. But there was nothing except an ugly plastic ring, the light-up fake diamond as big as a walnut. When I tapped it, it flickered weakly in neon pink. As Bree’s maid of honor, I’d laid down the rule: no vulgar swag at her bachelorette party. But one of Bree’s other friends had brought a sack full of plastic crap. And after a couple shots of tequila, I didn’t care about the rules. I wrenched the ring off my finger and dropped it onto the counter.

Damned hangover. I rubbed my temple, but that did nothing to soothe the tightness around my brain.

Although I didn’t remember much about his appearance, I remembered how last night’s mystery man made me feel. Interesting. Cared-for. Safe. And I’d laughed so hard my stomach muscles were still a little sore.

Actually, that might have been from the puking.

The buzz of my phone against my kitchen counter set off a new pain somewhere in the vicinity of my molars.

I plucked the cheap fuchsia sash off of it—the script on it read, “Hot Mess,” and hadn’tthatturned out to be true?—and tossed it aside. I scraped the phone off the counter and squinted one eye at the display. Bree. I stabbed the answer button.

“Why are you up so early?”

She groaned, and her voice came out hoarse. “Had to hug the throne. You drank as much as me. How are you?”

“Same.” How was my breath? I couldn’t show up to my presentation smelling like regurgitated tequila. I cupped my hand over my mouth, breathed out, and sniffed. Minty fresh. I jammed a pod into the coffeemaker and hit the brew button.

“Mimi,” my best friend whined, “wasn’t this easier in our twenties?”

“The drinking part or the hangover part?”

“Both. I remember going out on Saturday night and then drinking mimosas at Sunday brunch. Now just thinking about champagne—or orange juice—makes me want to hurl.”

“I guess a lot of things are different now that we’re over thirty.” Like the weird rash around my mouth I’d had to cover up with an extra layer of foundation. The one that looked suspiciously like beard burn, though I definitelydidn’t remember kissing anyone. “Hey, do you remember much from last night?”

“Ugh, not really. Especially after the third round of tequila shots.”

Third round? I strained my sluggish memory, but it was a blur of Bree’s head thrown back in laughter, the other girls’ giggles, and those glasses framing a pair of twinkling blue eyes.

The coffeemaker light blinked off, and I picked up my mug. The bitter scent of it made my stomach seize. I set it back on the counter. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah. Thanks for coming out. I know you had a lot going on with your brother’s engagement party yesterday.”

“I wouldn’t have missed your bachelorette party for the world. We’ve been friends too long for that.” We’d been best friends since we’d met in the theater showingThe Incredibles.Both our families had refused to watch it with us. It was the third time for me, the fifth time for her. We’d bonded over how much we identified with Violet, though we hadn’t known how to express it then. As our friendship deepened, we’d obsessed over Spider-Man, Henry Cavill’s Superman, and every one of the Avengers.

So even though I didn’t usually waste time at parties, I’d rearranged my entire weekend to fit in both Ben’s party and hers, working late on Friday night to finish up my presentation.

“Thank God we have a day to recover before we have to go back to work,” she said.

I hummed and pulled my presentation out of my satchel, just to check it one last time. The crisp pie charts, the line graphs showing my projections. There was nothing for perfect Larissa to find fault with, and we were going to wow her boss, Jackson Jones. Who also happened to be an executive at Synergy, where I worked.

“Oh, no,” Bree said. “That’s not an I’m-going-back-to-bedhmm. That’s an I’m-going-for-a-ten-mile-runhmm.”

I chuckled. “You know I hate running. Actually, I have to work today.”

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