Page 13 of Ten Rules for Faking It
“Give me that. You have cake. Tara made it special for you. I won’t sing,” Stacey said with a smirk playing on her lips. She held up her hands like she was swearing on a Bible.
Handing over the book, Everly flipped the top of the box open and stared down at a beautiful miniature cake. Shaped and decorated like a present, it had polka-dot wrapping paper and a thick bow. A white tag readEverly.
“This is stunning,” Everly said.
Stacey glanced up. “Yeah. Tara’s the best. I told her it was too pretty to eat, and she said cake is always meant to be eaten.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Want your gift?”
Everly eyed the bag, nerves dancing in her belly again. “I don’t know. Do I?”
Laughter shone from her friend’s eyes. “Oh yeah. But maybe you should save it for later. You have batteries, right? I mean, it came with some, but it’s always good to have backup.”
Even in the quiet of her own backyard, with no one else around, Everly’s cheeks warmed. “You did not.”Of course she did.
“Babe, you’re thirty. They say this is the friskiest time of your life. I think you should addsleep with a younger manto this list.” She tapped her index finger on the page.
Everly rolled her eyes. She held out her hand. “Give me back my list.”
Stacey shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Eat cake. This needs work.”
Everly picked up one of the two forks beside the box and dug in. She might end up in a sugar coma later, but it’d be worth it.
“You’re not helping with the list,” Everly said around her first delicious bite.
“Uh,yeah,I am. This is boring. You turned thirty, not one hundred. I love the work one. I told you six months ago you needed to pitch that podcast idea. Other than that, though, let’s see… Find your happy? I brought you your happy.” Stacey pointed to the gift bag, and Everly almost choked on her bite of cake.
Her friend set the journal down and reached under the table, dug around a moment, then pulled up a bottle of wine and two glasses.
Everly peeked under to see what other magic tricks she was hiding. “You’re like a dirty Mary Poppins.”
Stacey laughed as she opened the wine and poured them both some. “I like that. Mary Poppins with sass.”
Everly had the glass to her lips when Stacey raised her glass.
“To you. To being one of the best people I’ve ever met. And to thirty being the year you realize just how kick-ass awesome you really are.”
Everly clinked her glass, determined to take her friend’s words to heart. “To you being a great friend and a lousy singer.”
Stacey tilted her head back and laughed. Everly noticed the curtains on the bottom-left unit flutter open. Lexie pressed her face to the glass, smooshing her nose and waving. Everly waved back, and Stacey turned to do the same.
“Okay, for real. I think this list is a great idea. But we need to spice it up.”
“It’s not a bucket list, Stace. It’s a guideline for getting what I want out of life. Starting this year.”
Stacey sipped her wine. “Okay. What do you want?”
Everly’s stomach tilted when she realized she didn’t really know. “I feel like I have a better idea of what I don’t want.”
Her friend gestured with her hand for Everly to continue, then picked up the other fork.
“I don’t want to date guys I don’t connect with anymore. Maybe they don’t all cheat, but it never goes anywhere, which I think I’ve been doing on purpose. I don’t want people to think I’m a snob just because I have a hard time talking to them. I don’t know that I want a different spot at the station, but I hate feeling like I’m too scared to push past my safety net. At work and in my personal life.”
Stacey nodded, swallowing down her cake. “Okay. Good. We can work with this.” She reached down to her purse, which was beside her on the ground, and pulled out a pen. She wrote something in the book.
“Hey!” Everly reached for the journal.
