Seven Days in June(90)

Eva couldn’t deal with Cece’s texts right now, and she definitely didn’t want to check her fan group. Her category was next. She just wanted to get through this with her head held high and then go home. Lamely, she tried to join the conversation but couldn’t find an opening in Georgia’s rapid-fire shop talk. She always spoke in romance-writer jargon, which was maddening.

“…and in my new novel, I can’t decide if I should give my female lead a HEA or HFN.” (Happily Ever After or Happily for Now.)

“Is her man worthy of a happy ending?” asked Ebony.

“Hard to say. He’s somewhere between an alpha male and an alpha-hole.”

“I love writing alpha-holes,” sighed Tika. “Who doesn’t enjoy a sexy jerk?”

“Sexy jerks are overrated,” muttered Eva.

“Your vampire Sebastian’s an alpha-hole, and he’s fabulous,” enthused Ebony.

“Is he?” countered Eva. “Every time he sleeps with Gia, he wakes up on the opposite side of the earth from her. He knows it’ll happen, because of their curse. But he does it anyway. That’s not sexy,” she said with a pointed hair toss. “That’s pathological.”

“Gia’s just as much to blame,” Georgia pointed out. “She’s not quite a TSTL heroine”—Too Stupid to Live—“but almost. No offense.”

“None taken. Gia’s definitely TSTL,” agreed Eva, her eye sockets starting to thump.

Not now, she thought to herself. I can’t deal with an episode right now. Just let me get through this night.

“She’s a witch with magic powers,” Eva continued, fishing for a gummy in her purse. “But in every book, she uses them to fight her way back to a depressed vampire. Or to hex the vampire hunters stalking her man. Never once did she consider saving herself. Figuring out how to break the curse. Or at least putting a love spell on some regular dude who she could have a functional relationship with.”

“But then it’d be over,” said Tika.

Eva smiled weakly, knives stabbing into her temples. “It would be, wouldn’t it?”

She barely got out the words before she broke out in a cold sweat. Between the loud dinner chat, the uproarious laughter from the dance floor, the booming bass from the band (now tearing it up to “Where My Girls At?” by 702), and this conversation, the low-grade migraine she’d woken up with had surged to “possibly vomitous.”

She needed a painkiller injection, quickly.

“You okay, honey?” whispered grande dame Bonnie, seated right next to her. The rest of the table had returned to their alpha-hole convo.

Nodding, Eva swallowed the gummy whole and fanned herself with the menu. She was on fire.

“I know what to do.” Bonnie rolled up the sleeves of her Chico’s blazer and grabbed Eva’s wrists. Without warning, she held them against her ice-cold Sprite glass. Eva yelped at the shock. But then, in mere seconds, she started to cool down. Her rapid-fire heartbeat even settled a bit.

“Menopause trick,” Bonnie said with a wink, ever efficient. “Listen, whatever’s the matter, you’ll overcome it. We’re made of guts and gumption, honey. Guts and gumption.”

“Great title for your next book.” Eva managed a shaky, grateful smile. She scooted her chair back, saying, “Excuse me. Just need to call my daught—”

And then stopped herself. This was her go-to pain-emergency excuse when she needed an injection. She was sick of relying on it. So instead, she did something she’d never done before.

“You know what? I’m not stepping away to call Audre.” Eva threw her shoulders back. “The truth is I…I have an invisible disability.”

“A what?” asked Ebony.

“A disability. My head is fucking exploding, and it’s so bad that, Ebony, your nose is melting into your face and I’m concerned that I might vomit on my borrowed Alexander McQueen. The edges of my vision are starting to fray and curl, like paper on fire. Can you imagine? When I was little, I thought it happened to everyone. I described it to my second-grade teacher once, and she thought my mom was giving me LSD. Wouldn’t have been a reach, actually.”

Bonnie grabbed her clutch. “My word, honey. Do you want an aspirin?”

Eva outright giggled.

“Thank you, Bonnie, but no. If aspirin worked, I’d be a totally different person. I’d be breezing through life like Chrissy Teigen! I’d be married to a pleasant pop star and hosting game shows. I, too, would be the funniest person on Twitter. I’d out-Teigen Teigen.”

Eva was on such a roll, she didn’t even notice that the women were looking at her like she was losing it.

“Actually, I just took an edible. And now I’m gonna find a ladies’ room and shoot myself with a Toradol injection.” She made a stabbing motion at her thigh. “No, it’s fine, I do it all the time. Feel free to eat my chicken paillard. No reason to let free protein go to waste. See y’all in ten!”

Eva’s words were slurring; her vision was blurring—but my God, was she exhilarated. Just by that one small (huge) admission! She felt unburdened, unshackled. With a triumphant grin, she confidently strode from the table and across the dance floor. Holding a temple, she pinballed through the maze of people—until she was sideswiped by Khalil. He grabbed her by the waist and dipped her dramatically. Without hesitation, she elbowed him in the ribs, and ignoring his wail (“SENSELESS VIOLENCE, SIS?”), she headed toward the back of the room.