When she wakes up, it’s all at once. A huge gasping breath and immediate freak-out.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The muted light coming in from the windows on the other side of her living room immediately tells her that she slept too long.
Against the fucking door.
God, she really was exhausted.
Her neck protests as she lifts her head, but she doesn’t have time to worry about that.
Her party starts soon.
Leaping to her feet and sending Amelia scampering off in the opposite direction with a protesting yowl, Bianca flies into her bedroom, kicking off the sensible nude kitten heels and chucking off the blazer and pencil skirt combination that she only ever wears when she needs to look professional, like on the first day of the semester, to scare the undergrads into thinking the librarian takes her job seriously and that they shouldn’t hook up in the stacks.
Not that it stops them for very long.
She’s lost count of the number of kids she’s walked in on in what they assume is a little used part of the collection, barely wearing any clothes.
Clothes . . . she needs clothes.
Jeans. Jeans are good. Jeans will be fine if she can pair them with the right top. She catches her reflection in the mirror. The one she’s wearing now works well enough, a silky red tank that ruched perfectly inside the neckline of her blazer. Now just heels . . . somewhere there are heels.
She falls to her knees in front of her closet and digs through the unmitigated mess at the bottom, feeling around until her hand emerges with one black patent leather pump with five-inch heels that she hasn’t had a chance to rock for a long-ass time.
Well, tonight’s the night.
If she can just find the shoe’s mate.
She takes a deep breath and reaches in again, hoping for a miracle.
She earned her fucking doctorate today. The fashion gods owe her a win.
When her hand emerges from the clutter again, her fingers wrapped around the shoe’s twin, something loosens in her chest.
She’s got shoes.
She’s got an outfit.
Her dark brown hair is decent, second-day curls that aren’t completely flat or frizzy or greasy, so just . . . makeup and she maybe won’t be late to her own damn party.
A few swipes of mascara, an attempt at winged eyeliner that quickly becomes a not-so-intentional smoky eye, plus some lipliner and a shiny gloss and yeah, okay, she looks good.
The heels, the jeans, the camisole, it all looks good.
“Not bad for thirty,” she mutters to herself, turning around in the mirror stuck to the back of her closet door. The bumps and curves that kind of haunted her through her teens and twenties now make her smile in satisfaction.
There’s something to be said for being comfortable in her own skin after all this time, even though despite the awesomeness of the day so far, the reality looming ahead of her is . . . nope. No. She will not think about that tonight. No job-hunt stress, nocareer is dead in the water before it even beginsworries.
Tonight is for celebrating only.
Because everyone is going to be there.
One of the bonuses of coming back home to finish up school is that she’s been surrounded by family and friends for the five-year slog that was her degree program. She’s been around for every major event in their lives and now that she’s finally done, she gets to have them all there with her tonight for her own big moment. Her sister, her best friends from childhood and high school and summer camp and undergrad, all under one roof to toast that massively expensive piece of paper she just earned.
Making sure to fill Amelia’s bowls, and with one final glance into the mirror, she sets out into the night.
