Amber’s club was the kind of pulsating, hypnotic dungeon Leslie had suspected it was going to be. Walking in, Leslie and Josie were immediately noticed like fresh blood in the water by every man in the building. Leslie could feel eyes crawling all over her and she immediately hated it. Everything about the decision to show up was beginning to race through her, tainted with regret and remorse. She should never have come. This was more trouble than she was interested in.

By the time they made it to the bar, Leslie felt like she was being washed up on the shore of some island after being shipwrecked. She had enough money to buy this club and a hundred more like it, and yet she felt like she was a novice to everything about it.

Josie walked the club, looking like a pro in this kind of environment. She had been here enough that she had all the confidence that Leslie was lacking.

Behind the bar, Amber looked like the platinum goddess that she was, drawing the eyes of every lustful man in the entire building who stared at her with mesmerized and transfixed eyes, begging for her to enter their lives as she made a thousand elixirs at a time.

Leslie watched her work and genuinely found it entertaining. It gave her a chance to catch her breath and not regret coming through the front door.

“I’m so glad you came!” Amber shouted over the thundering music. The dance floor was flooded with people who were letting the music take over their bodies. “Whatever you want, it’s on me.”

“Tom Collins,” Leslie said, turning to Josie who ordered something that turned out to be an extremely fruity and fluorescent drink that was beyond Leslie’s ability to comprehend. Amber made them with such ease and grace that it baffled Leslie, who asked a thousand different questions, all of which Amber answered with a strange command and authority that Leslie had never seen. She knew everything about drinking and the art of mixology.

Leslie stayed by the bar as Josie headed to the bathroom to check her makeup.

“You’re not going to shake it up, baby?” a guy behind Leslie asked, his face close to her ear so she could hear him. She whirled around to see a handsome blond guy in a business suit.

“I don’t dance.” She turned her back and ignored him. Baby. Really?

Amber came by a moment later to check her drink. “You want another?”

Leslie nodded and then rolled her eyes behind her, hinting at the guy behind her. She shook her head and hoped Amber got the hint.

“Gotchya!” She leaned across the bar. “Hey sweet-cheeks, the lady here wants to buy you a drink.”

Leslie nearly joked on the liquid in her mouth. What the hell!

“If the lady’s buying, I’m not saying no.” A soft chuckle that sounded completely different from the voice in her ear a few minutes ago had her spinning around. A very fit, dark haired guy held out his hand.

“Grant?” She burst out laughing and leaned forward to hug him. “Fancy meeting you here!”

Grant chuckled and winked at her while Amber stared open-mouthed at the two of them. “You guys know each other?”

“Old friends.” Grant winked again. “Before Leslie moved here.”

“What’re you drinking?” Leslie asked.

“Rum and Coke.”

Amber mixed the drink, clearly making it doubly strong. She slid it across the bar. “Any friend of Leslie’s is a friend ours.”

A slim female came up beside Grant and reached for his hand. Leslie didn’t recognize her, but then again she really didn’t know a lot about Grant besides his being her secret agent. Guess they both had a life the other didn’t know about.

“Thanks for the drink, Leslie. You look great in red!” He raised the glass and headed toward the dance floor with the girl.

Josie returned and sat down on the stool where Grant had been standing a moment earlier. Amber made her another drink as well. It felt like a hundred times in the first hour, guys would approach them and ask them if they’d be interested in dancing, giving them their numbers, or if they could buy the girls a drink. Leslie would always thank them politely and refuse their offers, feeling like a horrible person, but definitely not wanting to encourage the behavior.

“Are you not looking for anything?” Josie asked while Amber attended two guys who had given up on trying to flirt with Josie and Leslie. Amber was great at steering them away, introducing people at the bar to one another, and letting them carry off with each other to party elsewhere.

“No,” Leslie answered, stirring some strange concoction Amber had made just for her.

“Why not?” Josie asked, after a moment of clearly trying to decide whether or not she should ask the question. Clearly it was eating at her and Leslie was surprised it took that long for her to wrestle with the dilemma.

Leslie let out a sigh and decided it was time to let it go. Or maybe the alcohol decided. “I used to be married,” Leslie told her, shouting over the music and barely getting it to Josie. “Before I moved here, I lived in San Francisco with my husband.”

“What?” Josie shouted. “Are you kidding me? You’ve lived next door for like an entire year and you’re just now telling me this? You’re a girl who loves her secrets.”

Leslie shrugged, taking a drink before she decided that she should tell Josie the rest of the story. Leaning in so she didn’t have to shout over the music, she said, “He died of cancer. It really sucked.”

Josie stared at her for a moment with her big hazel eyes before she launched herself at Leslie and hugged her tightly. It was the kind of hug that everyone around them thought was probably induced by drinking too much, but Leslie knew better and she hugged her friend back, letting herself be nurtured for the first time in a long time.

“Hey ladies,” a guy said, coming up and hitching up his pants as he looked at the two hugging ladies with as much smolder as he could muster. “Mind if I get in on that hug?”

“Get the hell out of here!” Josie shouted at him. She turned to one of the bartenders and pointed to the guy who had effectively ruined their moment. “This douche is out of control, Tank.”

The massive bartender looked at the interloper and shook his head. “Leave them alone.” It was all he had to say to send the guy running.

When he was gone, Josie burst out laughing and Leslie found herself laughing as well. From that moment on the night took a less tense tur, and when Amber was finally off of her shift the three of them hit the dance floor together, making sure that it was strictly a girls’ night. While Leslie was in the bathroom, she had no doubt that Josie told Amber her secret, because Amber hugged her for an excruciatingly long time and refused to let her go after a while.

Eventually the club closed, and the three tipsy girls made their way back to the apartment building, stopping at Gustavo’s, who was closing up, but at the sight of his favorite customers he let them in. “Everything’s half off, but you got to hurry,” Gustavo said. “Everyone’s headed home already.”

“The usually,” Leslie said to him with a sweet smile.

“You mean the usual?” he chuckled and shook his head. “What are you doing out this late? And dressed so pretty?” he asked as he tossed the two slices of basil and roasted red pepper into the oven and looked at her. It wasn’t uncommon for him to see Leslie this late at night, but it was unusual to see her out in something other than an oversized sweatshirt, her reading glasses, and yoga pants. The old Italian was the sweetest guy in the world, and he reminded Leslie of her father.

“Decided to go out.” She shrugged, feeling more than a little drunk.

“Looks like it was a good time,” Gustavo smiled as he tossed Amber’s pepperoni into the oven with Josie’s potato and bacon slices. “You ladies need anything? Bottle of water, maybe?”

“Nah,” Leslie said, opening her clutch and flipping through the bills. “We’re almost home.”

“Like I said, it’s all half off,” Gustavo said. Leslie had seen Gustavo’s wife and two boys running around the restaurant several times when she’d been here. He was always busy, but it was because he was affordable and made amazing pizza. Leslie knew he didn’t make a ton of money. Gazing down at the tip jar, she saw it was already empty. They must have divided it up already. “Separate or together, ladies?”

“Together,” Leslie blurted out before the others could protest. She went to hand him a fifty and quickly switched it to a twenty. The girls were already heading toward the door as Leslie grabbed the rest of the cash out of her clutch and stuffed it into the tip jar for him. “Have fun with the family,” she said to him as he stared down at the cash in his jar, easily five hundred dollars that Leslie had just parted with, not even batting an eyelash.

“Sweetie, no; I can’t take that. Come back here.” Gustavo came around the counter and dug into the jar. “I’m glad you’ve had a fun night out, but this is too much.”

Leslie had tried to usher Josie and Amber out before they noticed. Caught red-handed, she turned around. “No, Gustavo, that’s for you and your family. I did that on purpose. Thank you for the awesome pizza.” She pushed opened the door with her butt and took a bite of the pizza in her hand. It was hot, but tasted amazing.

“What was that?” Amber asked as they made the short walk home.

“Nothing.” Leslie didn’t offer to add more and thankfully the two roommates didn’t press it.

They were all fairly quiet as they ate their pizza, enjoying the sights and the sounds of their neighborhood before they walked into the apartment building.

“It was fun tonight. Thanks for taking me.” Leslie tried to keep her voice neutral. She suddenly felt like crying and couldn’t understand why. Damn drink.

“We’re doing it again. Soon,” Amber hiccupped, and started laughing as they headed up the stairs.

Unlocking the door to her apartment, she let it hang open as she walked in. She flipped on the lights and felt embraced by the familiar sounds and smells of her hovel. It felt like she’d been gone for a hundred years, as if time had changed since she’d left. Or maybe she had. She dropped down onto the couch, staring at the TV. She didn’t feel tired at all. She felt drunk, and afraid that if she fell asleep she’d wake up with a nasty case of dry mouth and a hangover that was coming with a vengeance. She wondered for a moment whether she had the ingredients to make a Bloody Mary in the morning or a Mimosa. Of course, she’d have to make it for the ladies too.

A few minutes later Josie and Amber came out of their apartment, barefoot and ready to relax after the long night. Tomorrow was Friday and they’d partied like it was Saturday. Leslie had no doubt that in the morning they were all going to be beat. She got up and changed into yoga pants and then dropped down on to the couch as Josie flipped through Netflix for something to watch.

Leslie couldn’t help but feel like tonight was the night that she’d needed. It was like someone had chipped out a chunk from the dam that had blocked up her entire life, and for the first time in a very long time she felt like she was ready to do something new and exciting. Maybe start living again.

“Can we talk about the stack of hundreds you stuffed in the tip jar?” Josie said after a while as they settled on some show that was extremely melodramatic, the kind of stuff that Leslie found herself easily engrossed by and eager to consume on a bender of bad television.

Leslie looked at her and shrugged.

“That’s was, like, half a month’s rent.” Amber leaned forward and watched her intently.

Leslie smiled and shook her head, standing up and walking toward the bookshelf where the Tiffany Black series was stuffed in the corner of her living room. Evelyn Frock’s growing canon of literature was quickly enveloping that section of the shelf. Leslie grabbed the first Tiffany Black book and handed it to Josie, who took the book and looked at it, completely confused and baffled by what it could possibly mean. When she finally opened up the book and saw the inscription Grant had written on the first page about how this was the beginning of a great friendship and an extremely lucrative career, all the cylinders fired inside of Amber’s mind and it all came together. “Holy shit!” Her eyes lit up after a moment, stunned and baffled. “That guy at the bar. That was this Grant?”

Leslie nodded. “He’s my agent.”

“Holy shit!” Amber jumped up. “You’re freakin’ Evelyn Frock!”

“Who’s Evelyn Frock?” Josie grabbed the book and read the inscription as well. “Who the hell is Grant?” She rubbed her eyes. “My mind’s foggy with booze, fun, and a brain freeze.”

“Grant was at the bar tonight,” Amber explained.

Leslie laughed. “That was kinda funny. I thought you were offering to have me buy a drink for the dick- head who had called me ‘Baby’ a moment before. I didn’t know Grant was there.”

“Who the hell is Evelyn Frock?” Josie repeated.

“Like the most popular author in America,” Amber gasped and turned back to Leslie. “You’re screwing around. You have to be pulling our legs.”

Leslie shook her head. “Only a very small select group of people know. A very select few.”

Josie jumped to her feet and let out an ecstatic scream, and started jumping up and down enthusiastically. She pulled Amber up and the two of them hopped and danced like crazy drunks.

Leslie, on the other hand, stared at the TV screen where she was watching a particularly handsome man talking to his onscreen girlfriend about their particular dilemma. For some reason, Leslie felt drawn to him. There was something about him that made her feel excited inside, something alive stirring inside of her. It was something that had been asleep for a long time, now alive deep in her belly. She had no idea who it was on the screen, but he was extremely attractive. Freakin’ hot.

Guilt made her turn her face away from the TV. She had no right to have those feelings. They had died a year ago, buried forever in California.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Josie grabbed Leslie’s shoulders and shook her. “I’m neighbors with Evelyn Frock?”

“Yeah.” Leslie shrugged. “It’s no biggie. I just write stories.”

“So, you’re a billionaire,” Amber said after a moment, finally putting the pieces all together.

Leslie laughed and shook her head. “Just a millionaire,” she laughed.

“Damn! That’s a ton of money.” Amber blinked several times, trying to grasp the situation through the liquor-infused fog she was trying to navigate.

“Who’s he?” Leslie asked, pointing to the guy on the screen who was now fist-fighting with a werewolf or something convoluted like that.

“Conrad Danes?” Josie’s eyes darted to the TV. “Wait, I have like a million things I want to ask. No one knows?”

“Come on,” Leslie groaned. “Be cool about it, Josie. Don’t freak out. It’s part of the reason I don’t tell anyone. I don’t want to be different than who I am.”

“Okay,” Josie nodded. “Where you Evelyn before... before... you know?”

“Yeah.” Leslie leaned back into the couch, sinking into it as she hugged a pillow, wondering if she’d made a mistake telling the two of them. She guarded her privacy with the kind of fiery dedication that most people guarded their darkest secrets with. She didn’t want to be the focus of the media. She knew if they did find out who she was, it would be impossible to find a quiet little corner of the world to hide in. She eyed her friend for a moment. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“My lips are sealed,” Josie said, grinning like a child on Christmas morning.

“I’m serious,” Leslie growled.

“So am I,” Josie swore.

“Me too,” Amber said. “Man, that guy is hot. Look! That wolf just ripped off Conrad’s shirt!”

Josie snorted. “I’d drink a few from that six pack.

Leslie burst out laughing. “Only you, Josie.”

“Hey, what can I say? I appreciate fine art.”

“One thing, about my job... don’t blackmail me. Ever.” Leslie warned them as her eyes swung back to the television. “Even my parents don’t know.”

“We won’t say a thing,” Josie said vehemently. “I’m honored you even told us.”

“I trust you guys.”

“This is so cool,” Amber giggled, shaking her head as they watched Conrad Danes fight off another werewolf. “We got a secret, famous friend.”

“Don’t forget rich,” Josie joked.

“Don’t forget it’s a secret,” Leslie warned.

END OF EXCERPT – grab you copy FREE!