I walked into The Wayfair Lounge tugging on my tunic. This wasn’t the place a girl went dressed in jeans and a ratty sweater, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone. I was looking for Grace.

Men in suits walked the edge of the bar shopping the seated women like they were goods on a shelf. In the corner, waving like a lunatic in need of a white buckled jacket, was Grace. She jumped up and down on her stilettos, causing the gauzy fabric of her skirt to swish around her legs. Every male eye in the place fell on those long limbs.

“You made it.” She wrapped an arm noose-like around my neck and pulled me in for a hug. “What do you want to drink?”

“Water.” I slid onto the stool and plopped my purse on top of the table.

“You can’t drink water.” Grace lifted her hand in the air, and when the bartender looked over, she pointed to her Cosmopolitan and held up two fingers.

“I can’t afford anything but water.” I pulled my wallet from my purse and opened it to reveal a lone ten-dollar bill. It was the only money I had until next week when I’d get paid for my last design job—a flier for the new donut shop on Colfax. It wasn’t the work I’d envisioned when I graduated with a graphics design degree, but it paid some of the bills.

“This one is on me.” She looked me up and down and then frowned. “If you had dressed for the place, the drinks could have been on him.” She nodded toward Mr. Pinstripe. He leaned against the wall and stared in our direction. Actually, he stared at Grace. I might as well have been invisible.

I picked up Grace’s drink and it sloshed over the side. She watched as I sucked the sticky liquid that ran down my finger. “Keep doing that and the whole bar will buy you drinks. It won’t matter what you’re wearing.”

I popped my finger from my mouth and scanned the bar area. Yep, at least a dozen guys zoned in on me. Not me, but my mouth—my lips—my tongue. The heat of a blush rose to my cheeks.

The bartender set a tray of drinks on our table. He looked around the room and nodded toward several men. “Compliments of your admirers.”

Grace pulled out a twenty-dollar tip and slid it into the bartender’s pocket. “Thanks, Tony.”

“No problem. Cosmos for the next round?” he asked, as if we’d just slammed the first round.

I shook my head. “No more for me.” After two of these, I’d be done. Three would have me slurring my words. Four, and I’d be waking up someplace strange with a hairy chest pressed to my face.

“Keep them coming and keep them the same.” Grace gave him a Hollywood smile. “No one wants a sick date. You know the saying: Mix your liquor, never been sicker.” She stood and lifted her martini toward the crowd in a toast. “Here’s to man-whore Mondays.” The bartender laughed and left.

“I’ve got to stop coming here with you.” It was the truth. The past several Mondays had been the worst. I’d tipped back a few too many martinis and made some poor choices. Mondays never produced the right kind of men. I wanted more than an in-the-minute Mike. I wanted a long-term Luke. “I don’t get it. I’m smart. I’m funny. I’m low maintenance. I’m not crazy. I can pull off sexy. Shouldn’t I be beating the men off with a stick?”

“With a stick?” Grace was a half a martini to full-on giddy drunk. “In my experience, they’d prefer that you beat them off with your hand.” She made an obscene gesture. “I think that might be your problem.”

I grabbed her hand and pushed it to the table, making her wobble on her heels. “Sit down before you fall down. How many of these have you had?”

She held up her hand and raised one finger, then snapped it to two. She looked at her drink, the one I’d drunk half of, and bent her second finger down. Grace was well on her way to a terrible Tuesday of regret.

“I read an article this week that said orphans have trouble finding a significant other when they grow up.” She shrugged in a noncommittal way that meant, I don’t know if it’s true or not.

“Well, lucky for me, I’m not an orphan. I have Grams.” I’d been living with her since the day my parents died in the car crash. I rubbed the area on my shoulder where the pole got lodged. It still ached sometimes, especially when the weather was cold. A constant reminder of a day I couldn’t remember. When I closed my eyes, the canvas of my early life was always fuzzy. I heard the screams. I smelled the smoke. I felt my heart race and plummet to a stop. Then nothing.

I jumped in my seat when my phone rang. The screen lit up while the “Imperial Death March” played.

“Are you going to answer?” Grace picked up my phone and laughed. “Who is Vulture?”

Air rushed out of my mouth in a huff. “Landlord.”

She looked down at her phone. “It’s the fifth. Didn’t you pay your rent?”

I dropped my head to the table and pretended to pound it against the surface. The nearly empty martini glasses shook and jingled.

“I paid what I could.” Which was near nothing. Ten percent of the rent didn’t count. To my landlord, it was chump change.

“Which was?” She raised her hand to Tony again. “Talk of finances requires liquid reinforcement.”

“Not enough to stop him from calling.” I finished the rest of martini number two just before Tony brought number three. “I don’t want to talk about it.” There was nothing to talk about. Rent cost money. Money I didn’t have. I’d already sold everything of value. I was down to a blowup mattress and a lawn chair. The only thing that remained was my computer and my phone, and I needed those for work.

“Okay. So what do you want to talk about?”

I knew the only safe subject at this point was men. “Let’s talk about my next date.” I looked over the rim of my glass into the bar. People were pairing up now. All it took was a few drinks for a two on the sexy scale to turn into a ten.

Grace scooted her stool next to mine so her back was to the wall. Her green eyes swept the room like laser-guided missiles. “What about him?” She nodded toward the door where three corporate America men stood sipping dark beer.

“Which one?”

“Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dapper.” She rimmed her glass with her finger until it sang something akin to a B flat.

I looked at the darkest-haired man in the group. He was fine if you liked trust fund babies and country clubs. My tastes were less refined. I preferred a man who could demand respect with a single look while he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

“He’s such a peacock.”

“It’s always the birds with you.” She leaned over the table like her sight was failing. After three drinks, maybe it was. “He’s more of a rooster, don’t you think? I love a rooster’s cocksure demeanor—the way they strut their stuff.”

“What you like is their cock-a-doodle-doo.”

Grace sat up tall. “That, among other things.” She licked the sugared rim of her glass, and I was certain any man looking had just gone weak in the knees.

“What other things?” I knew Grace better than anyone on this planet. We’d been best friends since the first grade. Inseparable since the day I showed up at St. Mary’s dressed in my plaid uniform and my new light-up sneakers. Sisters from different misters was how we described ourselves.

“I don’t know. He’s handsome in that I’ve-got-a-Maserati way. And look at his friend.”

One guy had a beak for a nose; the other, a barrel for a belly. “Which one? The toucan or the grouse?”

“I like a man with a strong nose.” She looked around the bar again. “Okay, tell me which of these guys is the bird for your nest.”

I giggled to myself because anyone coming to my nest would have to embrace simple living and ramen noodles. My eyes went from man to man until I’d rounded the room. “If men were birds, and I had to choose one, it wouldn’t be anyone here.”

“Oh, come on.” She pinched my arm and twisted. She had a way of getting the tiniest bit of skin—just enough to send a pulse of pain through every nerve ending. “Play with me.”

“I’m serious.” I looked at all the pretty boys dressed in Brooks Brothers. “All these guys are birds of paradise. They stand around and look pretty.” I drank the rest of my martini. “They don’t know what they want. They come here and peck at the feed every night. I don’t want that. I want someone who knows what he wants. I want the guy who’s not afraid to swoop down and fight for me.”

“You’re asking for a bird of prey.” She bit her lip and raised her brow. “You know they eat up everything in their path, right?”

“Being eaten doesn’t sound half bad.” I picked up my purse and slid off the stool. “I’ll leave you to your peacocks and roosters. I’ll wait for my hawk.”