LITMIR.BIZ

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my bit.

      “So. It’s your birthday, huh?” Jon finally said.

      “Yep. Keeps coming around every year, whether I like it or not.”

      “Am I allowed to ask …?”

      “Thirty-three. It’s actually on Saturday, but since we’re having the work Christmas party then, Ally wanted to do something tonight so I’d feel special.”

      “Sounds like Ally.” There was a softness in his voice when he said the other woman’s name.

      “Yeah. She’s pretty great.”

      Another silence.

      My turn. Think of something. Anything.

      But the only thought that popped into her head was that he would have a hell of a time buying a suit off the rack with his broad shoulders.

      She took a breath to launch into a discussion about work, but he beat her to it.

      “So, Dino was telling me you usually dress up for the Christmas party?”

      She gave him a mental elephant stamp for coming up with such a nice, neutral topic. Even they couldn’t go awry talking about this one.

      “It’s kind of become a tradition.”

      “What are you coming as this year?”

      “I was thinking Rudolph. But I’m still toying with the idea of a Christmas tree.”

      “What about your girlfriend? Does she get into the whole dressing-up thing?”

      Gabby frowned. “I’m sorry?”

      She was vaguely aware of Tyler and Ally ferrying dishes to the table.

      “Here we go,” Ally said.

      “Or aren’t partners invited?” Jon asked, his questioning gaze going from Gabby to Ally to Tyler.

      Partners. Girlfriend.

      The words circled Gabby’s brain like thought balloons. It took her a full five seconds to join the two together and jump to the only conclusion possible.

      “I’m not a lesbian.” It came out sounding a lot more high-pitched and defensive than she would have liked.

      Ally’s eyebrows rose as she stared at Jon. “You thought Gabby was gay?”

      Tyler laughed. “Bloody hell. Where did you get that idea from?”

      Jon’s cheekbones were a dull red. “She mentioned her girlfriend, and I thought …” His gaze went to Gabby’s hair, then dropped below her chin to her body. “I must have got the wrong end of the stick.”

      “Girlfriend as in a friend who happens to be a girl,” Gabby said.

      She didn’t need a mirror to know she was bright red—she could feel the heat radiating off her skin. Although why she was embarrassed was beyond her—he was the one who had made a fool of himself.

      “Sorry. My mistake,” Jon said.

      “No kidding,” Gabby said. Talk about a lack of perception.

      Tyler was still smiling.

      “Tyler. It’s not funny,” Ally chided.

      “I know. Sorry. It’s just—Gabby as a lesbian … It boggles the mind.”

      “Can we let it drop?” Jon said. The glance he shot her was full of apology.

      Great. First he outed her as a lesbian, now he felt sorry for her.

      “This looks great, Ally,” she said brightly, picking up her knife and fork. “You know, if you weren’t married, I’d be tempted to nab you for myself.”

      Everyone laughed, including Jon. The knot in Gabby’s stomach loosened a little.

      “This reminds me of a letter I got last month for the column …” Ally said.

      Gabby reached for her water glass as Ally launched into her story. Gabby nodded and laughed and made comments in all the right places, but all the while, behind her smile and her I-couldn’t-care-less demeanor, her mind was whirring, obsessing over Jon’s mistaken assumption.

      She told herself that she didn’t care what he thought, that being thought to be gay was not an insult, that some of her best friends were gay. She told herself that his lack of perception said a lot more about him than it did about her. She even got herself to the point where she half believed it—except she kept returning to that significant pause when he’d looked at her hair, then her body before apologizing for getting it wrong.

      “Excuse me.” She pushed back her chair and stood.

      Hopefully enough time had passed that her leaving the table wouldn’t be read as retreat. Right now she was beyond caring.

      The bathroom door closed behind her with a soft click and she crossed the tile floor to stand in front of the full-length mirror mounted beside the old-fashioned tub.

      She stared at the woman she saw reflected there, determined to prove to herself once and for all that Jon had his head up his backside.

      The woman staring back at her had short, straight dark hair, with a crooked fringe and a pale face utterly devoid of makeup.

      Heaps of women have short hair, her inner voice scoffed. Audrey Tatou has short hair, and no one is calling her a lesbian.

      As for the no-makeup thing, well, she’d simply gotten out of the habit of it over the past few months. Admittedly, she looked a little … nondescript without it, but, again, it didn’t make her gay.

      She dropped her gaze to her body. Her T-shirt was old and stretched out, the fabric swamping her small breasts and bunching unattractively around her waist. Her jeans were cut for comfort rather than style, their fit loose and utilitarian. Her sneakers were old and scuffed, again chosen for comfort over appearance.

      Gabby blinked, but it didn’t change what the mirror was telling her. The voice in her head was suspiciously silent.

      She looked like a boy.

      Was it any wonder that Jon had made assumptions? Really?

      She sat on the rim of the tub, feeling shaky. As though someone had pulled a veil from her eyes and forced her to see an unpalatable truth.

      When had she stopped caring how she looked?

      When had she stopped wearing makeup and going to the hairdresser instead of trimming her own hair with nail scissors? When had she stopped buying sexy underwear and high heels and pretty clothes?

      When had she ceased to think of herself as an attractive, sexual being and slipped into this sexless, safe disguise?

      She didn’t know the exact date, but she could guess: the moment she’d given up on Tyler. Nearly four years, give or take. Four years of seeing him every day, convincing herself they were better friends than they had ever been lovers and that she’d done the smart thing—the only thing—in breaking off their relationship.

      She laughed suddenly as a bitter irony hit her: she’d broken up with Tyler to protect herself, but he was the one who had moved on. He’d found love, while Gabby, apparently, had been marking time.

      A wellspring of emotion tightened the back of her throat. She pressed her fingers against her eyelids. If she started crying, she’d never stop. And there was no way she was going to hide in the bathroom and cry at her own birthday party while her ex and his new wife fretted about her on the other side of the door.

      No. Freaking. Way.

      She took an unsteady breath, then another. She stood and shook out her hands.

      “Come on, princess. Get it together.”

      She tried out a smile in the mirror. It looked more like a grimace than a smile, but

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