Glass Ceilings Read Free Page A

now!”
    Several of the others turned their heads toward them, amused at the outburst and leaving Angela absolutely mortified. She gaped at her cousin, her eyes bulging incredulously, which did nothing to deter Eve. “Sit!”
    “Bucket list?” Jase looked over and asked. “Oh, do tell. What is on this bucket list?”
    Angela sighed before asking, “Actually, I will take that rum and Diet Coke, please.”
    “Sure thing.”
    “So?” Jase prodded.
    Eve explained, “Well, my cousin is staying with me for a bit until she moves. She’s in between…” The girls exchanged a look, Angela’s wary and Eve’s determined. “She just needs to live a little. So we made a list of all the things that a normal twenty-five-year-old experiences that Angela has not yet experienced. Item number one is a one-night stand.”
    “You never had a one-night stand?” Jase asked as he quirked up a brow. “Not even in college—a drunken night of complete debauchery? Never?”
    I handed Angela her drink and she swallowed half of it down in one gulp, her eyes watching me over the rim of the glass. I leaned back, enjoying this exchange.
    Jase scanned the thinning crowd and pointed to Wood. “Wood would do it.” The girls followed the trail from his pointed finger to a very drunk Wood, who was having a heated discussion with his frosty mug.
    “Ewww.” Angela crinkled her nose up in disgust. “I do have standards.”
    “Okay, him.” Eve pointed to the tallest guy at the dartboard.
    “Gay,” I offered. They both looked at me, Angela’s eyes crinkling with humor.
    “Him,” Eve tried again.
    “Hairpiece,” I countered.
    Eve laughed before adding, “Him. The blond hottie who looks bored while his chick yaps annoyingly. You can swoop in and put him out of his misery.”
    “They’re fighting because she feels he needs to go on Viagra,” I lied.
    Eve cracked up, and Angela giggled.
    With much ceremony, Eve picked up her martini glass, drained it, and slammed it on the bar before saying, “I got the perfect guy, Ang. Jase.” She turned to Jase and said, “You’d take one for the team, right?”
    Jase was nodding before she finished her sentence. “Hell yeah. And when we were done, I’d move on to you for dessert.”
    “Ewww,” Angela repeated.
    “I get the same response as Wood? I’m hurt.” Jase held his heart in mock agony.
    “Nick, help us out here. This girl is in dire need of a night filled with hot, mindless, sweaty passion,” Eve begged with her hands folded.
    “Okay, on that note, now I’m really leaving.” Angela drained her glass and attempted to put on her coat again.
    “It’s really coming down.” I pathetically pointed toward the front windows. “You may want to wait a bit.” Their eyes went to the window to see the snow falling mercilessly, leaving a fresh layer of white over the inches that were already on the ground.
    “Crap,” Angela huffed with a shake of her head. “I’ll never get used to Chicago winters,” she added with a pout.
    “We’ll wait for Nick to get off duty. He’ll drive you girls home. He has one of those fuck-the-snow kind of trucks that can plow through anything.” Jase diplomatically volunteered my services.
    “I’m off now. Mugs released me.”
    “Well, then screw leaving. Let’s take this party over to a booth,” Jase amended. Snatching his drink and Eve’s, he headed toward an empty booth near the dartboard. Eve bounced off the barstool, following him.
    “Do you want to go? I can drive you home,” I asked Angela as she continued to sit at the bar.
    “She’d kill me, and I do need a roof over my head tonight.”
    “How long are you staying with her?”
    Angela sighed, looking down into her empty glass. “Not sure yet. A few days, I guess.”
    “Where are you from?”
    “Out east.”
    “Me, too,” I admitted without thinking. What the hell? I never offered information about myself.
    “Oh, whereabouts?”
    “Near D.C. You?”
    “Jersey.”
    “What