Midnight

There was no one to kiss at midnight. I was okay with this. So I didn't have a boyfriend? I was never one to insist on having one even if it meant a lonesome New Year's. I'd done Christmas alone and I weathered that like a champ regardless of my Aunt Sarah's pouty laments about my dying an old maid if I "didn't figure myself out soon." Sigh. I could do alone. I was happy with myself and since I didn't care to kiss random strangers, either, I knew for a fact that I wasn't going to kiss anyone at midnight.

I was okay with this.

Well, I was ninety-two percent okay with this.

Loud music thumped through the crowded party I was at. I looked around me and noticed two of my workmate girlfriends sidled up to their gentlemen dates. A tiny pang of sadness filtered across my skin.

Fine, I was seventy-seven percent okay with not kissing anyone at midnight.

I glanced at the time on my phone. It read nine p.m. Three more hours, I chanted in my head. No, I amended, two hours forty-five minutes. In a flash second, I decided it was best to be in a cab headed for home ten til. No sense standing around like an idiot, smiling like one as well, at all the happy people around me, locking lips, feeling exhilarated, feeling enchanted.

I was sixty-four percent okay with the whole not sharing a kiss at midnight thing.

I crossed my arms across my stomach, balancing my empty martini glass at my hip, trying for casual. I kept fidgeting, which probably meant I looked anything but casual. Sigh. It was just as well. No one was looking at me anyway.

I was forty-three percent okay with the lack of kissing potential.

"Refresh your drink for you, Adeline?" Jack said. Jack was a work frenemy. He and I were always neck and neck, occasionally elbowing the other out of the way if it meant we could get the attention of one of the partners. Half the reason I did well as a first year associate at our New York law firm was because of him. I couldn't be lazy around Jack.

I stood up straight. He was always angling for a way to tease me and I didn't want to supply the fuel. "No, I'm fine, thanks."

He took my empty glass from me and set it on the kitchen counter next to his phone.

"Whose loft do you think we're in?" he asked me.

"I heard someone say it belonged to Justin Chekov." Justin was one of the firm's clients.

Jack looked surprised. "This is Justin's apartment?" He studied his surroundings. "We should have charged him more."

I laughed and nodded. "Did you come with the rest of us?" I asked him.

He shook his head at me. "Remind me not to ever send you with an investigator, will you? I was sitting one away from you."

He was subtly reminding me with that comment that he was put in charge that day of overseeing the other first years.

I stared at him. "Not fair. It's so easy to overlook you."

"Is it, though?" he asked, throwing his chin the direction of two girls ogling him.

I rolled my eyes and pretended to study them. "Let me rephrase. It's easy if your name isn't Cinnamon or possibly Chandelier."

He smiled an easy grin. "Touché."

I inclined my head toward him.

"How about Helluva Bottom Carter?"

I burst out laughing. "Yes or Eileen Dover."