“To whom much is given,” Gio said with a grin, and again I felt that. I had been given so much. And it was time that I put some of it to use for something other than my family. Unbidden, a yearning to know what Alba would say about all this tugged at me. I wanted a life in which she was the person I went to first. Hell, I wanted her next to me right now. Her words had gotten me here after all.

“Hey, what are you all doing here?” Julia’s voice sliced through the chatter around the room and my body instantly reacted to the possibility that Alba was right behind her. I turned so fast I almost knocked my drink off the table, but only found Salome, José and Julia.

“She’s not here,” my roommate’s best friend informed me as she bent to kiss me on the cheek.

“She ditched me on my birthday to go work, it’s a cry for help,” José lamented, but I could tell Julia was worried.

“Sounds like the women from Smithson-Napa asked her for a pitch and she rushed home to get started.” Her deep sigh told me that she and Alba had likely gone a couple of rounds before my elusive lover blew off their plans.

“Did she really have to get started tonight?” I had no clue why I even asked. I knew that to Alba every job was a question of life or death.

Julia scowled, that sour look still plastered on her face. “She was all tight about needing to focus and not having time for distractions when I called her to ask if she was meeting us here.” Julia frowned like she wasn’t sure she should tell me what was on her mind, but after a sip of her drink she leaned in farther. “It sounds like the executives asked that chick Kayla for a pitch too.” The rest of the friends had gone to the bar for drinks, and she tipped her head at José, who was dressed in a neon pink suit for his birthday celebration. “I would’ve gone to check on her, but I didn’t want to ditch J too.” She gave me a long look as if waiting for the meaning of her words to land...they did.

If I got up and left after her telling me that, I would essentially announce to the whole group that there was something going on between me and Alba. I didn’t care. For all I knew Julia was all up to date on my sex life, and as for the rest of the group, let them know. If I didn’t suspect she’d probably fulfill her threats to kill me in my sleep I’d announce to the entire Dallas–Fort Worth Metro Area that I was crazy about her.