Chapter 1
Chapter 1
It was Tally's forty-fourth birthday, not that she gave a single glitter-dipped shit about it.
She hadn't told anyone. She hadn't posted online. No cakes, no cards, no candles. All she'd wanted was to spend the day horizontal on the couch with a bottle of red, an aggressively average true crime documentary, and the soothing background noise of her dog scratching himself raw in the corner.
But unfortunately, she'd raised three daughters who'd inherited not only her sarcasm, but her complete disregard for boundaries.
So now she was hiding in her bedroom, staring at her reflection with the grim resignation of a woman being dragged to her own surprise party.
The reflection stared back, unimpressed. Tally touched the lines near her eyes. Forty-four. How?
She didn't feel older, exactly. Just... tired. Like she'd been carrying the weight of her life in a duffel bag with a snapped strap, pretending it wasn't getting heavier.
Outside her door, footsteps.
Then came the voice — sing-song and way too cheerful for someone without a Xanax prescription.
"Mother of mine," Chelsea called through the door. "Open up. We bring gifts, questionable fashion choices, and mild coercion."
Tally groaned. "Go away. I'm in mourning. For my youth."
The door opened anyway. Of course it did.
Chelsea stood there like a personal attack in human form: tall, smug, and holding a glittery pink sash that read STILL HOT AT 44 in loopy cursive letters.
Behind her, Claudia and Nakita grinned like henchmen.
"Oh, hell no," Tally said, already backing toward the bed like it was a panic room.
"Too late," Claudia said, advancing. "You're coming. We've booked a food truck crawl and a cocktail van, and you're wearing this goddamn sash."
"Consent is a thing," Tally muttered, but Chelsea was already behind her, draping the sash across her chest like she was crowning her Miss Menopause 2025.
"You said — and I quote — 'Don't make a fuss,'" Nakita said. "So we're not. We're making a scene."
"I hate you all," Tally said flatly.
"No, you're just emotionally malnourished," Chelsea replied, tugging her toward the wardrobe. "Now put on something you can spill food on."
The food market was pulsing with life. Warm air clung to skin like Glad Wrap — sticky and stubborn — while fairy lights zigzagged overhead like someone had strung Christmas through chaos. Music thumped from a nearby stall where a teenager in a bucket hat was DJing for an audience of two toddlers and a golden retriever in a bandana.
Tally stood at the edge of it all, trying not to look like a hostage.
Her daughters, however, were thriving. Claudia, Nakita, and Chelsea were already several sips into some kind of neon mystery drink and moving through the crowd like they owned it — laughing too loudly, swearing too casually, and drawing glances from strangers who couldn't tell if they were dangerous or delightful.
Tally, of course, had been handed the sash again. It now clung to her like a glittery insult. She'd tried to ditch it near a churro stand earlier, but Chelsea had retrieved it and reapplied it with the solemn commitment of a battlefield medic.
