Party for Three by Missy Lyons

Chapter One
     
    "W hy do they say you are over the hill when you turn forty?"
Sherry's voice held a note of despair in it. A sense of worry
accompanied her voice that knotted the pit of her stomach. It was
something she couldn't shake with her own impending fortieth
birthday coming up on Saturday. She didn't feel over the hill and
yet that birthday always had a stigma attached to it, forty was the
dreaded over the hill age. The black birthday. The halfway mark to
death.
    She never really cared before, and didn't
feel old now, but her friends were not going to let her escape this
birthday without celebrating in a way she would rather forget.
    "I don't know. You are only as old as you
feel." Karen picked up a cheesecake for her lunch tray in the
cafeteria line.
    "Well I feel like I am still in my twenties.
Can I still tell people I am twenty when they ask me how old I am?"
Sherry questioned.
    "Only if you think you can get away with
it.”
    "They won't believe me if I ever stop dying
my hair jet black. I used to just highlight my hair for fun. Now it
is to cover those stray gray hairs."
    “We all get gray hairs eventually. I got my
first gray hairs in my early twenties." Karen held a lock of her
long brown hair between two fingers. "A gentleman should never ask
you your age anyways."
    “I hate getting old Karen. I don' want to
get old. It's not fair, and I feel like it's hitting me all at
once. Now that I am forty, it's official. I don't even want to go
to my own over the hill party. Remind me why I am going again?"
    "Because you love your friends enough to
show up." Karen said with a smile.
    "I didn't feel old before but Sean
threatened to get me some black roses and all kinds of cheesy over
the hill party supplies." Sherry let out a sigh but her voice was
resigned. She knew she was still not going to miss the party.
    “You shouldn't let Sean get to you too much
when he teases you about your age."
    "I guess not. After all, he will turn forty
too one day."
    Karen laughed. "Yeah in twenty years." Sean
was the office know-it-all, straight out of college, too cute for
his own good. He had a cocky grin that said he knew exactly how he
made the women feel.
    He was one of those men who could look at
you and make you weak in the knees, and your hormones would go up a
notch just looking at him. Maybe he wouldn't have that effect on
everyone, but he had that affect on her. Sherry's heart always sped
up a little when she snuck glances at him, but she was old enough
to know it was only lust and such thoughts should not be
entertained for long. He was far too young to consider seriously
and far too immature to consider for anything more than a passing
dalliance. So she had kept it friendly but she kept all of her
hidden desires and feelings secret.
    As if on cue, Sherry felt a pair of
masculine hands grip her waist, pressing her to the side. Sean's
voice interrupted their conversation. "You ladies weren't talking
about me were you?"
    Sherry's cheeks turned pink. He would have
the nerve to interrupt a conversation about him. "Yes, we were just
saying how I would much rather go to celebrate my birthday dancing
in a nightclub or drinking." Anything but some cheesy party with
black deathlike decorations mocking her age.
    "Don't worry you can have drinks with me on
the veranda and we'll dance to our own music, Sherry." Sean caught
her eyes with his and then he teased her with a cocky grin, "As
long as you can stay awake."
    Sherry sniffed in disdain at the insult. Was
he insinuating that she couldn't stay awake past ten? Sure she had
a schedule, she went to bed at nine and got up early every day but
there was no need to go there. His lighthearted teasing was always
irritating. Sometimes she wondered if he really liked her as a
friend, but he wouldn't be pestering her like this if he didn't. He
wouldn't be constantly coming into her cubicle and saying things to
get a rise out of her, or cracking jokes to get her to laugh. If he
didn't like