Page 17 of Nothing But the Truth

“Oliver!”

“I’m just reading what the internet says!”

She buried her face in her hands and leaned on her desk. “Why is this happening to me today of all days? What did I do to deserve this?”

“Actually,” Oliver said, interrupting her rapid descent into self-pity, “what did you do?”

She dropped her hands and glared at him. “You think I deserve this?”

“No! Of course not. What I’m saying is, what did you do between last night and this morning that may have caused this? I don’t know if we’re dealing with a curse or some hex magic, or if you seriously pissed off the universe, but something had to have happened, right?”

She thought about what he said, and the word universe rang louder than the rest.

Was the universe doing something to her? Was some cosmic force intervening in her life on a milestone birthday to teach her a lesson about the value of honesty?

A giggle burst from her lips. “Oliver, I think I’m going insane.”

“Maybe, but work with me here. What did you do after work yesterday?”

She sighed a weary breath, thinking yesterday felt a million miles away after the morning she’d had. “I went to meet Caleb for drinks and he didn’t show—”

“Typical.”

She glared at him, and he shrugged, unapologetic. “Like I was saying, he didn’t show, so I ordered a round and—”

She stopped like she hit a wall.

“The wish.”

“The what?”

She slapped a hand to her forehead and felt clarity rush in. Of course. “Last night at the bar, the bartender made me this drink, and I made a wish that today would be perfect. I don’t know what the drink was; it was off menu. But he called it a life-changing cocktail. I thought he was joking, but maybe...?”

She looked up at Oliver, hopeful.

He waved his hands and frowned. “Wait, hang on. You made a wish that today would be perfect and now you can’t lie? How does that make any sense?”

Hearing him say it, she recognized the flaw in her theory.

“I don’t know. Maybe some signal got crossed somewhere.”

“Where, between Aladdin’s lamp and Neverland?”

“Oliver! This is serious!”

He laughed. “I know, and I’m sorry. I guess it makes as much sense as anything else.”

Lucy thought about her wish and how not a single thing about her day had been perfect, except maybe that bagel sandwich she had for breakfast. Were wishes even real? Could they come true, or, in what appeared to be happening in her case, untrue? Even more important—could wishes be undone?

She didn’t know, but she knew she needed to go back to the scene of the crime and see if she could fix her problem.

She popped up from her desk and grabbed her tote.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the bar,” she said, like it was obvious.

Oliver checked his watch. “You’ve got that meeting with Jonathan in three minutes.”