I was a failure.

I’d grown up with two well-meaning, but also two overbearing parents, and, as the youngest of three siblings, I was the only one who wasn’t “successful.”

I worked in a bar. In. A. Bar.

Yup, that was me hearing my mother’s disappointed voice. Because everyone around me was climbing the corporate ladder or performing brain surgery. Hell, my own brother was succeeding as an actual rocket scientist. Meanwhile, I was slinging drinks and refining the art of mixing the perfect Cosmopolitan.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do—other than not being a rocket scientist—or who I wanted to be when I grew up. And if I was being honest with myself, growing up had come and gone a while ago.

I just . . . wanted to feel something.

Excitement or pleasure or even to know what it was like get my heart broken. But nothing ever happened to me. I existed in this boring bubble of life, pouring drinks most nights, reading the others away, and . . . not feeling anything.

Until I saw him.

Then I felt everything.