Chapter 49
49
Natalie
W hen they’re done dolling me up, Sonya, Ivy, and Reggie hustle me down in the elevator and out to the parking lot, where they blindfold me.
“What the hell?” I ask.
“Just—go with it,” Reggie says.
“This concert-thing better be good.”
“The best,” Ivy says, and she sounds a little giddy.
We walk for a long time, but not a very long time, and then they guide me over a threshold and across a wood floor. And then Sonya says “Ta da!” and unties my blindfold.
I blink into the sudden light as my vision resolves
The whole Hott Springs Eternal barn has been done up as a kid’s birthday party. Balloons, pinatas, streamers, colorful plates and napkins. And the room is full of people. I turn my head slowly, letting all the faces sink in. It’s disorienting because the people—they’re my people but from all different moments in my life. Two of my elementary school friends who I’m still in touch with on Facebook. A couple of my high school friends. Coworkers from the nursing home. Tons of Wilders and Hotts.
Then, stepping forward, an anchor in the storm: Preston. Tall, broad shouldered, wearing a pair of dress slacks and a button-down shirt and looking better than birthday cake.
Holding his hands out to me.
“You’re invited,” he says, “to a party just for you.”
And I start to cry.
“Oh, God!” he says. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I thought?—”
And as impulsively as Preston Hott ever does anything, he wraps me in his arms. Tight. Squeezing me. He’s hard and muscular and warm and smells like him, and I cry harder.
“It’s good crying,” I manage through my tears. “I’m just very, very glad to see you—and what the fuck is this?”
“It’s all your missing birthday parties,” he says. “I wasn’t sure which ones went missing, so I tried to do them all.”
“Is this a grand gesture?” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he says. “This—and also, I quit my job, and I sold my apartment?—”
“You didn’t have to do that!”
“Actually,” he says, “I did. I kept that job way too long to prove something that didn’t need proving.”
“That you’re amazing?”
His expression goes soft and warm at that, and he brushes a strand of hair back from my face. “That I can live the life I want to live,” he says, bending to brush a kiss across my forehead. “In this particular case, what I want is to live with you in Rush Creek. And to get the chance to love you. I love you.”
“That seems—like the important part,” I say, choking up again. “I love you, too.”
Things happen in a whirlwind after that. People are greeting me, some I haven’t seen in years, hugging me, wishing me happy birthday, even though my birthday’s three months away still. I’m pretty sure that’s not the point. People bring me drinks—Hi-C in paper cups, root beer in plastic cups, beer in Solo cups. It turns out Preston wasn’t kidding about all my missing birthday parties.
My mouth falls open when I see all the birthday cakes, representing all the stages of childhood.
“The Wilder kids helped,” Preston says. “They told me what the right cakes would be.”
There’s a baby’s first birthday cake, an Elmo cake, a pink princess cake, a horse cake, a tropical-themed cake, a plain chocolate cake with bright colored frosting—“for when you got too dignified as a teenager for themes,” Preston explains. “Anna, Amanda’s oldest, said that was a thing. And then this one is for you now.”
It’s a rainbow explosion, every color and type of sprinkles. “It’s a fuck that, definitely NOT better than sex with you cake,” Preston says, leaning close and whispering it against my ear, sending shivers all through my body and making me want to skip straight to the end of the party.
There are activities for every age, too—hide and seek, fishing in the kiddie pool, pin the tail on the donkey, treasure and scavenger hunts—and Preston and I do them all, and I keep sneaking looks at him because he’s here and he loves me and he wants us to be together. I have no idea how we’re going to make that happen, but I believe we will and that seems like the best not-birthday present ever.
As it turns out, there are lots of birthday gifts for me, too. Tickle Me Elmo and a matched set of Elsa and Anna dolls and an Easy-Bake Oven and a huge Lego set and a dumb phone and a fantastic upgrade to my beloved portable speaker. And then Preston says, “It’s not a ring—not yet—so don’t freak out, but I wanted to get you something pretty,” and I open the small box he hands me, and it’s a pink-enameled stiletto sandal on a gold chain.
“Because that’s about fifty percent of what you were wearing the second time I ever saw you,” he says.
“Pres.”
“You’re crying again. Did I screw up?”
“No. It’s fucking perfect. The only thing that would have been more perfect would have been a small gold axe. Or a Nerf blaster.”
“I thought about it. I really did. Also,” he murmurs, “I feel like it’s important to say that the only reason I’m not kissing you right now is that I’m ninety-five percent sure that I wouldn’t be able to make it family friendly.”
“Oh, I definitely wouldn’t,” I say.
We smolder at each other until Sonya says, “Enough of that! Come break the pinata!” So I do.