Chapter 33
33
He watches her sleep for too long to be considered sane.
Soon, he silently promises. He’ll tell her soon.
I’m pretty used to waking up alone on my birthday.
I was eight the last time I really, truly celebrated. The last time, and my favorite time. We didn’t do anything particularly special. I didn’t get anything out of the ordinary. But it was my last birthday with my mom, one of the last good memories of the three of us, one of the last times my family was normal.
Dad never remembered after that. I used to pretend he did, that he would whisk me away on some fun trip and that’s why I couldn’t celebrate with Jackson or my friends, when really, I would sit alone in my bedroom.
The disappointment I feel when I stretch out and find the other side of the bed—no, the patch of tent floor that served as a bed—empty, though, is new.
Yawning as I prop myself up on an elbow, I squint at the unzipped flap of door curling inwards, lifting a hand to shield my eyes against the sun encroaching through the gap. A lot of sun— that plus the thick, warm air clinging to my skin hints I might’ve slept in.
If I were a different person—if I were Luna or Lux—I would crack a joke about last night wearing me out. If Hunter were a different person—if he were literally any other man on the planet, likely—he would too.
But we are who we are, so when I crawl outside with a sheepish smile and red cheeks, I’m greeted by a grunt—and coffee. As I lift the mug to my lips, ice cubes clink against the metal edges, and I groan happily. Wrapping a hand around Hunter’s wrist, I squeeze a silent thank you as I chug the beverage that’s not quite cold enough to be refreshing, but certainly better than piping hot.
We don’t exchange any words as he leads me to the lakeshore. Nor as we sit on a grassy patch, me cross-legged, Hunter with those long, sturdy limbs stretched out in front of him, one bent at the knee. Only the sounds of nature and the rustle of him searching his backpack break the silence.
Something tickles my wrist. Glancing down, I find a slightly wilted chain of wildflowers looped around my wrist, a much larger matching one around Hunter’s.
A big palm floats into my eyeline, the slightly smushed lemon bar sitting in the center looking tiny by comparison. A single candle balances precariously in the baked good—my favorite baked good. A surprised breath parts my lips, my eyes wide as they flick up to Hunter, lingering on the soft upwards curve of his mouth as he mumbles, “Happy birthday, honey.”
And, even though it can’t be later than mid-morning, I think this might already be the best birthday I’ve ever had.
It’s midday by the time I make it back to Bloom—alone.
I didn’t invite Hunter to Aldo’s. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had; he has to work. He told me so before any offer to join me could be made, and I couldn’t even be disappointed, not when he sounded so genuinely regretful to part ways. Not when he already did more than I expected; not when he already gave me a perfect morning.
A perfect morning that, with one downward glance, is erased.
I don’t see it right away. I almost trample it, only coming up short at the last second, my foot hovering halfway to Bloom’s doorstep. At first, I think it’s a regular, singular red poppy. I think ‘ how weird ’ as I crouch to rescue it from certain floral death only to freeze when I get a better look—when I realize it’s not a real flower; it’s glass. My fingers tremble as I pick it up by its delicate stem, my stomach in my throat as I twirl it carefully.
I recognize it. I own it. I was gifted it fifteen birthdays ago, back when waking up with a pretty addition to an artificial bouquet was the norm. The first birthday when I didn’t wake up with a new glass flower sitting on my bedside table, I sobbed for hours. Just like I did when I found the box underneath my bed housing my mom’s precious collection missing, discarded along with the rest of her things.
Confused and unsettled, I glance up and down the busy street, sifting through the throng of Sunday market-goers for the one person who could’ve left this on my doorstep. Who hasn’t contacted me in weeks yet somehow, suddenly, he comes up twice in as many days. Who hasn’t so much as said happy birthday to me in years, but today he chooses to leave me a priceless heirloom I thought lost forever.
As I let myself into Bloom, I loosen my tight grip on the cool glass. I almost… drop it. On purpose. Just let it go, let it shatter on the floor, let it become a mess I can tidy, I can fix .
Instead, I set it on the counter. Gawk at it a little. Wonder why so intently, so all-consumingly, I just about jump out of my skin when the loud ringing of my phone interrupts me.
Checking the caller ID through apprehensively squinted eyes, I breathe a sigh of relief at the name I find. “Hey,” I greet Lux, turning my back to the unexpected, unwanted blast from the past. Out of sight, out of mind— I wish . “What’s up?”
It’s not like I’ve been waiting all day for my friend to acknowledge the day’s occasion. I’m not expecting birthday wishes. But I’m not not expecting them either. So when a request to come over is immediately followed by a frantic, “We’ve got a bit of an emergency,” I do deflate—but only a little.
Nevertheless, I take the stairs two at a time, wrenching my wardrobe open with my free hand and blindly picking out a change of clothes. Freeing my hair from its ponytail, I hurry into the bathroom, flicking the shower on as I toe off my shoes. “What happened?”
“The universe decided I was a little too comfortable and decided to smack me down,” Lux grumbles words I’ve thought to myself many a time. “It’s a mess. Can you come?”
“Of course I can.” I’m already awkwardly wriggling out of my clothes. “I’ll be, like, an hour.”
I make it in less time than that. I scrub myself clean of two days in the wilderness in record time, my hair still damp as I crush a thirty minute drive in twenty. Wearing jeans, boots, and a t-shirt I’m semi-positive belongs to Hunter, I’m ready for whatever carnage Serenity might throw on me.
I’m not, however, prepared for what I find in the Jackson family kitchen.
Balloons. A cake. Ten people who shout, “ Happy birthday ,” and a baby who gargles in his uncle’s arms, and a gaggle of dogs who bark emphatically too.
Feeling oddly faint, I hover in the doorway, my hand still on the knob. “What’s this?” I ask in a wobbly voice, shifting my gaze to Aldo where he stands with his husband and daughter. “What’re you doing here?”
The trio make some very Italian noises as they surround me, both of my cheeks kissed affectionately. “Is that how you greet your favorite men?” Aldo huffs, and I don’t think I imagine the sly look he shoots Hunter. Davide snorts and elbows his husband, telling me to ignore him as he hugs me and murmurs, “ Buon compleanno, Lina. ”
Chiara wraps her arms around my middle, firing off a flurry of excited words that match Nova’s in speed and incomprehensibility. And then Eliza is on me, Grace next, Jackson and Luna and Alex too, Herc nipping at my shins all the while, until Lux is folding me in a warm, tentative embrace.
“Happy birthday, Line,” she whispers in my ear. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell you everything, okay?”
I nod listlessly, still not entirely sure what’s going on—or, more accurately, entirely aware, but unable to process it. “This is…” My wide gaze flits from the cake covered with flickering candles, the flower-like streamers hanging from the ceiling, the huge bouquet in the middle of the kitchen table. “For me?”
“No,” Lux drawls, pinching my arm playfully. “It’s for the other birthday girl.”
My bottom lip quivers. “What about the emergency?”
With a groaning kind of a laugh, she wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Oh, my sweet summer child.”
I blink back tears. “There was no emergency?”
Lux isn’t the only one who chuckles this time, and I feel my mouth pucker with the effort of not crying. Talk about emotional whiplash—slapped with a reminder of my dad only to be sucker-punched by this. A good sucker-punch. A sweet, thoughtful, completely out-of-the-blue surprise.
When the big, scheming man I only parted ways with a couple of hours ago slopes towards me, I poke him in the gut, sniffling loudly. “ Working , huh?”
Mirthful eyes twinkle as Hunter pulls me away from Lux. Settling his hands so slow on my back, they’re practically in my freaking pockets, he pats my ass lightly. “Told you I had to get back to the ranch,” he corrects, dipping to kiss my cheek. “Didn’t say what I was doin’.”
I roll my eyes, letting loose a laugh that gets lost in Hunter’s chest when he pulls me into a hug. I breathe him in greedily, hold him tightly, so busy feeling so good in his embrace, I don’t notice the silence until someone clears their throat.
Tensing, I slowly turn my head towards the audience I momentarily forgot was even there—a handful of smirking faces, and a few gaping ones.
“Did I miss something?”
Grace elbows her younger sister. “We definitely missed something.”
Hooking an arm around each of their shoulders, Jackson grins. “They’re dating.”
“I knew it!” Nova yells at the same time I choke out a screeched refusal.
Hunter—he laughs. He doesn’t correct them. While I shake my head and splutter, he just tucks me closer and he chuckles beneath his breath. When Lux approaches holding that beautiful cake—iced with orange frosting and pretty piped flowers, topped with twenty three lit candles—he maneuvers me in front of him, wrapping his arms around my middle while he drops his chin to my shoulder.
“Make a wish,” he whispers in my ear, and while I do stoop to blow out the candles, I don’t make a wish.
Right now, I can’t think of a single thing to ask for.
“Jesus Christ. Can you even breathe under there?”
As the bed dips beside me, the man that does actually, maybe just a little, impede my lungs’ capabilities rolls off me. A hand lingers on my lower back though, beneath the t-shirt I slept in, and as I prop myself up on my elbows, it takes a whole minute to realize I’m not wearing pants, there’s something very hard and very masculine digging into my hip, and Lux is in my bed.
Or in her bed, technically; the spare bed in her house where Hunter and I fell asleep last night.
With a squeal, I flop back down, face in my pillow as I reach behind me to yank up the blankets we must’ve kicked off in the night.
“Oh, please.” Snickering at my grasp at modesty, Lux smacks my ass. “Don’t pretend to be shy now. You know we share a wall, right?”
It’s an interesting dichotomy, my blood running cold while my cheeks flush hot. Into the pillow, I whisper, “Please tell me you’re joking.”
She pauses for a second. “I am. But good to know one of us is getting lucky.”
Dodging the pillow I throw her way, Lux rolls onto her back, cackling like the freaking witch she is. Hunter is no better, hiding his laughter in the crook of my neck. He kisses my shoulder before rolling out of bed, dressed and bending over me again before I have time to miss his presence. “Dinner,” he asks — requests , more accurately, in that sure, smooth way of his. “Tonight.”
I hum, leaning into the kiss he brushes against my cheek. “Your place? I can cook.”
“Thought we could go out.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, as gentle as the smile on his face. “Pick you up after work.”
I nod without thinking about it too hard, too busy grinning like a fool and unashamedly—okay, slightly shamefully—watching that perfectly formed back profile leave the room. It’s not until Lux rips the pillow I’m hugging to my chest from my grip and thumps me with it do I snap back to reality, screeching as I ward off another attack. “What the hell?”
“ You’re going on a date ,” Lux sings as she jumps to her feet, bouncing on the bed like a madwoman.
I scoff as I sit up. “What? No, I’m not.”
Lux whacks me with the pillow again. “Did we just hear the same conversation?”
“We’re going out to eat, Lux. We do that all the time. It’s not a date .”
Rolling her eyes, Lux drops to her knees. “You know, every time you do that, I wanna punch my brother in the face.”
“Do what?”
“Act like someone showing a romantic interest in you is so preposterous.”
I squirm, frowning. Was I doing that? “What does that have to do with Jackson?”
She doesn’t say anything, but the look on her face is plenty telling.
Patting me on the shoulder, she rolls off the bed, yanking the sheets off me as she goes. “C’mon, lovebird. Let’s go for a ride. I believe I promised you a conversation.”
Ten minutes later, I’m dressed and following Lux out on the porch, wondering if that conversation is worth her incessant teasing over my so-called date—which absolutely isn’t a date. It’s just dinner. It’s definitely, definitely just dinner. Even if Lux tries to convince me otherwise, I’m not going to assume anything else.
The sight of an unfamiliar car coming up the drive is a welcome distraction. Before flicking the switch and becoming Business Owner Alexandra Jackson, Lux shoots me a sideways glance— what is this pristine, tiny sedan doing where no pristine, tiny sedan should ever go?
I shrug in reply— poor little lost tourist.
Descending the porch steps, we wear matching polite smiles as we wave at the woman that climbs out the car. Lux calls out, “Can I help you?”
The smile the mystery woman returns is tight. When she slides her sunglasses off her face, I notice it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m looking for Hunter Whitlock.”
A niggling, foreboding feeling twists my gut, and it’s me who asks, “And you are?”
“Cheryl Whitlock.” The woman casually adjusts the purse strap slung over her shoulder, so nonchalant as she draws attention to the glinting silver band on her ring finger and shatters my fucking life. “His wife.”