Chapter 28 #3
“It is very much important.” Her hand resumes stroking immediately after, making the glare hard to maintain. “What do you want? Two days isn’t much, but I can still grab you something.”
“I don’t want a gift.”
“Nevan.”
“Hmm.” I consider it, letting her fingers work through a knot at the back of my head. “Lately I’ve been into rent. And groceries.”
She laughs, even though it lands a little sideways, and it’s only a half joke, and we both know it.
“Fine,” she huffs. “But I’m baking you your cake. That’s not negotiable.”
I look up at her again. “Yeah?”
“Obviously.”
“Okay.” I settle my chin against her thigh so I can see her face. “I’d actually love that.”
“What kind do you want?” Her fingers turn even gentler in my hair, more massaging, and I have to hold back another groan. “I can do anything. Layered, mousse, tart, whatever you—”
“Banana bread.”
She stares at me.
“Please,” I add.
Her nose scrunches so completely that both eyes narrow with it, and I laugh, reaching up to press two fingers to the bridge of it, pushing the scrunch smooth.
“What?” I chuckle.
“I can make literally anything.” She says it with the gravity of someone laying out the full scope of what’s being wasted. “Whatever you want. From scratch, nothing bought, anything in the world. And you want…” She sighs again. “It’s not even a cake. It’s bread. It has the word bread in it.”
“It’s a very good bread.”
“It’s bananas, Nevan.”
“I’m aware of the ingredients, yes.”
“It’s Shaw tradition,” Jasper pipes in from his swing.
Lennon looks at him, then back down at me. “Tradition?”
I shift so my cheek is back on her knee, looking out across the garden where Mom is still moving slowly through the herbs.
“It’s the only thing I knew how to bake. When we were kids. So…” I shrug, “… I made it. Every year.”
I don’t say the rest of it. I don’t need to. Lennon is perceptive in the way that makes explanations mostly unnecessary, and I feel the slight change in her hand in my hair. It’s slower and more deliberate, and that tells me she’s understood what I didn’t say.
Jasper deserved a birthday cake, even if I could only make banana bread.
I was ten the first time I tried to make something edible with a candle on it, twelve the first time I actually got it right.
I burned the first batch and didn’t have enough money to buy more ingredients, so I scraped off the top and served the rest warm with butter.
He didn’t care. He just ate it and told me it was the best thing he’d ever had.
“Fine,” Lennon relents after a moment. Her voice is soft, but her chin is set in a way that almost makes me laugh when my gaze finds her again. “Banana bread it is.” She shudders, one full-body theatrical shudder, and I laugh after all and lean my forehead against her knee.
“Thank you.”
“But I want you to know.” Her fingers resume their movement. “That I am suffering for you.”
“I can tell.”
“Bananas,” she mutters under her breath, as if it’s a personal affront, making me chuckle once more.
“Oh, we should do the Halloween slash birthday party again!” Jasper sets his swing swaying gently.
Lennon’s hand stills in my hair before she pulls away from me, and I almost whine at the loss when I sit up properly.
“Just like last year. Decorations, costumes, the whole thing. You’ll love it, Lenny. Mabel let us use the garden and the ground floor… it was a good night.”
It was also the night Sydney kissed me in the dark hallway outside the linen closet and then apparently decided that had been a clerical error, but I don’t add that.
“That’s a brilliant idea,” Lennon agrees quickly. “I can make food and more cake, so it’s not only banana bread.”
“It’s in two days,” I reiterate to the garden.
“I work fast.”
“We’d need to ask Mabel,” Jasper chimes in, but he’s already looking toward where Mabel is sitting with the expression of someone who already knows the answer will be yes.
“And maybe, if we play your cards right, Sydney will show up, too, and you get your second chance,” Lennon murmurs next to me.
I go still.
“What?”
“I’m just saying. You helped me with my date. Now it’s time to return the favor. Maybe we need to recreate the conditions. Same night, same costume, probably same—”
“Same dark hallway,” Jasper offers helpfully.
“Shut up, Jasp,” I hiss, making him laugh.
He holds up his hands. “Hey, you know my opinion about you with her. It’s not like I’m supporting the hallway.”
“We’re going for the same atmosphere,” Lennon goes on, ignoring Jasper. “Second shot, but better. We go in with a strategy this time.” Her hand is back in my hair and tugs lightly at the strands, not the hard pull from before, just a small nudge, getting my attention. “What do you think?”
She’s watching me with those bright, determined eyes, like she’s already halfway into solving a problem I didn’t even realize I’d stopped trying to fix.
For a second, I forget what we’re talking about as the afternoon sun highlights a strand of hair across her face that she hasn’t noticed, turning it gold.
Right.
Sydney. The hallway. Second chances.
“Sure.”