Chapter Twenty-three
Memories make the best birthday gifts.
Ceres
An Easter basket. This entire romp throughout town leads me right back here, to my house, to my couch, where Mars has hidden an Easter basket for me behind one of my couch cushions with the confidence of a man who was in my bedroom when I woke up and pulling the puppet strings of my steps from the moment I opened my eyes.
Had I merely glanced into my living room this morning, I’d have seen this. Easily.
Because it is perhaps the largest Easter basket I have ever known to exist.
“Do you like her?” Mars asks while I stare into the buggy eyes of an orchid mantis stuffed animal.
The beautiful pink creature peers back at me, adorable. “This is the single most incredible thing I have ever owned.” I wiggle its two front legs and melt into a smile. As far as I can tell, it’s anatomically accurate. This is the most amazing gift I have ever received.
Sprawled on my couch, Mars watches me where I’m sitting on the floor like a child on Easter morning as I tuck my new friend under my arm and parse through the rest of my basket.
Bookstore gift cards. An ornate tea pot decorated in ivy with tiny pink flowers.
Chocolates and other snacks, some of which I normally get as my shopping day treats. A jewelry box.
My heart skips a beat as I open the slim black box and find a slip-chain necklace. Heat rushes to my face, and I squeeze my stuffed animal. “Surely this isn’t…”
Mars’s smile quirks, and okay. I guess surely it is.
Flushed, I draw my finger across the heart pendant at the end of the chain. “It’s…a lock?”
My heart hits my ribs when Mars slides to his knees on the floor in front of me, reaches toward my ear, and procures a tiny key out of thin air. “May I?” he asks.
Breathless, I say, “Please.”
He inserts the key in the padlock, untwines the chain from the choker, fits the necklace on me, then clicks it solidly into place. Before I can remember how to breathe, his fist wraps around the padlock, and he pulls. As the chain constricts around my throat, Mars murmurs, “Happy, little goddess?”
I am still crushing an orchid mantis stuffed animal in my arms while the hottest man alive flirts with me.
On my birthday. On the best birthday ever .
Today has been exactly like a scene from one of my books.
Mars is giving me my greatest desires, the ones I thought would have to stay in fiction, for the sake of my own emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing.
Mute, I nod, and he kisses my nose before loosing the chain. The heart-shaped padlock settles above the frilly neckline of my dress, heating my skin. “This…” I swallow. “…doesn’t come off without the key?”
Mars touches the tiny key to his lips. “Shouldn’t.” His gaze trails down the golden metal resting against me. “That okay with you?”
Oh yes. I am very okay with that.
He chuckles. “Well, if you hate it, I’ll take it off.”
Clutching my necklace, I protect it from him.
His brows dip, distressed. “I’m sure you’d prefer to belong to someone with better shoulders. What was I thinking? Come now, let me take it off.”
I angle my entire body away from him to protect my pretty necklace, which matches the gold dust around the hems of my current outfit. “Are you fishing for compliments, Mars?”
“Fishing?” His lips part. “Why would I want a waterlogged compliment that depletes the ocean of its natural inhabitants? No, I’d never fish for a compliment… If, however, you’ve any organically and ethically sourced compliments for sale, I might be interested.”
“What department of the compliment store are you looking to survey, villain?”
“How’s the personality section looking?”
“New stock.”
“And the physical appeal department?”
I might be melting beneath the bright green heat of his eyes. “Overflowing.”
“Are there any deals today?”
“Senior discount.”
He laughs. “Fond of seniors, are you? Is that why you were offering to bake scones for a crotchety old man earlier?”
Wincing, I turn the heart of my pendant between my fingers and glance sidelong at my coffee table. “I was just trying to deescalate the situation.”
Mars kisses my cheek. “Don’t do that anymore.”
“It’s a disease.”
“I noticed.” He kisses my jaw, and tension eases from me. “I’d prefer you only expend so much energy on people willing to return it.”
“Like you?” I ask.
His fingers slip through my hair, drawing it away from my neck. “Like me.” He kisses, right above the chain. “Only me, even.” His nose skims my throat. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
I think it might be. Only worrying about one person instead of compulsively trying to please everyone I come across sounds a lot less exhausting.
Well, at least it’s a lot less exhausting in a world where I am actually coming across people. In my little fortress of solitude, I should only really have to worry about myself, and the impending loneliness that I quell with a constant stream of books and work.
While volatile enough to bring me to tears sometimes, fictional company remains as safe as phone calls and messages. I can hang up just as easily as I can close the book…scream at the cover…and hurl it across my room…
How odd that my lifestyle is built continuously on the desperate need for control, yet I yearn for the peace and relief that comes from giving it up into hands that won’t hurt me.
Mars curls a finger beneath my chin and looks at me. “What pretty thoughts are racing behind those eyes of yours, little goddess?”
Breath catches in my chest, but I press on through the stickiness in my lungs. “You’re very…male lead.”
“Am I? Of the books you read? How worrisome.”
Unbidden, a smile curls my lips, and I sag against Mars.
His arms coil, strong. “What’s wrong, my dearest love?”
“Nothing. This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”
His hold tightens. “We will have to fix that, for my own peace of mind.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For caring enough about me to put all of this together. I know it took a lot of time and effort. I appreciate it so much. I appreciate you so much. I…can’t express how much I’ve needed someone who…who was willing to learn me.”
“All this was a few trips to the store, some online shopping, and a bike ride around town. That hardly constitutes praise. You are worth so much more than any of this.”
I bury my face down against my stuffed animal. The only one I’ve ever owned. “You’re right. How silly of me. I rescind my gratitude. Would you prefer a compliment about your shoulders?”
“Yes, please. Several, even. If I can afford them.”
“Lucky you, they’re on BOGO.”
“Score.”
Laughter builds, getting caught in my chest. But before it can escape, I start to cry.
Silent, Mars runs his fingers through my hair as he continues to cradle me against the rampant beat of his heart. When my tears have soaked through his pinstripe shirt, he whispers against the shell of my ear, “I made cake.”
When hasn’t he?
I sniffle. “What kind?”
“Carrot.”
“Did you get candles?” I battle my own shaking chest for a full breath of air.
“Oh, darling.” Mars kisses my temple. “As if I would pass up the chance to see you in the firelight.”
He practically picks me up off the floor and carries me to my kitchen table, where he presents the most perfect carrot cake in the whole entire world.
He sings “The Happy Happy Birthday Song” by the Arrogant Worms, which is an altogether depressing but hilarious alternative to the usual, tired tune, and I find myself laughing through the tears instead of trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do.
After I blow out the candles, he lets me make the first cut, like I’m at a proper birthday party, then I try to keep teardrops from falling onto my slice while I eat to the sound of Mars humming the chorus of “The Happy Happy Birthday Song” again and again. Until it feels like I’m going insane.
In the past month, I’ve had so many slices of carrot cake. You’d think I’d be sick of it by now, but I’m not. Something about the modestly sweet buttercream paired with the overwhelmingly moist and light cake fills an aching pit inside.
“This is the best cake I’ve ever had,” I whisper.
Mars watches me, his fork dangling from his lips. His gaze trails my new necklace before contentment settles into his demeanor. “Is it now?”
I nod.
“I’m glad. I was some apprehensive to consider that, perhaps, you’d have preferred a different cake for your birthday. Silly of me.”
“So—” I sniff. “—silly of you.”
He sips chocolate milk from his glass and nods magnanimously.
“Can I ask…why carrot cake, though?”
He scoops a frosting carrot onto his fork. “Why not carrot cake?”
“So there’s no reason behind it? No reason at all behind the fact you seem to make carrot cake every day?”
“Every other day. Please, if it were every day, we might grow sick of it. Not even Jovey could eat an entire carrot cake every single day. His shoulders aren’t big enough to store it.”
“I disagree, but that’s not the point. Is it a secret?”
“Is what a secret?”
“Mars.”
He sighs, eats the frosting, and looks elsewhere. “Let’s not ruin your birthday with needless backstories. Everyone needs hobbies. Mine is carrot cake.”
“You have a sad backstory connected to carrot cake of all things?” I ask.
“And if I do?” His gaze flicks toward me.
I reach for my own glass of chocolate milk. “I think I’d like to hear it while I’m already crying. Or…no. That’s not what I mean. I think I’d like to hear it. Because it’s yours. And I’d like to know you better.”
Setting his fork down, he says, “My mother liked carrot cake.”
“Liked?”
His eyes close. “Every birthday. Every holiday. I was young when she died, but I remember some things, and one of those things is carrot cake. Without raisins. With buttercream.” Pain creases his brow even as a fragile smile softens his lips.
“She’d make them in the casserole dishes.
Big flat sheets of cake that she’d throw icing on.
” His lips press together, and when his eyes open again, they’re glassy with tears.
“Carrot cake keeps her here. My own recipe, cake pans, and decorations keep it from hurting too much to think about how…I’m never going to get exactly Mom’s again. ”
A teardrop slips down my cheek and falls into my plate. “Mars…I’m so sorry.”
He lifts a shoulder. “I love my mom. I miss her. Even though she’s gone, I am who I am because of her.
I love how I love because I know how quickly love can be lost. I approach hesitantly, then steamroll.
It’s a bad habit, rooted in fear. I… I would like to learn how to be better at it for you. But I’m just not there yet.”
Better? Better than this ? I don’t know if that’s possible. “What happened…if it’s okay to ask?”
He fortifies himself with a deep breath and says, “She loved the ocean. The complexities. The mystery. The creatures. One anniversary when I was six, our father took her to a coral reef. And there she met a cone snail. She was dead in hours. Jove and I didn’t even know until it was too late to even say goodbye over the phone.
Dad blamed himself. Both he and Jove grieved in a world separate from mine.
I stained the shark picture books she used to read to me with my tears.
They checked out of reality. Thankfully, Jove came back after a bit.
Dad still…struggles. But we take care of him as best we can.
I’m grateful every day that we have the means. ”
I can’t find any words for a while, and when I finally open my mouth, my tongue is dry. “Is the animal enclosure we passed on the way to your room the other day yours? It was ocean-themed. With sharks.”
He exhales a laugh. “You saw that, huh?” He wets his lips.
“That’s Gingerbread, my hamster. Jove seems to only tolerate her, but he did also put little red flags on her buoys recently, so…
maybe he likes her more than he realizes.
” Mars rolls his eyes. “Jove’s pretty bad at recognizing the depth of his feelings.
Not that it inconveniences me at all or anything. ”
I sense that it does, actually.
Clearing his throat, Mars wipes his eyes. “Anyway. Now that we’re both crying…why don’t we get this party started?”
Obviously, that’s code for “curl up in my living room with books,” and I think—tears and all—it’s the best party I’ve ever been to.