Chapter 6
E than should have been suspicious when Ridge called instead of texted like usual.
“What’s up?”
“What are you doing?” Ridge asked.
Ethan frowned at his phone. “Heading to work.” They weren’t the sort of buddies who checked in with each other or had long chats about their hopes and dreams.
“Busy tonight?”
“No.”
“Let’s go out,” Ridge said.
“It’s my birthday,” Ethan said.
“I know, that’s why I’m asking.”
Ethan resisted the urge to pull the phone away from his ear and look at it. “Are we the type of friends who celebrate each other’s birthdays now? Because I might be busy when you call for the next decade or so,” Ethan said. “What’s this about?”
Ridge let out a breath. “Amelia dragged it out of me. She and Maggie want to go out to celebrate. When I told them you hate your birthday and like to spend it alone, they looked at each other like we’d just seen a puppy get run over in the street.”
“Aw, man, that’s a nice thought, but I don’t celebrate my birthday,” Ethan said. He couldn’t say for sure why he hated his birthday; he just did.
“The Eldridges are big into birthdays. Believe me when I tell you it will go easier for you if you don’t struggle and let it happen.”
“You let them make a big deal out of your birthday?” Ethan asked.
“My first birthday with Maggie, she dragged me to a carnival and force-fed me caramel apples and cotton candy. I threw up for the first time in eight years, and it was still the best birthday I’ve ever had,” Ridge said.
Ethan blew out a breath. “Where and when?”
Ridge gave him the name of the restaurant.
“Will you at least try to rein them in?” Ethan pled. “No sombreros and clapping waiters?”
“I think we both know I have no say in the matter. Just show up and don’t be late,” Ridge directed.
Ethan made it through his workday with no one realizing it was his birthday. The day was so ordinary he would have forgotten the significance of it, except for the fact he’d promised to meet the Ridges and Amelia at the restaurant, a posh, trendy place with outdoor seating and a line around the block.
He was the last to arrive at the restaurant, though he wasn’t late. About fifteen people were waiting in line. Ethan expected to have to join them, but when he gave the hostess his name, she directed him to the outdoor patio where Maggie, Ridge, and Amelia were already seated.
“Happy birthday!” Maggie and Amelia called, turning several heads around them. They stood to give him a hug, and Amelia used the opportunity to put a birthday sash on him while Maggie attached a pointed party hat and stuffed a noisemaker between his lips.
“Thanks for getting them to tone it down,” Ethan said, promptly removing everything and setting it aside.
“This is the toned down version,” Ridge said. “You don’t even want to know what I talked them out of.”
“Ethan, it’s you’re birthday ,” Amelia said, as if he didn’t know. At least when she spoke it gave him the chance to look at her. She wore a long floral sundress, and her lustrous blond hair was down and fell in soft waves around her face. He had never seen her look better, in fact had never seen anyone look better. With effort, he peeled his eyes away from her. Maggie and Ridge had no idea anything was going on between them, besides a budding friendship. They didn’t know how flirtatious the tone of their friendship was, and they certainly didn’t know about the kiss that had brought them together in the first place. He and Amelia were careful, incredibly so, not to clue them in that anything was amiss. If they knew, they wouldn’t take it well, and rightly so. He was a heartless cad when it came to women, after all. And Amelia was young, fresh, and innocent.
His eyes strayed to her again, and he reeled them back in, focusing instead on the breadbasket beside him. “How’d you guys get in here? Every time I pass there’s a crazy long line.”
“The owner’s a new client of mine, and she said if I ever wanted to get in to let her know and she’d make it happen. I’ve never done a backroom deal like that before. I feel sort of like a crooked politician,” Amelia admitted.
“You’re in the right city then,” Ethan said, his eyes leaving the bread to land on her again. She’s done speaking, look away, his brain warned him. He did so, but not before he caught her soft, amused smile, the one that said she knew exactly what was going on with him.
“Why do you hate your birthday, Ethan?” Maggie asked, snagging a piece of bread from the basket beside him. She craned her neck, looking inside it. “Hey, real butter. This is a good restaurant.”
“I don’t know. It never lived up to the hype, you know? When I was a kid, I would have these big fantasies about how it was going to be, that something unexpected and amazing would happen, but then it would be another day. Eventually I stopped wanting it to be anything different,” Ethan said.
Maggie blinked at him and gave him the piece of bread she’d just buttered. “You might need this more than I do.”
“That sounded more pathetic than I intended,” he said, but he accepted the bread and ate it. “Why do you guys like birthdays so much?”
“Because there were four of us, and it was hard to get individual time. Birthdays were our day, the one time a year it was all about us and no one else. We got to feel special and like the center of the universe,” Amelia said.
“I was going to say because we got cake,” Maggie added. “Plus Johnny loves birthdays. It doesn’t even have to be his birthday, he gets so excited over everyone’s birthday you can’t help but catch the mood. You end up wanting to have a fun, good birthday for him, so you don’t let him down.”
“Plus we got cake,” Amelia seconded, and the sisters bumped fists. The waitress arrived then. They ordered and spent time talking while they waited for their food to arrive. It was a fun, pleasant night, and Ethan was enjoying himself, but he was distracted by Amelia, by her nearness and scent. He was supposed to be becoming immune to her. The more he saw her, the less he should want to see her. That was how it had always worked with women before. He found flaws and ran away quickly. But he couldn’t run away from her. She was his friend’s sister, and she had become his friend, too. And so she lingered in his circle, tantalizingly close yet completely out of reach. It was maddening that when he finally developed lingering interest in a woman, she was completely off limits.
It worked to his advantage that she was an expressive speaker, using her hands and body to make a point. Every time she leaned forward or moved back, she brushed his leg, his arm, his thigh. Once he might have believed she made the contact on purpose as a secret signal of her interest. Now he knew better. She had no idea how many times she bumped and brushed him, how closely her chair was aligned with his.
After supper, Maggie presented him with a cake. “Amelia baked it, and I decorated it,” she said. It was leaning, sliding, and a little lumpy, but Ethan was deeply touched by their thoughtfulness.
“She’s better at decorating than I am,” Amelia confessed.
“If Maggie’s better at decorating, your cakes must be,” Ridge began, but then caught sight of Maggie’s expression.
“What, husband? Amelia’s cakes must be what?” she prompted.
“Equally delightful and full of love,” he said, kissing her cheek.
“Nice save, LT,” Ethan said with full admiration. “Thank you for this. And thank you for not bringing candle…oh, I spoke too soon.” Amelia opened her purse, pulled out number two and eight candles, and stuck them on the cake. She also removed matches and held them aloft, paused.
“Before we light, you have to make a wish, and before you make a wish, you have to tell us what you wanted to have happen when you were little that never did,” she commanded.
“I don’t know, really. Something spectacular and amazing, I guess,” he said. He rested his arm on the back of her chair as he spoke, using the opportunity to gaze at her face, her warm brown eyes, her cute, slightly upturned nose, her full, perfect mouth. He was fairly certain he knew what his wish would be.
“Okay, now you may blow out your candles.” She lit his candles and sat back while he blew them. Almost immediately when he was finished, the man directly behind him stood up and began to loudly sing.
“One day more, another day another birthday gone, how could this one day last so long,” and when he was finished another person stood to add to the song, and then another and then the entire line of people waiting to get inside joined in, singing a song from Les Miserables, but with different words. Finally, after his initial shock wore off, Ethan realized that not only was it a flash mob, but it was a flash mob for him , and they were singing about his birthday.
He sat frozen and mortified, blushing for what had to be the first time in his adult life. At the same time, he was oddly thrilled. They had done this for him, had planned and carried out an elaborate birthday surprise involving thirty people, some of whom had been sitting and dining as long as they had.
The song finished and everyone applauded—not just the singers, but him. “Wow,” he said. “So much wow. I was pantsed during the final football game my senior year in front of a stadium of five hundred people, including my grandma. And I think I was less embarrassed then than I was just now. But at the same time that was amazing, so thank you.” Under the table, he squeezed Amelia’s knee. As much as Maggie also loved birthdays, he knew Amelia had been responsible for the whole evening. It had her fingerprints all over it. She covered his hand, gave it a squeeze, and let go. He followed suit and removed his hand, pressing it to his own leg to keep it from straying back to her.
“So, seeing as how you guys are our closest friend and our closest family, respectively, we have an announcement, and we wanted you to be the first to know,” Maggie began.
“You’re pregnant,” Ethan blurted.
“Are you insane? We just got married, bite your tongue. No, we’re getting a puppy.” She clapped her hands together excitedly.
“No way,” Amelia replied, clapping her hands in the exact same gesture. “What kind?”
“We’re getting him from a rescue, so they can’t say for certain, but he looks mostly Dane,” Maggie said.
“Although they said he probably has some mastiff in him, so he has the potential to be even bigger than a regular Dane,” Ridge added with a sarcastic thumb’s up.
“I’m going to take a few days off until he gets settled. Ideally, I’d become a stay-at-home mom now, but financially I don’t think we’re there yet,” Maggie said.
“Maybe that will happen when we have an actual child,” Ridge said.
“Just because he’s adopted doesn’t make him any less our child,” Maggie argued.
“But the fact that he’s not human does,” Ridge said.
“That’s right, get it out of your system now before he gets here,” Maggie said. “Speaking of which, we’re picking him up crazy early in the morning, so we’re calling it a night.”
“I’m going to stay,” Amelia said.
“I’ll see her home,” Ethan volunteered, knowing she had likely taken the Metro to save on parking.
“Are you ready to go home?” he added after Maggie and Ridge took their leave.
“I’m never ready to go home,” Amelia replied.
“Ah, to be young again,” Ethan lamented.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa. Remember what it was like to be twenty seven?”
“It feels like yesterday,” Ethan mused. “So where do you want to go, party girl?”
“I’m still learning the city, you tell me,” she said.
“With people or private?” he asked.
She eyed him, thinking. “Private.”
“I know a place,” he said, standing.
“Something told me you would.” She hooked her index finger through his and allowed him to lead her out of the restaurant. Once outside, they took a few steps and he stopped short.
“What is your face doing?” he asked.
“Smiling?” she tried.
“That’s not how you smile. You look like you just stepped on a Lego. Is there a problem?”
“These shoes are killing my feet,” she admitted, leaning on a brick wall for support.
“Why did you wear them?” he asked.
“Are you joking? Look how super cute they are,” she pointed to her toes, and he looked down.
“It’s hard to see them through all the blood,” he said.
“Shh, they’ll hear you,” Amelia said.
“Why do you have to be one of those girls?” he asked, shaking his head.
“Because something tells me if I were wearing support hose and comfortable orthopedics, we wouldn’t be here right now,” she said.
“We probably would, but I wouldn’t have to carry you,” he said.
“You’re going to carry me?” she asked.
“It’s four blocks to my ride because parking was its usual nightmare. I’d prefer not to have you in tears and dragging one foot behind you when we reach my bike. Bad for my image.” He crouched, and she jumped on his back.
“Can you carry me four blocks?” she asked.
“Honey, I had to train carrying a buddy three miles at a sprint in full gear. I think I can handle carrying a pretty little girl four blocks,” he said.
“Yes, but can you support me and your ego? Seems doubtful,” she said, pinching him.
“You make it through BUD/S training and then get back to me on the status of your ego,” he challenged.
“Um, hello, I made it through salon school where I had to learn to deal with women who think I’m somehow going to make them look like the picture of the model they walked in with, so I think I know a little bit about stressful situations,” she told him.
He laughed. “You’re right, it’s totally the same. My apologies.” They reached his motorcycle, and she slid off his back. He reached into the pocket behind the seat, withdrew a helmet, and fastened it over her head.
“No complaints about this ruining your hair?” he questioned.
“You must think I’m so shallow,” she said. “Quick question, can we swing by the salon so I can fix it on the way home?”
He shook his head and helped her onto the bike.
“Um, I’m no safety expert, but this seems like a catastrophe waiting to happen, unless that’s your grand plan to do away with me,” she said, flapping the folds of her long, ankle-length dress.
“May I?” he asked, holding the skirt in his hands.
“Sure,” she said, her tone wary. She watched as he tied the skirt into a tidy bundle so it wouldn’t hang over the wheels.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes, as long as it’s not one of those complicated sailor knots I’m going to be stuck with forever,” she said.
“It’s a simple figure eight,” he said.
“The fact that you know the name of the knot is sort of hot. Maybe I am attracted to nerds,” she mused.
“I’m glad I could help you along with your journey toward self-discovery,” he said. She laughed. He hopped on the motorcycle, and they took off.