Chapter Twenty
Nick didn’t mean to come inside the party.
He meant to drop Vi off at the curb and call Duncan to arrange a tow truck.
But Suze saw them from the backyard and came barreling over with a strained smile and tense wings, kids screeching in the yard behind her, playing tag and throwing balloons and beating the crap out of a bouncy castle in a flurry of wings and fur and scales.
Vi stumbled off the motorcycle, pulling off the helmet. “Sorry I’m late. My car broke down.”
Suze waved her away. “No, no, you’re just in time. Nick! Hi! Did Vi rope you into chaperoning?”
“Nope,” Nick said, tucking the helmet under one arm. “I was just about to head off.”
And finally have some time to myself, he added silently.
Helping people was rewarding, yadda yadda, but he was officially ready for a rest. How the hell did Vi do this every week?
Especially the food bank stuff, which would have been fine without Heath barking at him for every little thing that didn’t meet his impossibly high standards.
“Oh. Okay.” Suze spared him a split-second curious look before switching her attention back to Vi. “Thank you again. So many parents just sent their kids over unchaperoned. That’s what I get for living so close, I guess!”
She let out a loud, stiff laugh. Her hair was frazzled, her shirt stained with something Nick hoped was mustard. How old were her kids anyway? He’d never thought to ask. From the sounds of the yells coming from the bouncy castle, they were at the younger end of grade school.
Nick coughed. “You good, Suze? You kinda look like you want to stab the bouncy castle.”
“I’m fine!” Suze’s smile became even more strained. “You know, when it comes, it flows.”
Nick was pretty sure that wasn’t the saying.
He put one foot on a foot peg, ready to take off.
He just needed to wait for a gap in the conversation to say goodbye to Vi.
It felt weird to just drive off after having her pressed against his back for the past twenty minutes, listening to her giggle as the wind streaked past. She had seemed so happy to see him, grinning and blushing in ways that made him hopeful that it wasn’t just the motorcycle adrenaline.
“And they might take care of the bouncy castle for me,” Suze added. “Some of them have not clipped their claws enough, despite what it said on the invitation.”
Vi pushed her hair off her sweaty forehead. “Is there anything I can help with?”
“No, no.”
Vi paused in the middle of tying up her hair. “Suze.”
Suze’s smile wobbled. “There’s been a mishap with the cake. The icing is, uh . . . It says, Happy bar mitzvah, Henry.”
“I’m guessing there’s a Henry somewhere having his hora around the wrong cake,” Nick said. “I can fix that.”
Both women turned to stare at him. Nick tried not to squirm under the intensity of their combined gaze.
“Do you—” Suze squinted at him “—know Henry? Does he live nearby?”
“No, I mean I can fix the icing.” Nick strung his helmet on a handlebar and held up his hands, waggling his thick fingers. “Graceful mechanic hands. Trust me.”
They looked at his hands. Nick hoped they believed the lie.
He really didn’t want to explain that he did know how to re-ice a cake because he’d spent the entire summer after his mom died obsessively icing, scraping the icing off, then re-icing cakes with different designs according to whatever YouTube tutorial he’d clicked on next. It had been weirdly therapeutic.
“Unless you have a better idea,” Nick continued as both women stared at him dubiously.
“I thought you couldn’t bake for shit,” Vi said. “Quote-unquote.”
“I can’t,” Nick said, suddenly sweating at the hole he was digging himself. “I lost a bet in Home Ec, okay? And now I know how to ice cakes. Sue me.”
Vi squinted at him.
Nick beamed, hoping she didn’t notice the sweat pricking his hairline.
From inside the house, a child shrieked. Suze’s wings shuddered.
“Right,” she said with a false level of cheer that reminded Nick of Santa’s elves in the mall during peak shopping hours. “This way.”
* * *
There were benefits to being a single man in his thirties with little dependability.
One of those benefits was not going to kids’ birthday parties.
He still got invited. Duncan tossed him an invitation every year, saying something about free beer.
But nobody actually expected him to show up.
Nick hadn’t been to a kid’s birthday party since he was a kid.
So it was disorienting finding himself in the middle of one, winding through hallways of screaming children who were chasing each other or playing balloon tag or blowing bubbles.
Nick touched a bubble as it floated past, wondering when the last time he’d blown a bubble had been. Years, surely. He missed it.
“Through here,” Suze said, leading them into a room off the kitchen.
Nick was surprised to find it was a pantry, dim and cool and big enough for three full-grown adults.
He stared around at the neatly stacked cans, all the baking ingredients sorted into buckets with labels, packet sauces lined up in rows.
He really needed to organize his own pantry better.
Suze pulled a sheet cake off the top shelf. It was white and sparkly with a plastic unicorn perched next to the botched name.
“He’s in his unicorn phase,” Suze explained. “What do you need?”
“Let’s go simple. Butter, icing sugar, and two types of food coloring. You got a . . .” He trailed off, realizing he didn’t actually know the name. “Icing . . . squeeze . . . tube?”
“We have baking paper and tape,” Suze said, looking far more enthused now he had proven he knew the basics of what he was talking about. “Is it alright if you do it in here? I don’t want him to see it. I’ll keep everyone out of the kitchen.”
Vi laid a hand on Suze’s shoulder. “I’ll keep everyone out of the kitchen, Suze. You go and hold down the fort.”
Suze gave her a grateful smile. Then she turned it on Nick, the gratefulness tinged with surprise. “Thank you both so much. Holler if you need me. I’ll be back in a bit with some sushi, if the delivery gets here on time.”
They got out of the pantry, Suze racing out the door after a renewed set of screams that sounded more stressed than happy.
Nick wedged the sheet cake onto the kitchen counter, in between a bunch of empty plates ready to be loaded with boxes of sushi.
“Right,” he said. “Icing sugar.”
Vi set it on the counter next to him. It was a plastic carton helpfully labeled: Icing Sugar, with a little smiley face at the end. Nick smiled back at it. He should buy a label maker.
“Thanks,” he told Vi, who was already turning to the fridge to grab the butter.
He watched her duck into the fridge, and a strange longing washed over him.
He hadn’t made food with someone in . . .
god, decades. The last person would’ve been his mom, and he couldn’t remember the last time.
Pancakes, maybe? Or his own birthday cake, with him on icing duty.
Vi shoved a chair in front of the door, wedging it shut.
She lingered next to him while he cut the butter into chunks and put it in the microwave.
She held the sifter while he poured the icing sugar and didn’t even comment on him measuring with his soul, which he was sure would get a disapproving look at least. Instead, she looked almost . . . charmed.
“Did your mom teach you?” she asked as he stirred the icing together.
“A little,” Nick admitted, then paused. This was usually the part where he changed the subject. But Vi looked like she was waiting for more, and he didn’t want to let her down.
“She was pretty good with cakes,” he said. “I guess it was more her than the Home Ec stuff. She hated doing the icing. I liked it, so, it worked out.”
Vi nodded. Her eyes were soft and surprised.
Nick’s throat clicked. He turned back to the icing bowl, stirring faster. “She would’ve liked you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re no-nonsense, but you’re also nice. Y’know—sweet. She really appreciated people like that.” His throat was thick. He coughed, ignoring Vi’s soft look as he pointed over at a container of kitchen implements. “Could you grab me a spatula?”
Next, he set the plastic unicorn aside and carefully wiped off the top of the cake, leaving the sides. Then he smoothed white icing over the top and rolled an impromptu piping bag out of baking paper and tape, both of which Vi found in the bottom cabinet.
“Top-notch rummaging,” Nick told her as he scooped icing into the bag. He was just saying random words at this point, trying to fill the silence and stop himself from panicking. “Best icing sidekick a guy could ask for.”
He looked over at Vi, who was organizing sushi on a platter as he iced the cake. Suze had rushed in a few minutes ago, and Vi had immediately started transferring the sushi from its delivery box onto a platter.
“And sushi,” he added. “Sushi and icing sidekick.”
“They call me Sweet Nori Gal,” Vi said nonsensically.
Nick laughed so loud, both of them looked at the door, waiting for someone to rattle the chair they’d propped against it.
No rattling. Just the occasional roar or shriek from a child running by.
“We’re clear,” Nick said.
“Go, go, go,” Vi agreed, placing another piece of sushi in a spiral pattern.
Nick picked up the silver bag and started writing. Only when he got to the Y of birthday did he stop. “Oh, shit.”
Vi looked up. She was on her last box of sushi. “What?”
“What’s the kid’s name?”
“Gilbert,” Vi said immediately.
Nick snapped his fingers at her. “Amazing. Thank you. Let’s rock this shit, Gilbert.”
Suze knocked as Nick was sliding the plastic unicorn into place next to the T in Gilbert.
Vi ran over to pull the chair out of the way.
“Hi, sorry, some vampire kid puked blood in the bouncy castle. Is everything—” Suze stopped, staring at the cake. “Oh. Oh, that’s amazing. You really did that?”
Nick shrugged. He was trying for cool and unaffected, but it was hard to pull off when you’d just re-iced a child’s birthday cake.