Chapter 27 – Josie
chapter
twenty-seven
Josie
Lena told me we were going to dinner.
Nobody had ever thrown me a surprise party.
Marcus couldn’t remember my birthday without me mentioning it the week before, and even then, his version of celebration was a last-minute text and flowers from whatever delivery app loaded fastest. So when my two best friends said dinner, I just thought of it as one of those nice things that happens sometimes and moved on.
Before the doorbell rang, I hopped on one boot as I tried to find the other amidst the graveyard of discarded outfits.
Lena had shown up at six thirty in a yellow wrap dress with Kimmy behind her wearing a grin that should have been a dead giveaway, but I was too busy being grateful to question it. I put on real earrings and told myself that turning twenty with two good friends and a pasta dinner was plenty.
We split a bottle of wine downtown, and I laughed until my stomach hurt. Then they wanted to come up and see my apartment, which was suspicious as hell, but I was warm from the Pinot and feeling happy in a way that didn’t require any effort, so I let it slide.
Lena put her key in my lock before I even reached for mine.
The door swung open, and the smell of cake hit me first, buttery and sweet with something slightly burnt at the edges.
There were streamers in burnt orange and blue, taped in uneven loops from my ceiling fan, and dollar-store balloons bobbing against my kitchen cabinets in a cluster that leaned aggressively to the left.
Someone had cranked my radiator against the November draft, and the whole place was warmer and cozier than my shoebox of an apartment had ever been.
A red velvet cake sat on my counter, lopsided enough that whoever frosted it had tried to compensate by piling extra frosting on the low side, which had absolutely not fixed the problem but had made it worse in the most sincere way possible.
Trace said, “Surprise.”
Ryder said, “Okay, but for the record, the balloons looked better before I taped them.”
He wore a paper birthday hat sideways and leaned against my bookshelf.
Within thirty seconds, he had Kimmy laughing about something involving a bag of flour and the cake’s structural integrity.
The hat kept sliding off his head, and he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Kimmy was trying very hard to look unimpressed and failing spectacularly.
Lena laughed at something Trace said near the counter, and I caught the way his whole body shifted toward her, subtly, his eyes immediately going soft.
He handed her a cup of prosecco, and their fingers overlapped on the stem and I had to smile.
They were so damn in love. I wanted something like that.
And then there was Waylon.
He stood in my kitchen with a dish towel over his shoulder, and his hands braced on the counter, wearing a gray Henley with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, looking good enough to eat. Since when were forearms so sexy?
Our friends are not sexy, Josie.
I was aware that a man standing in a kitchen shouldn’t make my heart race, but it was racing anyway.
He looked up when I came in, and he didn’t say anything, didn’t take credit for any of it, just watched me with that expression he got on the hill during our morning runs when he thought I couldn’t see him looking.
I could always see him looking. I’d gotten scary good at knowing where he was in a room without turning my head. I wasn’t ready to think about what that skill was for.
“Happy birthday, Flash,” he said, and the dimple showed up on the left side of his mouth.
I looked at the floor because looking at him was going to be a problem.
Ryder made everyone toast with prosecco that tasted like someone had dissolved a Jolly Rancher in sparkling water, and he delivered it with the confidence of a sommelier presenting vintage champagne. It was clear he lived for the theatrics.
Through all of it, Waylon just existed in the background of my apartment like he belonged there, refilling glasses and handing me a plate of cake before I’d thought about getting one.
He was careful not to look at me too much, and I was mindful not to notice how careful he was being, and the two of us were putting on an Oscar-worthy performance of people who were definitely just friends.
Then I reached past him for the prosecco bottle and our arms crossed in the narrow gap between my counter and the fridge, and his hand found my hip. It lasted maybe one second, warm and deliberate through the fabric, and my whole body lit up.
I leaned into it for half a breath, then stepped back because I am a person who makes responsible decisions, or at least someone trying very hard to look like one.
He found me near the window later, when Ryder had everyone distracted with a debate about whether the flowers on the cake were technically edible, and handed me a box wrapped in brown paper with a blue ribbon.
What on earth had he gotten me? I turned it in my hands, and he stood close enough that I could smell soap and something woodsy.
I opened it, and it took me a second to understand what I was holding.
It was a track jersey, high school vintage, the kind that predated sponsorships and the name being worth anything outside of one specific track program in Massachusetts. The name stitched across the back read Thomas.
This was before she was an Olympic medalist on Nike campaigns and magazine covers, when she was just a high school girl who happened to be faster than everybody else.
He’d remembered one conversation from weeks ago. And not only had he remembered, he’d gotten me something so special.
Meanwhile, where is your fuck boy of a boyfriend?
“Waylon.”
“I wanted you to have something you’d never forget,” he said, like it was simple, like remembering something I’d said on a dawn run and then hunting down a vintage track jersey was a completely normal thing to do.
I pressed my lips together because if I opened my mouth, I was going to cry over a high school jersey in front of five people, and that was absolutely not happening.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
I glanced over and frowned when I saw who was texting.
Marcus: happy bday babe
Three words, a couple of hours before my birthday was over. He hadn’t tried to see me. He hadn’t even called.
I was done.
So fucking done.
An hour later, Ryder checked his phone, elbowed Waylon, and turned the screen so only he could see it. I watched Waylon’s jaw tighten, and Ryder said something low about not keeping it too late.
Then Ryder grabbed his jacket, squeezed my shoulder, kissed the top of my head, and said, “Happy birthday, Washington.” He murmured something to Kimmy on the way out that made her smile, and then he was gone.
Trace and Lena started gathering cups while Waylon cleaned up the living room and watched me.
I picked up the jersey box and ran my thumb across the name on the back.
“Flash.” His voice was low from the doorway. “You good?”
This was the first time in three years that someone had made my birthday about me, and all it took was dollar-store streamers, a cake, and a man who remembered the things I said when I wasn’t paying attention.
“Yeah,” I said, and my voice cracked on it. “I’m really good.”