Leon points to blue blobs. “It’s you crying about Kevin’s turd.”
“Your friends are really noisy,” Sadia says, looking around them all. They are being noisy, cheering and shouting as they try to control their visible excitement. Each of them has a yellow lanyard around their necks with the word visitor printed on it.
“Being slandered by an eight-year-old,” Mattie says quietly to Robbie.
“I slander you all the time, Liu,” Nate snorts.
They’re not quiet enough because Sadia hears everything. “It’s not slander if it’s true—my mom’s a lawyer.”
“Okay, legal eagle,” Jenna says, making her way through the people crowding around me. “We’ve had Russ to ourselves for lots of weeks. Why don’t we let him have one more minute with his college friends and then we can start his party.”
“Party?” I repeat, swallowing.
“You really thought she was going to let you get away with not celebrating?” Jenna says. There’s something in her tone. Something that tells me maybe she knows what I don’t want her to know and, weirdly, it makes me feel better, because she hasn’t fired me. “Fat chance of that. She got everyone here in under twenty-four hours. She goes all out for people she cares about.”
Looking over the shoulders of my friends, I spot her talking to Emilia near the entertainment stage. I don’t know why she’s hanging back, when all I want to do is wrap my arms around her. “I’ll be back in one minute,” I say to the guys, immediately heading towards her.
Her face lights up as I approach and it takes every fiber of my restraint to hug Emilia first, so it doesn’t look suspicious. I let Emilia go and hold out my arms to Rory until she wraps her arms around my waist and I bury my head into her hair.
Aurora is glowing as she leans back and smiles up at me. “Happy birthday, Callaghan.”
“You’re incredible.”
“Happy birthday, Russ,” Emilia says, slapping me on the arm, as she leaves Aurora and I alone.
I don’t want to let go but I know I have to. She knows too, which is why she takes a step backwards. “You didn’t give me any time to get you a birthday present,” she grabs a small paper gift bag from behind her, “so it isn’t very good, but please know it caused me a lot of stress and took so freaking long to do because I’m out of practice.”
Reaching into the gift bag, I pull out my present. A yellow origami dog. “Oh my God, is it Fish?” She leans over to peek into the bag, reaching in and pulling out two smaller yellow dogs, placing them on my palm too. “This is incredible.”
“I tried to make possums but nobody could tell what they were supposed to be.” I let her hold the origami as I pull out something else from the bag. “Okay, so I can’t lie, I stole this one from the old library that nobody uses and it’s older than both of us combined.”
I read from the cover. “Learn all thirty-seven presidents: for ages six to ten.”
“I know how much you love naming presidents.” She gives me a look that makes me want to say fuck the party. “There’s one more present, it’s probably at the bottom.”
Digging in the bag, I pull out the final present. It’s a piece of pink card the size of a hockey ticket. When I flip it over, it’s unsurprisingly nothing to do with hockey.
ONE BIRTHDAY WISH COUPON
ELIGIBLE FOR REDEMPTION BY RUSS CALLAGHAN AT ANY TIME
FROM AURORA ROBERTS
“You don’t have to decide what you want now,” she says softly. “I’m sure you’re overwhelmed. I know I went a little overboard . . .” I look around at the banners, balloons, streamers that I didn’t even notice before. “But you deserve to have nice things.”
“I wish I could kiss you.”
“Hand over your coupon and we can make that wish come true. I mean, we’ll cause camp-wide outrage, which isn’t very birthday celebration-y but a deal is a deal.”
I wish I could go back to earlier and slap that Russ. I wouldn’t have spent the day worrying about whether we’re a good idea.
Aurora Roberts will always be a good idea.
Handing her the token, I watch her eyes widen in surprise. “I want to take you on a date.
That’s what my birthday wish is.”
“A date?” she repeats.
“Yes. A real date.”
“With me?”
“With you.”
“Even though I gave you origami golden retrievers and an old moth-eaten book on presidents for your birthday?”