Page 45 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

“Probably.” He stares at me for a thoughtful moment then lifts his cup. “Sorry you’re having a tough time with the tournament.” After a gulp of wine, he cringes. “This is terrible.”

“Yeah.” I shrug and fill up my glass again.

I ignore him watching me with his curious eyes until he asks, “You okay?”

He’s so goddamn perceptive. I hate it because I love it. “Yeah, why?”

He balls up the paper from his cheeseburger. “You’re quiet.”

I float my gaze over the room and land on the ceiling, chewing on my lip. With everything I’ve experienced, and especially with Vince having a funeral for an eight-year-old today, it seems insignificant to be upset over this. Nevertheless, I am. “It’s my birthday. I’m twenty-eight today.”

“Happy birthday.” His words force me to look at him and his smile. He taps his glass against mine.

I take a deep breath, waiting until the sting in my nose goes away. “We’re not really celebrating birthdays anymore.”

“What’s that mean?”

“We used to all go out to eat. But we don’t do that anymore…obviously.” I push the cold cheeseburger away and finish off my second glass of wine. “Last month for my mother’s birthday, I bought her a card she never opened. The next day, I saw it in the garbage, still in the envelope.”

Vince’s lips tip down, and I force a laugh.

“What’re you gonna do, right? Things change, people die, birthday cards get thrown away.”

“Yeah, but…” He licks his lips and scratches his eyebrow with his thumb, clearly unable to come up with something to say, even though I don’t expect him to. After a moment, he stands abruptly to open the small pantry. He digs around and returns to me with a half-smushed Twinkie in its clear plastic packaging.

When I don’t move, he opens it and holds the snack cake out to me, singing an off-key version of “Happy Birthday.” Then he takes my hand and places the Twinkie in my palm. We catch each other’s gaze and laugh together. It’s silly and sweet and cures a little bit of the burn from my family forgetting my birthday. This isn’t quite Jake sitting on a table like Sixteen Candles, but it’s close enough.

“Thank you,” I say and rip off the end piece to offer it to him, but he declines.

“It’s your cake.”

I pop the piece into my mouth, and Vince watches me with his hazel eyes. It’s difficult to pretend I’m completely oblivious to him and the buzzing electricity between us, but I’m not sure I’d know what to do if I ever acknowledged it. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to be a human.

I finish the Twinkie and change the subject, breaking away from the growing pull toward him. “Going to give me the grand tour of your bachelor pad or what?”

“I don’t know about grand tour, but if you want to…”

Gracie pads beside me when I wind around the waist-high wall to the other side, which is presumably the dining room. It’s empty.

“It’s a work in progress,” he says, motioning to the whole of the house. “It was built in 1938 and pretty beat-up when I bought it.”

I scuff my foot on the hardwood floors. He must’ve refinished them because there are no marks of wear and tear like some other parts of the house. I follow him up the creaky steps to the top floor. He flicks the lights on in all the rooms. The bathroom is nice, and I tell him so.

“It’s the first room I did,” he says, skimming his hand along the new sink. It’s modern, all gray and white. The room next to it is smaller and outlined in painter’s tape, with one lamp on the floor plugged into an outlet in the corner. Vince’s bedroom is at the opposite end of the hallway, completely finished with shiny wood floors, cream walls, and a comfy-looking green bedspread on the huge mattress. There are even floating shelves on the walls holding succulents. As I touch the wood-framed picture of his family on top of his dresser, he says, “I watch a lot of HGTV.”

“It all makes sense now.”

When I turn around, he’s right behind me, close enough I can smell the soap he uses, and I’m tempted to wrap my arms around him. He’s the only guy I’ve been in close contact with for months. The only one I’ve wanted to be around. And he’s an undertaker.

Hades.

I back away from him. “So, what’s your deal?”

“Deal with what?” He lounges on the bed with his legs extended, feet crossed at the ankles.

“Why are you single?”

He eyes me suspiciously. “Have you been talking with my mother?” I snort out a laugh, and he glances around the room as if for an escape but makes no move for one. “I don’t know,” he starts quietly. “I was with this girl for a while.”

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