Page 94 of Some Like It Hott

“It’s good crying,” I manage through my tears. “I’m just very, very glad to see you—and what the fuck is this?”

“It’s all your missing birthday parties,” he says. “I wasn’t sure which ones went missing, so I tried to do them all.”

“Is this a grand gesture?” I whisper.

“Yeah,” he says. “This—and also, I quit my job, and I sold my apartment?—”

“You didn’t have to do that!”

“Actually,” he says, “I did. I kept that job way too long to prove something that didn’t need proving.”

“That you’re amazing?”

His expression goes soft and warm at that, and he brushes a strand of hair back from my face. “That I can live the lifeIwant to live,” he says, bending to brush a kiss across my forehead. “In this particular case, what Iwantis to live with you in Rush Creek. And to get the chance to love you. I love you.”

“That seems—like the important part,” I say, choking up again. “I love you, too.”

Things happen in a whirlwind after that. People are greeting me, some I haven’t seen in years, hugging me, wishing me happy birthday, even though my birthday’s three months away still. I’m pretty sure that’s not the point. People bring me drinks—Hi-C in paper cups, root beer in plastic cups, beer in Solo cups. It turns out Preston wasn’t kidding about all my missing birthday parties.

My mouth falls open when I see all the birthday cakes, representing all the stages of childhood.

“The Wilder kids helped,” Preston says. “They told me what the right cakes would be.”

There’s a baby’s first birthday cake, an Elmo cake, a pink princess cake, a horse cake, a tropical-themed cake, a plain chocolate cake with bright colored frosting—“for when you got too dignified as a teenager for themes,” Preston explains. “Anna, Amanda’s oldest, said that was a thing. And then this one is for you now.”

It’s a rainbow explosion, every color and type of sprinkles. “It’s afuck that, definitely NOT better than sex with youcake,” Preston says, leaning close and whispering it against my ear, sending shivers all through my body and making me want to skip straight to the end of the party.

There are activities for every age, too—hide and seek, fishing in the kiddie pool, pin the tail on the donkey, treasure and scavenger hunts—and Preston and I do them all, and I keep sneaking looks at him because he’s here and he loves me and he wants us to be together. I have no idea how we’re going to make that happen, but I believe we will and that seems like the best not-birthday present ever.

As it turns out, there are lots of birthday gifts for me, too. Tickle Me Elmo and a matched set of Elsa and Anna dolls and an Easy-Bake Oven and a huge Lego set and a dumb phone and a fantastic upgrade to my beloved portable speaker. And then Preston says, “It’snota ring—not yet—so don’t freak out, but I wanted to get you something pretty,” and I open the small box he hands me, and it’s a pink-enameled stiletto sandal on a gold chain.

“Because that’s about fifty percent of what you were wearing the second time I ever saw you,” he says.

“Pres.”

“You’re crying again. Did I screw up?”

“No. It’s fucking perfect. The only thing that would have been more perfect would have been a small gold axe. Or a Nerf blaster.”

“I thought about it. I really did. Also,” he murmurs, “I feel like it’s important to say that the only reason I’m not kissing you right now is that I’m ninety-five percent sure that I wouldn’t be able to make it family friendly.”

“Oh, Idefinitelywouldn’t,” I say.

We smolder at each other until Sonya says, “Enough of that! Come break the piñata!” So I do.

50

Preston

“Out,” Hanna says.

“There’s still a lot of cleanup,” I tell her.

“Leave. Begone.”

“Are you quotingProfessor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-a-Zoo?”

“No. I’m telling you that you need to take Natalie and go do whatever it is that my brothers do with the women they love when they’re well out of range of both my sight and my hearing, and I don’t want to know anything at all about it.”

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