Page 71 of Promise Me Sunshine

Ainsley laughs and it brings me back to the movie. WhenI glance back at Miles, his eyes are open again, but he’s looking at me, not at the screen.

The timer on the oven dings and I scramble up, away from the couch. My heart seems to be running up a hill inside my chest. I wonder what’s at the top.

—

An hour laterMiles is holding a plate stacked with frosted cake and we’re making a game plan outside Reese’s apartment.

“Ains, we don’t want to spoil it at the last second. So you go in and distract her. If she’s in the kitchen, bring her to your room to show her something. Miles and I will get the cake set up on the kitchen table.”

“Okay.” She nods solemnly and then lifts her watch and beep-beeps it. “In exactly five minutes I’ll bring her to the kitchen, so have the candles lit.”

I lift my matching watch and set the same alarm. “Deal.”

She uses her key and slips in through the door.

“She’s so excited,” I whisper up to Miles. “I love seeing her like this. Sometimes she seems almost too mature for her—”

“Catch the door!” Miles hisses.

Too late. The door clicks closed behind Ainsley and locks us out.

“Shit.” Now we’ll have to ring the doorbell to get inside and we’ll ruin the surprise. “What do we do? Clock’s ticking!”

“I have keys,” he says.

“Really? Then why are you always ringing the doorbell?”

“You’re the nosiest person I’ve ever met, so you might not realize, but it’s not actually polite to enter someone else’s home without permission.”

“Well, birthday cake surprise wins over manners today.”

“The keys are in my left front pocket.”

“Oh.” I blink. “Let me take the plate—whoa.”

We iced the cake when it was way too warm, and the three layers may have been a little ambitious. The whole thing is slippery and tenuous. Miles carried it down here like a wire walker at the circus. When I try to take the cake now, the whole thing slides an inch to one side.

“Too risky,” he says, then lifts the cake plate to eye level, clearing the way for me to retrieve the keys.

Okay. So. No big deal. Just have to put my hand in Miles’s pocket. Cool. Easy as pie.

If I dither, this’ll get weird fast, so I just step forward and go in for the kill. I plunge my hand wrist deep into his front pocket. It’s very warm in there.

He grunts and clears his throat.

“Good lord, how deep is this pocket?” I have to go up on my tiptoes to get the right angle and I still have no contact with keys. “Men have all the luck. Girl pockets are like the size of a pack of Tic Tacs. Meanwhile you could hide a dictionary in here.”

He clears his throat again as I’m forced to fish around. My fingers close around something. “Wallet.” I push it to one side and his hips kick accordingly away.

“Careful,” he says menacingly, eyes narrowing on me.

“Right, right, sorry. There’s good stuff in there, I forgot. I’ll keep it at the forefront of my mind.”

“Keys, Lenny. Focus.”

“Right.” I keep fishing. “Unidentified piece of paper.”

I swerve around it and his hips kick to the side again and this time it’s accompanied by a—surely involuntary—chuckle.

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