Page 66 of Harrison's Wedding

On Hayden’s birthday,Gabriel cooks us all breakfast to kick off the celebrations.

“What time is Ally arriving?” Sebastian asks.

“Her flight left New York at eight-twenty five, so by the time she gets a car and drives here, it’ll probably be around two,” Hayden tells him.

“Okay, so are we doing gifts before or after that?” Sebastian grins at him.

“Are you itching to give me your present?” Hayden laughs.

“Kind of.”

“Well, let’s do it, then.” Hayden shrugs.

We finish eating breakfast, and Hayden heads to the living room while Sebastian, Gabriel, and I retrieve our gifts for him.

“This is from Ariana and me,” Gabriel says.

He hands over what is obviously a book. It’s wrapped in sleek silver paper with a matching ribbon. Hayden opens the card, which is a fairly standard thirtieth birthday card, and he thanks Gabriel before opening the gift.

When he looks at the book, he gasps loudly. “Oh my god, is this a first edition?”

“Yes,” Gabriel says proudly. “Ariana picked it out. Apparently you told her duringCards Have Been Dealtthat you liked Sherlock Holmes.”

Hayden beams at him. “Fuck. Yeah, I did. I can’t believe you got a first edition of ‘A Study in Scarlet’ for me.” He sets it aside carefully and rushes over to Gabriel to hug him. “Thank you so much. Tell Ariana I said thank you, too.”

“Will do.”

Hayden sits back down and opens the book reverentially, carefully flipping pages, and shaking his head as he looks at it.

“This is amazing,” he breathes out.

“Yeah, yeah. Put it aside and open my gift,” Sebastian laughs.

Hayden chuckles, sets the book on a side table, and holds his hands out for Sebastian’s present. It’s a small box, wrapped poorly in cartoon racing-car paper, and Hayden grins when he sees it.

“Looks like you had fun with this,” he says.

“You’d think I could wrap a box better than that, but apparently not,” Sebastian shrugs.

Hayden opens the card, which has a joke about him being so old that the heat from the candles on his birthday cake will crack the plaster on the ceiling and he laughs before opening the present. In the box appears to be a bunch of papers and cards, which Hayden flicks through, and his mouth drops open.

“Seb, this is cool!”

“What exactly did you get?” Gabriel asks.

“I got him thirty experiences for his thirtieth birthday,” Sebastian announces proudly.

“Driving a race car.” Hayden flicks to the next page. “A hot air balloon ride.” He looks at some kind of gift card. “Indoor skydiving.”

“I didn’t think you’d be up for the real thing,” Sebastian smirks.

“This is awesome, thanks, Seb.” Hayden puts the box aside and gives Sebastian a hug.

“You’re welcome.” Sebastian is beaming with pride at his thoughtful gift.

Once Hayden has looked through all of the experiences Sebastian has chosen for him, it’s my turn to give him the gift that Heather and I picked out for him. I pick up the large, heavy box that Heather had wrapped in gold paper with the message ‘Happy birthday’ scrawled over it repeatedly in an elegant script.

I place it in front of him and say, “Here you go.”

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