Page 17 of Sweet Oblivion

Didn’t matter. I had cake and two of the coolest gifts ever.

Then Cam called to invite me to his family’s ranch that weekend for a barbecue.

“We gotta celebrate your birthday,” he said. “Wish I could be there sooner.”

“You’re on tour. You don’t need—”

“I want to. Now, can you make it?”

“Yeah, sure.”

When we hung up, I smiled. I had Steve and Cam and Cam’s family to balance out my self-absorbed parents. Life was good.

I savored every bite of my cake, licking my fork clean.

As I took my plate to the sink, Steve told me his mom used to make him a butterscotch cake with chocolate icing when he was young.

“Cool. Something we have in common,” I said. “Great taste in cake.”

He paused, bite halfway to his mouth. “Guess so. You’re not interested in an actual meal since you ate dessert already, are you?”

I snorted, and he smirked. He knew I’d been a bottomless pit of eating for the past few months, especially since I’d started running with him a few mornings a week.

I’d told him I needed the exercise, but mainly I wanted to feel connected to someone. Steve had never brought it up again, but he always made sure he had the blue sports drink I preferred waiting for me on the counter each morning.

“How about I heat up some of those filet mignons the chef left?” Steve asked. “With those potatoes you like?”

I grinned. “Sounds good. With the creamed spinach. I like that stuff.”

Steve tousled my hair. “You’re a good kid, Nash.”

I nodded at him. “Thanks. You’re not bad yourself.”

“Why don’t you put away the rest of the cake while I get dinner started?”

I slid the cake in the fridge and pounded back up the stairs to grab my phone. I found more texts from Aya and Cam waiting.

I smiled.

Yeah. This birthday did not suck. At all.

7

Aya

“Are you nervous?” Mum asked.

I stared down at the pixels that made up Nash’s face on my phone. His sun-streaked, light brown hair was messy, thanks to the bit of natural curl I’d detected around his ears. It was long in the front, falling into his warm brown eyes. They were well spaced over his nose, reminding me of the statues I’d seen with my mother when we stopped over in Rome a couple of years ago on our way to England.

I’d had to pay respects to my father’s second child with his second wife, and the only good part of the trip had been the art history lesson.

“About what?” I asked. I forced my gaze away from my phone, which I’d turned back on as soon as the pilot rose to cruising altitude. I’d planned to look out at the Himalayas one last time, but leaving Nepal caused a deep ache in my chest. The village had been home for nearly three years. I’d celebrated more birthdays there than anywhere else, including my seventeenth, just two months ago.

“Oh, I don’t know. New city, new school, nearly the end of the year, college applications—you pick which one to talk about first.”

I stopped tapping my foot on the plush carpet that lined the central aisle of my grandfather’s private jet and turned toward my mother. Typically, Mum would’ve taken a commercial flight, unwilling to spend unnecessary funds on private planes, regardless of the fact that her family owned multiple jets. But this trip was different. I just wasn’t sure why.

“I am a little nervous about all the school and social stuff,” I admitted. I hesitated, wondering if I should mention my Holyoke pen pal, Nash.

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