I leaned back in my chair and let out a slow breath.
Across the room, somebody started singing along to Mariah Carey. Poorly. Very poorly.
I chuckled under my breath. Maybe spending my birthday here hadn't been such a terrible idea after all.
Mara returned a few minutes later carrying a small plate, and for a moment I assumed she'd mixed up somebody else's order.
A slice of chocolate cake sat in the center. A single candle flickered on top, its tiny flame dancing in the warm air.
I stared at it. Then I looked up at her. "Mara..."
She laughed before I could say anything else.
"House tradition," she said.
"There is absolutely no way that's true."
"It is tonight."
I shook my head, fighting a smile. "You really didn't have to do this."
"Humor me, birthday boy."
The answer was so matter-of-fact that it caught me off guard.
A few people at nearby tables glanced in my direction, probably drawn by the candle, but nobody burst into song. Nobody clapped. Nobody made a scene.
Mara leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Don't worry. I'm not making the whole place sing."
"Thank God."
That earned another laugh.
She set the plate in front of me before straightening. "Happy birthday, Kieran."
"Thank you." The words came out quieter than I intended.
After she walked away, I sat there looking at the cake for several seconds.
It wasn't really about the dessert. It wasn't even about the candle. It was the simple fact that somebody had noticed.
Mara had known me for about fifteen minutes, yet she'd seen a kid spending his birthday alone and decided he deserved something a little more memorable than a whiskey sour and a quiet ride home.
The gesture was small. Objectively, it was probably the smallest thing in the world. Yet it settled somewhere deep inside me, touching a place I usually kept carefully guarded.
I swallowed around the sudden tightness in my throat and glanced up, hoping nobody had witnessed me getting emotional over free cake.
That was when I noticed him.
He sat alone at the far end of the bar, half-shadowed beneath the warm glow of a string of white Christmas lights. A dark sweater stretched across broad shoulders, and a baseball cap sat low on his head, as though he preferred not to attract attention.
Which was strange.
He wasn't the kind of man people overlooked.
Even from across the room, something was striking about him. Not flashy or loud. Just impossible to ignore.
His hands were wrapped around a glass. Large hands. Strong hands. The sort that looked capable without trying to advertise it. His jaw was shadowed with stubble, and there was an ease to the way he occupied the space around him that made everyone else seem restless by comparison.
