I sit in the booth and drink my coffee and watch Harbor Hill move past the window.
A woman walking a dog that's really walking her. A kid on a bike, too cold for it, loving it anyway. The Santa hat on the fountain statue, cheerful and defiant against the dull February sky.
Twenty-three. I've thought about today for weeks, turned it over in my head, tried to make sense of it. My birthday has always been simple. Rome made dinner or took me somewhere nice, birthday cake at whatever restaurant we picked,everything I wished for wrapped up in an evening with my brother.
This year is different. This year my birthday shares a day with a grief that wasn't mine, but has become mine because I love the people it belongs to.
I also know the Holt men well enough to know what February fifteenth and sixteenth might look like inside that house. I wasn't going to wedge my birthday candles into the middle of it.
So I told Callahan I wanted the day with Erin and Rome. Told him Will needed him. Told him I'd see him tomorrow and it would be fine. Begged him not to get me a present, as long as we met at midnight between our birthdays.
He'd driven me home when he found out I'd walked to meet him at midnight, and with one last hug that lasted longer than any other, he'd driven back to be with his father.
I finish my coffee, leave Ruth a tip that will annoy her, and cross the street to my apartment.
The restaurant ison the quieter end of Harbor Hill, the fanciest the town has to offer. White tablecloths, candles on every table, the kind of menu where everything has a wine pairing and nothing costs enough to make Rome flinch.
He's already there with Erin, tucked into a too-big corner table that feels private without being hidden. Erin stands and pulls me into a hug that smells like her perfume and feels like home. Rome stands and kisses the top of my head and murmurs happy birthday against my hair and pulls my chair out for me. I sit and feel good. Simple and good.
"You look beautiful," Erin tells me.
"Obviously," I say, keeping the mood light.
"The humility," Rome drawls. "Really moving."
"It's my birthday. I'm not required to be humble on my birthday."
Erin gives me a small wrapped box, and inside is a bracelet with a pressed flower sealed into the clasp. A dahlia. It was the first bucket I ever trimmed in her shop, when I was new to Harbor Hill and new to her and didn't know yet that she would become one of my favorite people on earth. I have to press my lips together very hard because I'm not going to cry in the first fifteen minutes.
Rome gives me earrings with diamonds and my birthstone, amethyst, delicate and perfect. I stare at them and blink hard.
"Don't you dare cry on me, Lil."
"I'm not crying," I say, fooling no one. "I have a condition."
"You have the same condition every time we do something nice for you."
"It's chronic."
He gives my shoulder a gentle shove and composes himself, not letting a trace of his own emotions show. Erin and I exchange a look, rolling our eyes but watching him fondly.
Twenty minutes into dinner, the door opens and Ramsey walks in first. Then Poppy, grinning so wide I can see it from across the restaurant, carrying a gift bag the size of a small child.
Behind them, Gran, moving with quiet elegance, one hand on her purse and the other on Vera's arm. Beth is behind them, already scanning the room for our table.
I catch Erin's eye. She's smiling into her wine glass, not surprised at all.
"You didn't," I breathe, my throat tightening.
"I may have coordinated a few things."
Poppy descends first, pulling me out of my chair for a hug that lifts me off my feet, kissing both my cheeks, shoving the gift bag into my arms.
"Happy birthday, you beautiful psychopath. Open it later, it's inappropriate."
Gran cups my face and studies me, her eyes sharp and tender at once.
"Twenty-three. Still a baby."
