Page 59 of Dandelions and Smoke

His brows rise, and he cocks his head to the side as Mark realizes the truth in what he’s saying.

“Ha, you’re right,” Mark agrees.

“You do that, and I’m definitely not telling you anything about what or where she’s left you a little gift.”

His jaw drops in disbelief right as our phones go off with an emergency call. Despite our bantering, we all get up to say bye to the girls and jump into action, ready to face the fire together, on the same team.

I throw my arm around Billy and pat his shoulders, making sure he knows all that teasing is only in good fun, before we get into our vehicles and head out.

The last thing I think about before arriving at the location of the emergency call is whether my cake this year will really say fifty-three.

THIRTEEN

RORY

“Pinky, where do you want the cakes?” Billy asks as he walks through the door carrying one box while Blake follows behind him with the other.

I’ve enlisted their help before the girls arrive to get all the heavy lifting out of the way. Hosting Chief’s party at our house is a total trap. Blake can’t make an excuse to skip it, and he can’t escape it either. The look he gave me when I told him the plan was priceless. It was as though I’d popped a little kid’s balloon. His eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped, and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that enjoyed every second of it.

Little sister—one. Big brother—zero.

His girlfriend Emma’s maniacal, knowing laughter was the cherry on top.

I can tell by the heaviness of his footsteps over the last few days, and now by the obvious scowl resting on his face, that this isn’t something he’s taking well, but that’s too bad. Chief and I have been dating for two months already, and this overprotective brother role he’s found himself in is no fun and nothing like the goofball I know and love.

“Put the cakes right over here on this table so they’re out of the way until later.” I point, feeling giddy about how delicious they look.

It turns out my boyfriend has a major sweet tooth. I thought the hardest part would be the party planning, but in truth, it was getting him to narrow down his favorite cake flavor. Tris and I both stopped at the fire station on several occasions, trying to get him to pick one, only for him to decide he liked them all. I swear, he’s a thirty-five-year-old only on paper, and more like a kid in a candy store.

So, because of that, before me is what’s now called The Chief’s Sampler. It’s several cakes put together like one of those fancy variety cheesecakes I see in stores during the holidays. It was Ainsley’s idea, sort of. She made a joke about needing to give him one of everything, and I ran with it. Both she and Tris looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I told them my idea, but being the good besties that they are, they buckled in and helped me get to work on it.

One cake consists of slices of red velvet cake with tangy cream cheese frosting, dark chocolate cake with espresso buttercream, and carrot cake with cinnamon pecan cream cheese frosting. I made sure to triple-check that the pecans won’t kill Billy before adding them to the recipe. The other cake consists of lemon sponge cake with raspberry meringue buttercream, banana cake with salted-caramel dark chocolate ganache, and pink champagne cake with strawberry white chocolate ganache. After hours of egg cracking, chocolate melting, fruit blending, and most obviously baking, they look perfect.

I’m so excited for him to see this cake that it’s unreal. I sigh, thinking about how nice it is to see him when he’s distracted and happy. In all honesty, this party is my way of distracting him from the fact that, once again, he won’t be able to spend his birthday with Scout. There’s so much that Chief and I never put into words, yet somehow, we understand each other anyway. I’ve spent most of my life filling every silence, never giving anyone the chance to hear what I couldn’t say. Chief does. He sees the parts of me I try to hide, and I see his. It goes both ways.

“Thanks, guys,” I say, bringing my clasped hands to my chin. “What do you think?”

“Se comerá un cacho de torta, se medirá el azúcar, se tomará la tila y se irá a la cama,”⁠1 Blake grumbles under his breath in Spanish that I only half understand.

“Hey!” I bark, my brows pinching together as I cross my arms. “I don’t need to understand all of that to know it wasn’t nice.”

His brows rise and fall like he’s been caught, and he nods his head as his hands go up. “I was just saying he’s going to love it.”

“Right, and I’ve been learning Spanish from Lettie and spent plenty of time with your mom to know that in Uruguay they call cake torta, and that the last part had something to do with drinking tea. So, you were saying?” I tilt my head to the side, a lopsided grin on my face, challenging him until his expression matches my own.

His grin is identical to mine as he shakes his head. “Tenés razón, You’re right,” he says, dragging a hand through his curly brown hair and down his face. “Sorry, Half-Pint.”

“Hmm,” I hum, pretending to be angry until he pulls me into a side hug as we admire the cakes together.

“If he doesn’t love this, then there really is something wrong with him,” he murmurs, his voice dropping warmly with affection.

“Yeah?” I fidget with my hair ties as panic slices through me, an immediate, icy trapdoor opening in my stomach, draining all the warmth from my limbs before Chief has even arrived to look at the table.

I look at the cake again, and suddenly, a suffocating static fills my ears, turning the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking wall clock into a deafening roar that scrambles my ability to think as I notice each slice’s edges. They’re uneven. Why wasn’t I more careful about making them all the same height? Because I’m careless. He’s going to take one look at this lumpy mess and see exactly how chaotic and disorganized my entire life is.

Logically, I know a birthday cake cannot end a relationship. Still, my mind instantly bypasses logic to present a devastating certainty: he is going to force a polite smile, and I am going to die inside. He’ll take a bite just to be nice… but I’ll know it’s not good enough.

“Hey,” Blake says sharply, startling me from my spiral. “It’s perfect.”