Page 107 of If You Love Me

Callie’s smile is so wide and beautiful, her joy and excitement infectious. She bounces in her seat and screws her eyes shut tight before she blows out the candle.

Dred and Lexi cut the cake and pass it out to the kids and then the adults.

After cake, Callie digs into her mountain of presents.

She tears through the paper of Connor’s gift, bottom lip pushed out as she tries to figure out what it is. Connor steps in to help her set it up.

“Oh wow! Can I keep this in my room, Lexi?” Callie bounces up and down and wraps her arms around Connor’s waist. “This is the best!”

“If that’s where you want to keep it, absolutely.” Lexi gives her two thumbs-up, all smiles.

Taking up more space than is reasonable are life-size cutouts of the two of them. Callie’s dressed in her hockey gear, and Connor’s wearing his #1 Fan T-shirt. It’s fantastic, and I almost wish I’d thought of it.

Callie opens gifts from her friends, oohing and ahhing over the stuffies and games and toys. Lexi hands her the gift from Kristoff, and Callie tears into it.

“Oh this is so cool! I love it!” It’s a special-edition Connor Grace jersey, complete with sequins. He probably had it custom embellished.

The girls pamper her with more fun gifts, and she rushesover and gives me a huge hug after she opens mine. Callie is big into Legos, and I picked up the Terror hockey rink kit.

“Can we build it together?” she asks.

“Absolutely.”

I exchange a look with Lexi, hoping Dred and Hollis are the only ones who pick up on that.

The final gift is from Tristan. It’s huge with a big bow.

She tears through the paper and opens the box. “Oh my gosh! No way!” She pulls out brand new goalie gear. Top of the line. It’s extravagant, especially for a kid who will grow out of it in less than a year, but her joy and Tristan’s are worth it.

“Dude, that’s like five grand in gear,” Nate mutters to his brother.

“I bought you a car,” Tristan counters with a furrowed brow.

Nate opens his mouth to argue, but shrugs instead. “True.”

When all the presents are unwrapped, Callie passes out the loot bags, which again, are ostentatious and over the top.

“I will never be able to top this birthday,” Lexi says as she surveys the mountain of gifts.

“You won’t have to, now that you have us,” Tristan assures her. “We take care of our own. You’re family, Coach. We’ve got your back.”

The girls hug Lexi, echoing Tristan, and I stand back, knowing how emotional this makes her. I want to sayfuck itand step in. But I’d be doing more harm than good.

I have a deeper appreciation now for how hard it must have been for Hollis last year when he was in this position—feeling like he had to hide his feelings for Peggy, wishing he could love her the way he does now, afraid to blow up our friendship, unsure if I’d ever get over the betrayal.

But they made it out the other side, which gives me hope for me and Lexi.

Once all the kids have gone and we’ve cleaned up, we take the gifts out to Lexi’s car.

We’re halfway to Lexi’s vehicle when we run into DonnieRichards and his kids. “Hey, how’s it going?” I rearrange the gifts so I can shake his hand and say hi to him and his boys.

“Roman? Hey, this is a surprise. Someone have a birthday?” He glances between me and Lexi. “Hey Forrester.”

“Hey Donnie.” She smiles, but it looks strained. “My youngest sister. She plays at this arena.”

“Right, yeah.” He nods slowly. “I didn’t realize that.”

His son tugs on his sleeve. “Dad, we gotta go in or we’ll be late.”

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