Page 262 of Finding Us

“What can I say?” Garret leans down and kisses my cheek. “I missed my wife.”

Harper laughs. “I swear, you guys are more in love every time I see you.”

“I need to thank you for getting the room ready for tonight,” Garret says. “It looks great.”

“You did all this?” I ask Harper.

“Yeah, I kind of took over the party. You know how much I love to plan stuff like this.”

“I always tell her she should be a party planner,” Sean says. “And I could do the catering.”

She kisses him. “If you keep saying that, I might just do it.”

“Are you changing your mind about broadcasting?” Garret asks.

“Maybe. It’s such a competitive field that I’ll probably end up working as an intern for 10 years. And I don’t really want to do that. Plus, I’ll have to travel all the time.”

Since we’re on the topic of careers, I tell them my news about med school. Grace is standing there and she hears the news as well. So now I’ve told everyone. I can finally stop stressing about it.

We sit down for dinner. Then we have cake and I open my presents.

It’s my first real birthday party. And if I count breakfast, I’ve had two parties today.

After the party, Frank, Ryan, and Grace go back to the hotel, but Sean and Harper insist we stop at a coffee shop that’s on the way home. The place has live music on Friday nights. But when we get there, Garret goes home and leaves me with Sean and Harper. He says he forgot something and has to go get it.

An hour later, he’s still not back. I call him and he says he had to go to the grocery store to get stuff for tomorrow. I can’t figure out why he’d go shopping tonight instead of tomorrow but I don’t question him.

The band finishes playing and people start to leave.

“I don’t think Garret’s coming back here,” I say to Harper. “We should go.”

She checks her phone and smiles. “Yeah, we can go. We’ll drop you off on the way to our hotel.”

They drive me home and when I invite them inside, Harper says, “We would, but we’re really tired from the trip. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah, okay.” I go to the door and Garret opens it. “Garret, why didn’t you come back to the coffee shop?”

“I was busy.” He takes my hand and brings me to the bedroom.

“Busy doing what?”

He flips the light switch on the wall, making the room dark, then flips another switch and a soft blue light glows above us. I look up and see blue lights suspended from the ceiling.

“You seemed to like it last year when I did this for your birthday, so I thought I’d do it again.”

“I love it!” I hug him. “It’s just like in our dorm rooms.”

“Let’s check it out.” He leads me to the bed and we lie next to each other and hold hands, gazing up at the ceiling. “What do you think? You like this better than the earrings?”

“I like them both.”

“You like the lights better. It’s okay. You can say it. But I had to get you the earrings. We had a deal.”

“I love the earrings and the lights.” I flip on my side and hug him. “And I loveyou. Thanks for a great birthday.”

“It’s not over yet. Everyone’s here for the weekend so the party will just keep going. And you still have an hour left of your actual birthday.”

“What do you want to do?”

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