Page 23 of Milk For The Billionaire's Little

Seth was good and done with me. I frustrated him to no end. I’d been working less, finding my priorities where they belonged. That was good and something Seth had been pushing me to do for a long time, but it was an adjustment period for both of us.

“Fine. I’ll get you coffee.”

He did, and I went back to my planning.

A week later, it was birthday day, and I planned to celebrate with him all day. I’d slept over at his place, and whenIwoke in the morning, I snuck out to his favorite bakery, getting him the muffins he loved and his two favorite coffees, because you shouldn’t have to choose on your birthday, and then after I helped him get ready, I drove him to work. Not my driver. Me.

I’d been to the nursing home quite a few times now, making Friday family bingo a regular part of my calendar, and I was greeted by multiple residents as we headed to his office. Normally, I’d have left him at the door with a hug, but I wanted him to see the delivery I had waiting for him.

“You’re ridiculous.” His words didn’t match his expression as he took in the balloons and flowers I’d arranged to have delivered before normal hours, with the help of one of his coworkers and a local florist who I did a lot of business with at work.

“Ridiculously in love,” I said, hugging him and kissing the top of his head. “Happy birthday, my sweet boy. I will pick you up later.”

Instead of going to work, I went home. I had a cake to bake.

There were a thousand bakeries I could order from—both near and far. Heck, I could hire the famous cake baker from the Food Channel. Easy peasy. But I wanted to do this for him.

I’d watched YouTube videos aplenty, ordered the special cake pan, and piping tools. I was doing this. The cake was supposed to look like his favorite green cat. After I piped on the green icing, it was cat-esque at best. And there was more frosting on the plate than on parts of the cat.

Cake decorating wasnotmy gift.

I poured sprinkles along the plate where the frosting was in an attempt to make it look like it was intentional and moved on to my next task: streamers.

I didn’t even know you could still buy them, but he told me about a birthday he had when he was young and how much fun he had with the streamers, tearing them down and turning them into some sort of doll reminiscent of the corn husker doll.

I went to his new room, the one he’d yet to see, and put upso manystreamers. There was no way he wasn’t going to be able to build an army of those little dolls if he wanted to.

The room was ready to go: a shaggy star-shaped rug, an entire constellation on the ceiling when you turned the lights off, squishy bean bag chairs big enough for both of us, some toys, a couch. Nobody walking in would call it a nursery, but it was definitely youthful and definitely a playroom.

I was excited to see his face.

On the rug sat his Little gifts—a stuffed animal I had made just for him, a book I had illustrated of the story I told him about the hedgehog prince lost in the library, and some socks with the same green cat as I’d attempted to put on the cake.

The only thing left was dinner. And that was easy—macaroni and cheese from a box, with dinosaurs and baby trees, AKA broccoli, his newest green vegetable of choice.

Everything was ready to be heated up, giving me just enough time to shower and pick him up.

He came out with a handful of cards, most from residents, beaming.

We went to his apartment first, hopefully for one of the last times, and gathered Rosco before heading to my place.

We stopped off at the kitchen first, so I could get it cooking. He recognized that cat from my failed cake attempt right away, throwing his arms around me and thanking me a thousand times.

“Youmademe a cake!” He kissed my cheek with a loud smack. “A cake!”

“It’s your birthday, of course there is cake.”

“Butyou made me a cake.”

“I did. And now I’m going to make you dinner. Did you want chicken and mac and cheese, or did you want shrimp scampi?”

I did have the supplies for that, one of the easier dishes I knew how to make, but to no surprise, he picked the chicken nuggets.

I got the water on the stove to boil and put the chicken in the oven.

“Can you help me?” I asked.

He nodded.

---