Page 6 of Married to Number 22
Right.
I’m not really up for a conversation regarding my utensil placement at three in the morning.
But if this Luna is the same Luna I grew up with a decade ago bringing that—albeit logical—point up, me trying to explain that my moving in just consisted of me dumping shit in random drawers isn’t going to fly. Pretty soon we’ll be reorganizing my kitchen and distracting her from that task will be a lesson in futility.
Once she gets something into her head, she’s like a dog to a bone.
A really big, really tasty bone.
I don’t have a battle in me tonight.
So, I go for diversion before she digs up that bone.
“Why’d you only grab one?”
That vee between her eyes deepens and she tilts her head to the side, studying me. “What?”
“That’s a big ass cupcake, tiny tornado, and it’s the middle of the night.” I move over to her, snag a knife and a second fork, tapping her lightly on the shoulder with the fork before I open the cabinet above her head and grab out two plates. “So we’re going to share.”
There’s a long pause.
Long enough for me to pull out the candles, set them in the top of the plastic container, and start slicing the giant cupcake in half.
Should I be eating this in the middle of the night when I have a game tomorrow—er—today?
Nope. Definitely not.
Does it look too good to pass up?
Definitely yes.
And, fuck it.
It’s my birthday.
I’m eating a fucking cupcake.
“We’re going to share?”
Her tone is so strange, sonotthe Luna I remember that I glance over at her, trying to ferret out why it sounds wrong.
But the moment my eyes hit hers she glances away and I lose out on any hope of that.
Hmm.
“Yeah, Luns,” I say. “We’re going to share.”
She looks back, and it’s like a different woman’s appeared—light and bright has returned, and her smile is wide, glazed over and confident, butfake.“Well,” she says lightly, “if you’re sharing, I get the bigger half.”
I snort, know the moment’s passed.
If she doesn’t want to explain, she’ll keep that shit locked down.
And it’s late.
I have hockey tomorrow—today. I don’t have time for decades old contracts or arguing about sharing a cupcake or reorganizing my kitchen or figuring out how in the fuck Luna found me now, after all this time.
So instead of arguing, I just keep slicing, peeling back the paper and lifting one half—the bigger half—onto one of the plates. “Eat, tiny tornado,” I order softly, holding it up.
