Page 71 of The Way I Am Now
“Oh my God, you didn’t,” I say. “Peanut butter cups?”
“Make a wish,” she answers, squeezing in next to me on the love seat, draping her arm around my shoulder.
I look over at her and think,I have nothing left to wish for. But I don’t say that. I lean forward and blow out the candles anyway. She kisses me on the cheek, then stands up to get a bag from the corner and pulls out plates and utensils—not paper—that she must’ve brought up here earlier.
“You really planned this all out, didn’t you?” I ask her.
She shrugs, but she can’t hide her smile as she plucks the candles out of the cake and sets them on a napkin. “Okay, since it’s your birthday, you have to make the first cut, and then whoever’s birthday comes next has to take the knife out.”
“I’ve never heard of that,” Dominic says.
Parker shakes her head. “Me neither.”
“Really?” Eden asks. “We always did that in my family.”
“I like that tradition,” I tell her. I try to position the knife to make a decent-size slice.
“Bigger,” Parker shouts.
“Okay, how’s this?”
“Perfect,” Eden says. “So, who’s birthday is next?”
Dominic raises his hand and says, “July.”
“April,” Parker adds.
“Guess it’s me, then. November,” Eden explains, placing her hand over mine on the handle of the knife.
She passes around the plates of cake and distributes the forks, and I can’t help thinking that this is the best birthday I’ve ever had. She watches me as I take a bite. “Do you like it?” she asks.
“It’s delicious.” I take another bite, and now she does too. “But I thought you were anti peanut butter and chocolate?”
“You might have converted me.”
“Josh,” Parker says, “you know Eden made this cake, right?”
“Wait,youmade this?”
“Well, not from scratch, but yeah.”
“Oh my God, it tastes like it’s from a real bakery.”
She takes another bite. “Okay, it is pretty good. For chocolate peanut butter.”
When we get inside my room, Eden sets her purse on my dresser and slides her shoes off, peels her sweater down her arms and hangs it on the back of my chair. I love that she seems comfortable here. If it weren’t so soon, I’d ask her to move in with me.
“Thank you for tonight.” I wrap my arms around her waist from behind. “You’re so thoughtful, you know that?” I kiss her hair, her neck. “So sweet.”
“Really?” She spins around to face me. “Thoughtfulandsweet? No one’s said that to me in a very long time.”
“Well, you are.”
“No, you are,” she says, touching the side of my face with her non-bandaged hand.
“You’re physically incapable of taking a compliment, aren’t you?”
She looks up and smiles in this way that makes me feel almost lightheaded as she brings her arms up around my shoulders. My hands find her hips automatically, and we sort of clumsily sway from side to side a little as we pull each other closer.
