Page 38 of Awestruck at Dusk
I nodded. “So, who planned the party?”
“Well, it was Nathan’s idea,” he said, jerking his chin at him. I mouthed “thank you” to Nathan and squeezed his hand. “But then we all wanted to participate when he told us about it. I called in a favor to rent this space on such short notice. Lily jumped in to help Nathan organize everything. William’s in charge of the food, wine, and music.”What!“Alice, his assistant, helped out a lot too. She’s a nice girl.”
Wow.
A server approached us holding a camera when I was about to ask a follow-up question. She requested Nathan and me to hand in our phones and gave us a laminated number in return after we did.
“You’ll be able to claim your phones on your way out with this number. Just hand it in to any of the servers,” she explained. “And this is your camera, miss. We have an extra battery in the back for you if you run out of power.” I thanked her, and Nathan offered to hold the camera for me.
“It’s a phoneless party,” Nathan explained.
“Youhanded in your phone?” I asked my father with skepticism.
He laughed and said, “I did. It was Lily’s idea.”
“But she didn’t want you to miss out on taking photographs,” Nathan added. “So I stole this camera from you yesterday when I went down to your apartment to talk to Zara. We also rented out some Polaroid cameras so that the guests can take photographs. The servers will go around at some point with a small basket collecting any photographs that people want you to have.”
That was the cutest ideaever!
“Wow. Thank you. I love it.”
Yes, it all sounded great, but I still had doubts about it all being excessive. I wanted to be happy and excited, but I was having the hardest time doing so.
“And … David’s back with your birthday present, kiddo,” my father said, looking over my shoulder with a smile. Sophie and Cecile had just walked inside the venue.
“What!” I shouted. Nathan told me he’d see me in a bit, and I dashed their way as fast as my shoes allowed me to and greeted them with the tightest hug. “Hey!”
Shit, I obviously started crying. For a thousand reasons.
When they visited in October, I was feeling down too, and seeing them had been very helpful, but that wasnothingcompared to how crushed I’d been the past few weeks. To how much I needed them this time. I was barely holding myself together.
Nathan had been a great support system, but he was busy all the time. His schedule went from hectic to insane. He wanted to get the big promotion to partner, and he kept promising how once he did, he wouldn’t have to travel as much or work so late, but I had my doubts. I never complained about it, though. I knew he had to do whatever he had to do. He loved what he did, and I was happy for him.
“I’m so sorry, Billie,” Cecile said. “I wished we could’ve come before when Caleb—”
“I know. It’s okay.” I patted my face carefully to remove the tears, trying not to mess with my makeup, but when I saw my fingers, they were stained with my smudged-up mascara. “Damn it.”
Cecile walked away to get me a napkin.
“When did you guys arrive? And for how long are you staying?” I asked Sophie.
“Last night. We leave on Monday, and I know it sucks,” she said. “We slept at a hotel yesterday, but we wondered if you wanted us to stay with—”
“Yes!” I said, almost desperately. “Stay with me.”
Sophie laughed. I had to take advantage of Sophie and Cecile’s express stay in New York. And I never thought I’d be thankful that Zara wasn’t staying in my guest room.
“Yay!” Sophie squealed and clapped twice excitedly. Cecile came back with a napkin and helped me wipe the mascara off my lower lids.
“I think you’re good now,” Cecile said. “And no more crying, okay? We’ll cry all day tomorrow if you want. But let’s have some fun tonight. You deserve it. There’snothingwrong with celebrating your birthday, okay? Caleb would’ve wanted this.”
As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. If I could somehow speak to Caleb right now, I knew he’d be pissed about seeing me moping around for him. He’d hate that and would definitely want me to have fun tonight. Ihadto get out of my head and enjoy the night.
The only way I could do that was by forcing myself to forget. And at the time, I didn’t realize how wrong I was, but I was trying to cover up the pain with wine. And that’s precisely what I had in mind for tonight.
“Okay, let’s go.” I linked my arms with theirs, and the three of us walked to meet my guests. “Ren’s waiting for you,” I whispered to Sophie.
“I know! We spent the entire day together. I miss him so much all the time. I don’t want to leave!”
