This morning I am at breakfast with Satan. I should have checked the forecast, clearly it was only hovering around the third degree this morning.
Flowers?
Big lilies, Gerberas in four colors, roses in three colors, huge ones, carnations and snowballs.
Presents?
Yes. Of course. I detailed my beautiful presents for him.
Very lovely. Yes, I do like that, actually. He did well. Dinner?
Deferred until he has a day off. I don't enjoy walking into a restaurant at eight o'clock on a weeknight. You know that.
So did he cook?
Yes. We both did.
Cake?
Chocolate mousse and brownie cake. There's some left, if you can believe it. (How Ben got that cake back to the house from downtown along with everything else is a marvel, to be sure.)
Did he put candles on it?
There was flame. Are you finished with this line of questioning? Does he pass? Are you the birthday police now?
I just want to be assured that Ben is looking after you in the manner that you deserve.
Unlike you, you mean?
Pardon?
Nothing. The server picked that second to refill our coffees and I stared at Caleb smugly.
Ben was the one with the butler, remember? He knows what he's doing.
Batman had staff before Ben was even a shadow across your face. Ben had a DO NOT DISTURB sign welded to his hotel room door handle for eight years running. He wouldn't know the finer things in life the way some of us do.
Batman had an assistant who was afraid of everything. I would hardly call that staff. Dude wasn't fetching his fucking tea or wiping his ass unless he was on set. Leave Ben alone.
Bridget, there is no need to be crass. I'm just trying to be sure that you had a good birthday because if not I would arrange for a small event. Obviously you had a good time.
The best. Especially the parts I didn't tell you about. Just...wow.
I am brave this morning. Coffee beans and lack of sleep or food bring about a recklessness I have no business trying on.
He frowned into his coffee cup and looked out the window. And then he looked back. He's staring and not talking and after several minutes of tension-filled silence I am uncomfortable and working hard not to squirm.
I just can't believe it, princess.
What?
You. You're all grown up.
That's something you are supposed to say when someone turns twenty-one, not forty.
I'm sure I said it when you turned twenty-one.
Yes. Right after your brother sold me to you for the weekend.
He smiled. That was a fun weekend.
How in the hell do you remember them, specifically?
You were there. I only forget the ones I spend alone.
That sounds terrible.
It is. I want to change it. I hear the hint of his accent. Not often I can catch it, it's mostly disappeared over the past fifteen years. Just like those weekends.
I need to go home. I have painting to finish.
I will see your progress tomorrow, I suppose.
Sure.
I'll take you home then.
I follow him outside and then he lets me through the door and I look up at the mountains, feeling his eyes on me.
It's astounding.
What?
How far we've come.
It's a deplorable lack of progress, is what it is. And you have all lost your minds. I have a birthday every year and suddenly it's being made such a big deal of. I'm uncomfortable with this.
Forty is a milestone, princess. And you've granted me civility. Thank you.
It's easier to pretend we get along. And I heard all of this yesterday, almost word for word, from Lochlan. Who does it better than you because he doesn't turn around and try to ruin my life with his next breath. That's why you're alone, Cale.
His eyes go from pleased to ashamed. It's like a switch and I throw it violently and with such joy. Precisely the same way he approaches me in the dark and during those times when I didn't want to be with him. The formative years. The ones that