“Next year, we are going to have to go bigger and better!” Ember gave me an embrace, and they walked away, leaving me alone once again with Jemma. Beckett stood next to her, watching me just as intently as she was.
Ember had saidwe.
I looked around again at the group that had curated here. My friends. Friends who wanted to celebrate me and be here for me. People who loved me. A family I had built over the years that Ryker had somehow pulled all together to show me just how loved I was.
A tear finally slipped down my cheek, and Jemma was beside me instantly, wiping it away.
“We’ll make next year even better.” She smiled softly at me. This wasn’t her idea, but now that it was a thing, I could see the wheels spinning in her head. She was excited by this. We’d spentso many birthdays just me and her, and now we’d get to share them with others.
Except Ryker still wasn’t here.
He’s going to be here.
“He’s going to be here,” Beckett reassured the same sentiment I was just thinking.
I took another deep breath.
He was. He was going to be here. He wasn’t going to let me down. He wasn’t like the others who had been in my life. Others who had hurt me.
Ryker had shown me at every possible turn that he was nothing like them. On days like today, I needed to remember that things happened, people were late, there was traffic, or his work went over. I would never fault him for that.
He set this party up for me.
He did this all for me.
“Odette!” My head whipped to the sound of my name coming from the front room. I don’t think I’d ever moved so quickly to the entryway of my kitchen before. I could see the entire front of the house from here, even Ryker standing in the front doorway.
He had his phone out, hair partially in a bun on top of his head, but strands splayed out. He looked frantic. His stride toward me had him in front of me in four steps, and his arms wrapped around me. Mine instinctively wrapped around his neck, pulling him down toward me.
I leaned into him, breathing him in.
He was here.
“My phone died while I was streaming.” He started and quickly continued. “It was plugged in, but then the plug wasn’t all the way secured, and then when I got to my car, I didn’t have my charger since I took it out last week, and I’m pretty sure it’s still plugged in next to your bed, and the stream went on too long, and I’m so sorry.”
I pulled away, grabbing his face with my hands, staring into his eyes. He looked so worried, disheveled, and panicked.
“It’s okay, my love,” I said softly.
My shoulders eased hearing him explain what happened. Everything we had thought had happened. His stream had ended late, and his phone had died. He was here now, though, and that’s all I was worried about.
Tears welled again in my eyes, one slipping out.
“Oh, baby.” He wiped it away, just as Jemma had done moments ago. “I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry.” I shook my head, trying to convince him that these weren’t sad tears. I leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips. “I love you so much.”
“I love you.”
Ryker tightened his grip on me, and my face was once again buried in his neck as I held on. The lights dimmed around us, and a chorus started behind me.
Happy Birthday.
A song I hadn’t heard sung to me in years.
I pulled away from Ryker as Jemma walked over to us, cookie cake in hand. She handed the cake to Ryker. He took the cake and turned toward me, singing directly to me with everyone else behind him.
I stared up at him.
