“Your birthday is coming up,” he said randomly. “We need to have a party. It’s your last year of being in your thirties. Besides, Doc, you have a cool birthday.”
Mav always thought my Halloween birthday was the coolest thing. He teased me about being a trick and not a treat, but I knew better. He loved to sample my sweetness every chance he got. I hadn’t put much thought into my birthday, but I never really did. I knew that a party wasn’t something that I wanted.
“The only thing I want for my birthday is to find Elijah’s passport to Octavius.” It was exactly how I felt too. Freeing him would be the best gift ever.
“After we free Elijah, can I take you away for the weekend?” I could tell it was important to Maverick to do something nice for my birthday, so it was important for me to let him.
“Sure, but not Charlotte!” I narrowed my eyes at him when he glanced at me. “I don’t want to be beaten to death by your past conquests who’ve been missing you these past four months. I bet we’d be tripping over them everywhere we went.”
“There wasn’t that many,” he protested, but without conviction. I knew that he had been with a lot of men in the past twenty-two years, but I tried hard not to let it bother me.
“I was always looking for you, Noah.”
“In clubs?”
“Not just clubs. I went to museums, libraries, diners I thought you’d like, and parks. I looked for you everywhere,” he replied. “You said you always wanted to live in Charlotte and I always went there hoping to run into you. I never felt like I had the right to track you down after disappearing and never making an attempt to find you, but a not-so-accidental run in would be acceptable.”
He’d never gone into that much detail about his Charlotte trips before and I never delved too deeply, because although I accepted it, my heart didn’t want to hear details of him with other men. “That’s actually sort of romantic. You can take me away for my birthday, but not there.”
“Fair enough,” he replied with a shrug. “I already had a spot in mind and it wasn’t Charlotte.”
“Where?”
“If I told you then it wouldn’t be a surprise then would it?” He used an exasperated tone that a parent would use on an annoying child.
“Guess we better get busy when we get back home then,” I said in a tone to match his.
“Oh yeah, I’m always ready to get busy with you, Doc.” He practically purred his words and my happy dick was more than willing to oblige him.
Needless to say, demolition didn’t start again until a few hours later.
