I move to follow him as Julia lowers herself to greet Koda and Drumstick, but she bolts up as soon as my body pivots toward the staircase.
“Honey, wait,” she calls after me. Reaching into the space behind the television, she produces a small wrapped box, topped with a bow, and my brow quirks. “You have one more to open, then you can go.”
“I think you guys have given me enough,” I say with a chuckle, trying desperately to cover my discomfort with being so…spoiled.
“This one’s just from me, Tripp doesn’t get any credit on it,” she tells me with a playful grin.
My face pinches as I carefully tear through the cupcake-patterned paper, crumpling it in my hand before pulling open the small box inside. Jules’s hands clasp behind her back and she bounces in place on the balls of her feet while she watches me, her teeth tugging at her lip as she bites back a smile.
I let the silver bell hang from my finger as I inspect the four-pointed symbol on its front. The warmth in my chest is impossible to ignore.
“It’s the North Star,” she effuses. “I was going to do a great dane, but I thought this one might help you remember to always find your way back home to us.”
I’ve never been a superstitious person. I don’t avoid walking under ladders or find myself feeling nervous around black cats. I never worried about stepping on cracks in the pavement, and my mom was always fine.
All of the trinkets hanging off of Tripp’s bike never made any sense to me. They’ve always just seemed like distractions; but now, I think they may be the opposite. He’s not hanging useless crap off of his bike to make it look cool, he’s bringing his wife and his son with him on every ride, and maybe that’s what brings him home safely.
Threading my finger through the silver ring at the top of the bell, I let my thumb trail over the raised design with a smile crossing my face which eventually melts into an amused huff as my fingers wrap around the metal.
“My mom was ahorriblenavigator,” I tell her with a shake of my head. “She couldn’t read a map to save her life. I got a call from her one day – I’d had my license for maybe two weeks atthis point – and she told me she needed me to come get her, because she was stucktwo hoursaway from our house. When I got there, I asked her how in the world she ended up that far out.”
I will never forget the horror on my mom’s face when I finally found her ‘stranded’ in a superstore parking lot. There was less than a quarter of a tank of gas left in her car, because she constantly forgot to fill it, and she was ‘surviving off of’ a bag of potato chips that she’d purchased from inside the store while I was nervously navigating my way to her.
“She got lost after getting off of the highway, so she drove north and just…didn’t stop,” I cackle. “I had to explain, to the woman who helped teach me how to drive, that you don’tgonorth when you’re lost, youfindit.” My fingers wrap tightly around the metal, bouncing it in my grip as my laughter ebbs. “So you going with the North Star of all things is just…it’s one of those things, isn’t it?”
Every one of her features soften as she looks up at me, a wan smile pulling across her lips.
“I’m glad you talk about them,” she tells me. “Whenever you miss them or wish that they were here for something. I’m glad you share them with us.”
“You can talk about him, too.”
Her fingers follow the angle of my chin, pointing toward the small gemstone secured to the dainty chain around her neck. After offering it a loving stroke of her finger, her hands find their way to my jaw and she closes the distance between us with a soft kiss.
Birthdays have never been that big a deal to me. Sure, I’ll go out and have a few drinks, and I always make sure that I get my birthday sex, but I don’t remember waking up and feeling any different. I don’t remember waking up on a birthday and feeling special.
Maybe it’s because I was too busy with my sister. Maybe, in some darker corner of the universe, it’s because no one’s ever really cared that much.
I think this year is the start of that changing.
Chapter 38
TRIPP
“Don’t worry about it,” I say into my phone’s receiver. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Clicking to end the call, I let out an aggravated sigh. Water pelts the front window of the shop hard enough for the beating of it to drown out the music playing overhead. Wind howls through the trees at the street corner to send a few loose leaves flying across the pavement.
Light rainfall, my ass.
Do those weather dudes ever get it right?
Blowing out a breath, I put a hand against the reception desk in front of me and give a hard push to send my chair into a spin. No one is going to make it into the shop today, and there’s no fucking way I’m getting on my bike in this weather, so it’s just me, myself, and I until it finally clears.
“You gonna entertain me?” I ask the image of a femme-faced demon peeking through the hole in my jeans. She doesn’t respond. “Didn’t think so.”
Of course the torrential fucking downpour had to wait until I’djustgotten all of the mind-numbing, time-stealing tasks done that needed to be handled. Now, my only company for the day isday-old Chinese takeout and a nicotine patch that I’m not sure is worth how much it costs.
I’m going to lose my mind in here.
