I sighed. “I hate this.”
He didn’t even pretend to argue. “Want to ditch?”
The idea of ditching senior ditch day was funny, but the relief at escaping shopping—evenpretendshopping—was so visceral and intense, I almost laughed for real. “Yes. Oh my god, yes.”
Five minutes later, we were back in the car, and I didn’t even think about where I was going until the gates slid open in front of us.
I pulled into the drive, then froze. At least this part required no acting on my part, bad or otherwise. “…Whoops,” I said slowly. “I guess I was on autopilot bringing you here.”
Herebeing Archie’s house—which my brain still stubbornly refused to categorize asmy place.
I grimaced and glanced at Coop. “Want me to take you back to the apartments?” I suppose I could have offered to take him to get his car, but that would require going back to the school and we’d already said we’d get his carlater, after school was out.
He made a face immediately. “No. That feels weird.”
I frowned. “Weird how?”
“Like… you’re not right around the corner anymore,” he said, shrugging. “And going back there without you just feels—off.”
Something in my chest twisted. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I still think that’s weird too.”
I pulled into the garage and shut the engine off. “Well. We’re here,” I said, pushing the door open. “So come on. Let’s find something else to do.”
We’d barely crossed the threshold when?—
“Surprise!”
Foam darts came flying from every direction.
I shrieked. No one informed me about this part of the plan.
Coop swore.
Bubba whooped.
Jake laughed so hard he nearly fell over.
Archie stood behind them all, arms crossed, wearing the smug, satisfied smile of a man who hadabsolutelyplanned this.
“Happy birthday!” Bubba yelled as another nerf dart bounced off Coop’s shoulder.
Coop spun toward me slowly, narrowing his eyes. “Youknew.”
I clasped my hands to my chest and let out the most melodramatic relieved sigh of my life. “Oh thank god,” I said. “Pretending I forgot was hard as hell.”
He stared at me for a beat.
Then he grinned. When he wrapped his arms around me and dragged me in for a hug, I returned it fiercely. “I’d never forget your birthday,” I promised him.
Real laughter—bright and surprised and completely unguarded—escaped him as he stepped back shaking his head, then he lunged for another dart and fired it back at Jake.
Just like that, the day shifted. The ambush dissolved into chaos almost immediately.
Coop dove for the couch, grabbed a stray nerf gun, and retaliated with a vengeance that had Jake yelping and Bubba cackling like he’d personally orchestrated the downfall of civilization.
“Oh come on,” Jake protested, ducking behind a chair. “It’s his birthday! You can’t shoot me on your birthday!”
A snort-laugh escaped me. Only Jake would like to rewrite the rules that on someone else’s birthday, he would be exempt. That was sonota rule.
