“Why not? Everybody asks how old I am.” He held up six fingers. “I’m this many.”
Lucky sighed. Two hands’ worth of fingers wouldn’t show his age. “I’m thirty-eight.”
Tyrone glanced up at his mother but kept his mouth shut.
“That’s okay, kid. When I was your age, thirty-eight seemed old to me too.” And what had Lucky accomplished in all those years? Not a whole hell of a lot.
Bo put his elbow in Lucky’s ribs again, and this time he didn’t growl. “You’ve got a rut between your eyebrows. Whatever’s bothering you, it’ll be all right.” He wrapped Lucky in a brief one-armed embrace. “Now, let’s eat. These folks have come all the way across town to embarrass you by singing Happy Birthday. And I have it on good authority that none of them can carry a tune in a bucket.”
Oh God, no. “You did tell ‘em they didn’t have to do that, right?” One could hope, anyway.
“Lucky, look at these people. Do you know a single one of them who’d do what I said?”
Lucky eyeballed the people gathering around the burgers. “Maybe Lisa.”
Bo let out a snort. “Not outside of work. I’ve tried. Now c’mon and take a seat.”
Lucky focused on his burger so he didn’t have to involve himself in the idle chitchat folks engaged in at cookouts. Every now and then, he’d glance up and catch Tyrone watching him. The boy always scooted back behind his mom, out of sight. Johnson, no, Rett didn’t appear to notice, but she probably did. She didn’t miss much.
Maybe Lucky reminded the kid of his father. He was small and blond with blue eyes, just like Rett’s ex, the guy she’d had the son with. And later shot. Lucky wasn’t fit to be anyone’s father. But the toddler squirming in Lisa’s arms brought back memories of him holding his nephews Todd and Ty, and wondering if he’d ever have a kid of his own. So long ago.
At last, dinner ended and the moment he dreaded arrived. Walter stood up and started them off. “Happy Birthday…” The others joined in with his off-key singing.
Hellfire. Sounded like someone stepping on cats. Bo kept Lucky seated with a death grip on his knee under the table. Lucky deliberately brought his hand up and ran his fingers over the cuff marks on his wrist.
What a lovely blush Bo had.
Lucky leered and whispered, “Remember the birthday cake I got you?” Which they’d eaten from each other’s skin. Oh, man! Who knew someone’s face could get such a deep shade of red?
But this cake hadn’t come from any bakery. Someone baked for him?
“Aren’t you going to blow out the candles?” Bo pasted on his best possum-eating-briars grin.
Rett’s son eyed the cake with rapt attention.
Ah, time to get out of something he didn’t want to do and foist the responsibility off on someone honored by the hand-off. “Hey, Tyrone. How about blowing out the candles for me?”
“Wow! Can I?” It took Tyrone four tries to blow out all too-damned-many candles.
And that folks, is how you get out of doing something you don’t wanna do.
Bo glared, Lucky shrugged, and Mrs. Smith doled out cake.
Tasted familiar. “What’s this?”
“Mocha,” Walter said around a mouthful.
“It’s coffee flavored,” Rett said. She turned to Bo. “You sure can cook. You can come on over to my apartment and fix me a cake anytime.”
Bo had made Lucky a cake. And left zero evidence behind in the kitchen. Lucky couldn’t boil eggs without turning the kitchen into a battle zone.
But cake. He used to get homemade birthday cakes every year, until…
Daddy giving half-playful, half-for real birthday swats. Mama baking a cake from scratch, either orange or vanilla. His brothers and Charlotte arm wrestling for the honor of cleaning the frosting bowl and beaters with a finger, sucking down every last bit of sweet.
Grandma and Grandpa always came over and gave him twenty bucks in a card.
And Lucky, being the birthday boy, got the biggest slab of cake.
