“Non-negotiable. You’re in Dublin, Danny! We are getting the gang together to go out for a nice meal, hit up a couple of pubs, maybe do a cake back at my place. Yes, definitely a cake back at my place! What’s your favorite kind of cake?”
“You’re not—”
“What.” A clap in my face. “Kind.” Another clap. “Of.” Clap. “Cake.” Clap, clap, clap.
“Fine. Just stop…clapping.” Niall looks pleased. “I feel like at this point you know what flavors I like. Pistachio, lemon, cherry, Funfetti, spiced cake, whatever. Just as long as it’s not chocolate.”
Niall gasps. “What do you mean no chocolate? Are you a monster Danny?”
“Chocolate frosting? Fine. Chocolate cake? Trash.”
Niall shakes his head, looking away. “I don’t know if we can be lads anymore.”
I throw my hands up in the air. “You are the asshole who asked me what type of cake I would like, for my birthday, by CLAPPING IN MY FACE.”
Niall huffs. “Fine. Chocolate is not at the top of the list.” I glare at him. “Okay. It’s not on the list.”
“Thank you. But you could avoid all this by, you know, just not making it a whole thing.”
“Danny. I think you know I’m not going to do that.”
“Fine, I’m off to class. I’m leaving Michael’s manuscript with you. I still have the original, so do whatever you want with it.”
As I’m walking through the door I look back over my shoulder, to find Niall’s already flipping through the pages.
***
We’re sitting at Boeuf and Coq. Niall and I, along with Anders, Leo, and John, are throwing back gin and tonics, chattering about work. Leo and Anders are particularly not pleased about having to attend a child’s birthday party tomorrow.
“Family?” I ask.
Leo laughs. “Worse. It seems my boss thinks it’s appropriate to invite her staff to her child’s fourth birthday party. We aren’t even that friendly, let alone ever even attending a happy hour. Why the fuck does she think we’d want to go to her place on the weekend with a bunch of children?”
“She better have a full bar,” Anders quips.
Leo works at an art gallery, where he has a blended role of part-gallery assistant, part-social media manager, part-curator. It’s a staff totaling three, including his boss, so I think I can kinda see why she thought she could invite her employees.
The server drops off another round of drinks, letting us know the food would be out shortly.
Niall grabs his fresh gin and tonic. “So, Anders actually met Leo at the gallery.”
I look over at them. “This sounds like it could be juicy.”
Leo snorts. “Hardly. He came in to buy a painting for his office. I complemented his suit. He told me I had great eyes. Then we went out for a drink and fucked and never looked back.”
John fake swoons. “The love story of our century.”
Anders points at Niall. “Meanwhile, this guy hasn’t dated anyone for, like, over a year. But we can tell he’s been into someone. Ya know, you can tell when he’s a bit giddy. Or we ask him questions and he gets all squirrelly, refuses to answer. A bit standoffish, a bit secretive. Eventually we’ll get it out of him.”
Maybe, maybe not. It was probably Michael, and he likely hasn’t bounced back yet.
Our meals come out and we start diving in. The first bite of steak practically melts in my mouth. “Wow,” I say.
John looks up. “Right? Steak here is some of the best around.”
I take another bite, this time with a bit of Blue Cheese Butter. Even better. “I think it’s more how much it costs. Back home, this meal would have easily been double at one of our steakhouses.”
“We come here all the time,” Leo says. “Or, one of their other restaurants. They all vary just slightly.”
