She grins. “Yeah.”
I bite my smile as I say, “Didn’t you say to kill you if you ever acted like ‘that?’ Shall I do it now, or later?”
“Oh!” Konnor laughs.
Jax faces forwards. “Yeah. Yeah.”
We are all still laughing when Konnor drops a weight into the conversation. “Don’t get upset, okay? Just be happy.”
Fuck.
That’s not good.
He hands back a pink rectangular box, the kind that comes with a cake or from a bakery. I didn’t notice it from the backseat when he stepped inside the car, too busy looking at the guilt dripping from their features.
I take the box, set it on my lap, and stare at him expectantly.
“That is from Jax, Elise, and… well, me. We know that you missed out on a lot of birthday cakes over the years and we wanted to rectify that. We got you twenty cupcakes, one for every birthday we missed, because we didn’t mean to miss them, and we will never miss another one again."
I stare at the present. Blink. I sigh, and smile, and shake my head at these two boys that have so quickly become my favourite people. And they ask for so little. They just are. Love doesn’t have a price or expectations. It just is. “We’re a weird family and thank you. These mean a lot to me.”
“What flavour are the cupcakes?” Elise asks.
“All different, I think,” Konnor says. “We got them from a bakery in the station while we were waiting for...” His sentence trails to silence.
I pass the pink box to Elise, and she peeks inside, humming.Wait.“Waiting for… what?”
“Don’t get mad, Duch.”
“Oh,God,what else?”
With a deep sigh, Konnor hands me a yellow envelope, and everything inside me tightens. I hold my breath, frowning at it. It’s an odd colour, once beige, perhaps, now with creeping weathered tones.
“This isn’t…” I swallow. “What I think it is, right?”
His brow tightens and he nods, once. “It is.”
My fingers wrap around the envelope, and I fake a grin, studying his face, then Jaxon’s. “You went without me?”
“We didn’t go to the locker. We asked a security guard to go for us, and tipped him handsomely, I might add. He didn’t seem fazed at all. He returned with this. I know you are probably mad I didn’t discuss it with you first, but I’m just relieved it is done. So... that’s it.”
I crinkle the envelope in my hand and hold it flat to my lap, my breath quickening. “I’m not mad.”I trust him.“I’m freaked out, and I’m not happy you took a risk without discussing it with me first.”
“We knew you’d say no and we were there.” Jaxon shrugs. “Made sense.”
Elise tsks, playfully. “You rats, buttered us up first with cupcakes and Pez.”
“Yeah, we really did,” Jaxon says, clumsily.
“Did it work?” Konnor asks, green eyes on me, soft smile, and unfairly endearing dimples on display.
I clear my throat. “Yes, it worked.”
“So what now?” Jaxon asks. “The anticipation is killing me. Are you going to open it? Remember your found family when you find a winning lotto ticket in there.”
I stare at the envelope, bile rising in my throat. Wow. I didn’t expect that. Am I afraid? Relieved?
Konnor reaches back, putting his hand on my knee, staring at me, his expression soft and knowing. “Wanna blow it up?”
