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I look around at everyone laughing before turning towards Jude, only to find that he's already looking at me.
I smile, and he smiles back.
And somehow…
I love it.
By the time the song ends, I'm breathless.
“Cake!” Mia suddenly screams, and every head turns towards her as she points at the table. “It's cake time!”
Ethan laughs. “Apparently the boss has spoken.”
“Finally.” Jace wipes his forehead with his shirt, which has somehow made it back onto his body. “I'm starving.”
“You ate half the appetizers,” Grace says.
“Dancing burns calories.”
“Taking your shirt off isn't dancing.”
“The women of Wyoming disagree.”
“Cake!” Mia yells again.
“Yes, ma'am.” Jace salutes her.
We make our way back towards the tables, where Lily starts lighting the candles. I watch her for a moment before realizing she has no intention of stopping anytime soon.
“You didn't seriously put twenty-seven candles on there.”
“Of course I did.”
“Lily.”
“What?”
“Fire hazard,” Josh mutters, earning himself a smack on the arm.
Everyone crowds around me, with Chiara on one side, Penny on the other and Jude somehow ending up directly across from me. The lights around our tables dim, and then they start singing.
Loudly, horribly and so completely out of tune that I laugh through most of the song.
Until I don't.
Because they're singing Happy Birthday to me.
Twenty-seven.
I made it to twenty-seven.
Damiano didn't.
The thought comes quietly this time, slipping into the middle of the celebration without warning. It still hurts, but it doesn't destroy everything around it, and as I look at the people singing to me, I find that I can feel both things at once.
Chiara is singing louder than anyone, tears shining in her eyes, while my parents are smiling through their own. Lily and Josh stand together, and Mia is practically bouncing beside the cake, clearly more interested in the candles than the fact that the rest of us are butchering a perfectly innocent birthday song.
Six weeks ago, most of these people barely knew me, and now they're gathered around a ridiculous number of candles because apparently my being born twenty-seven years ago is something worth celebrating.
