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Clint watches it for a few seconds.

“You went every year?”

I nod. “We did, yeah.”

He sets the slice down on the edge of the box. “You just really love the show?”

The question is simple. The answer should be too.

“No,” I say slowly. “Not really.”

I look through the sliding glass doors, toward the half cake waiting on the counter, its plastic wrap fogged slightly from the cold meeting the warm room.

“It was just something we did,” I add. “My birthday was the show. His birthday was the dinner at this place he loved even though the chairs were terrible. Then we’d laugh about being predictable and do all of it again the next year.”

Clint listens without interrupting.

“For a long time, predictable felt kind of nice. Like we had something solid.”

“And later?”

I glance at him. He doesn’t look sorry he asked. Maybe that’s why I answer.

“Later, I think it was easier to just go along than to ask whether we still wanted the same things.”

The video keeps playing against his thigh. A performer swings across the screen. The camera wobbles. Renny laughs at something off-camera.

Maybe the show hadn’t mattered for years. Maybe I knew that.

“Playing catch with dolphins is better.”

Clint’s smile returns immediately. “Nothing is better than catch with dolphins.”

We sit with that.

Clint reaches for another slice, then pauses with his hand over the box.

“Pizza, cake, or swim?”

I laugh because the question sounds like an ill-conceived game show.

“I don’t know.”

Clint’s smile changes. Mischief breaks across his face. Before I can process what he’s doing, he pushes back from the table, takes three running steps across the patio, and dives into the pool.

Water erupts. I startle hard enough to knock my knee against the table.

“Shit!”

Clint surfaces near the far end, shaking water from his head.

“Swim wins,” he calls.

“I see that.”

He treads water, watching me.

The patio goes very still around me.