This, I think,is family.
I glance across the table at his mom as she stands and says, “Cake time!”
“Can I help?” I stand, too, but I’m yanked down by the belt loop of my jeans, bumping into Alex as I land in my chair. “What was that for?” I ask him.
Alex leans in, turning toward me, his shoulder like a shield that blocks the noise and attention of the table. For a moment, it’s nothing but his face close to mine, his flushed cheeks, bright-blue eyes, the scent of his sweat mingling with the spicy clean that clings to his clothes. He sets his hand on my back, threads it around mywaist and draws me closer. His mouth brushes my ear as he says, “Remember the banner?”
I pin my thighs together beneath the table as a sweet, hot ache crushes through me and settles rightthere. “Hard to forget the banner,” I say as steadily as I can.
Alex says, “It was for both of us.”
“I mean, I figured. It looked sort of like a ’ship name. Thalex.”
He groans. “I’m really sorry. Apparently, because I didn’t scream at my family that weweren’tdating, they assumed we were.”
“I don’t care, Alex. I actually think I’m kind of attached to it?Thalex.It sounds likesomething.Not sure what. It’ll come to me, though.”
Alex’s expression turns serious. “Ted, remember when you were gone for your birthday?”
I spent the week in Columbus while Dad had his angioplasty after the series of ministrokes my mom had decided she’d wait through a month of telephone tag to tell me about. My birthday was the day of his surgery, and I didn’t expect anything, of course. But Mom didn’t even say anything—not the day of, the day before, the day after, the whole time I was there.
I pulled out of my parents’ house and held off the tears until I’d made it to the highway. Then I sobbed off and on the whole three-hour drive home.
“Yes,” I tell Alex. “I remember.”
“We never celebratedyourbirthday.”
“You called me,” I remind him. “You and Mia left me a voicemail singing me ‘Happy Birthday.’?”
I saved that voicemail. I’ll have it saved forever.
“But we never celebrated,” Alex says. “It’s my birthday tomorrow, and you’re getting to celebrate with me now, so it’s only fair.”
“What’s only fair?”
He eases back, revealing two cakes heaped with white icing, flickering with candles on the table in front of us.
“It’s only fair,” he says quietly, “that we get to celebrateyou, too. Homemade birthday cake and everything.”
My throat is thick. “So… that was the ‘happy day’ part of the banner?”
Ari—pretty sure it’s Ari—pops her head in, on the other side of my shoulder, making me jump. “I called in a favor,” she explains, “to whip up this banner real quick, with my buddy Knox, but we didn’t have great service over the call—his shop’s in a service dead zone, so I think maybe a few words cut out on him, plus I told him I was on a budget and he charges per letter, soooo… thiswassupposed to say,Happy Birthday, Thea & Alex, and we ended up withHAPPY DAY, THALEX. Wish I could take credit for the creative genius of ‘Thalex,’ but I can’t.”
I smile up at Probably-Ari. “Thank you—that’s really sweet of you to include me.”
Alex playfully nudges Ari back, then grips my chair and draws me closer, until we’re shoulder to shoulder, staring down at our cakes.
Everyone starts to sing.
My eyes burn. My chest tightens. I don’t want to cry. But I think I’m going to.
“Say something funny,” I mutter to Alex out of the side of my mouth, all while smiling at his family.
“Thalex,” he whispers in my ear, curling his arm around me. “I figured out what it sounds like.”
“Mm-hmm,” I squeak.
His family are a bunch of yell-singers, horribly off pitch. Itmight be the best sound I’ve ever heard. “Happy Birthday, dear Thalex…”