birthday, she’d insisted on throwing him a party.
Personally, I was a big believer in birthday parties. In parties of all kinds, really. Life needed to be celebrated. Plus, any excuse for cake was a good thing.
Family and friends congregated in the kitchen, or in the warm spots outside. It was a beautiful night, aside from the early October cold. Sparks rose from the fire when Logan tossed another piece of wood on the growing blaze. Grace, Gram, and Fiona had set out enough food for twice as many people as were actually here, which was how we rolled when it came to these things. Gram liked to say she never wanted anyone to leave her house hungry, and always kept that promise.
I balanced on my crutches near one of the heaters, a beer in my hand. It had been almost three weeks since I’d broken my leg, and I was starting to get edgy.
Okay, maybe not starting to get edgy. I’d been that way from day one. But it was definitely getting worse.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been doing back flips over the bonfire, or I’d have gone climbing this morning, or… something. Anything but what I actually did, which was mostly nothing. I’d played with Princess Squeaker, which was fun in its own way. But the energy building inside me needed an outlet, and I had several weeks left before I’d be free of the damn cast.
It was driving me up the wall.
As if to add insult to injury, my leg started to itch.
Skylar had texted me earlier to say she and her friend were coming, but they’d be a little late. I’d seen her several times in the last week. Mostly I just hung out while she wrote. I’d been reading her books and they were really fucking good. She had a twisted mind inside that pretty head of hers. I liked it.
I took a sip of my beer, keeping an eye on the back door for her. Maybe this party would get more fun once she got here.
Gram sat on the porch in her rocking chair wrapped in a thick sweater. Someone had fixed her a plate of food, and she watched the growing party with a contented smile. Fiona and Evan sat next to her, and Fiona might as well have been on Evan’s lap, they were so close. They were getting married soon and it sounded like they’d decided to have it here.
Asher came out of the house and down the porch steps. He walked up behind Grace, kissed her neck, and slipped an arm around her waist so he could rest his hand on her belly.
A Bailey baby. That was some crazy shit. Of course, if Asher hadn’t gone to prison, they probably would have had kids years ago.
The restlessness I felt reminded me of when Asher had first been sent away. I’d been just a kid. September had rolled around again and I’d had to go back to school. Sit there in a classroom as if my oldest brother hadn’t been forcibly ripped from our lives. Like everything was normal.
It hadn’t gone well.
But I just hadn’t seen the point in being there.
Looking back, I was pretty sure I’d only graduated because a few of my teachers had felt sorry for me and figured it would be better to just pass me and get me out of there. That, and Levi. He’d started picking me up himself and driving me to school to make sure I’d actually go.
Thank fuck that was over.
Cara wandered over to stand next to me with a wine tumbler in her hand. “Do you know how to bake muffins?”
“Yeah. Why? Did your YouTube chef fail you again?”
“Catastrophically. The first batch tasted like cardboard. The second were so hard I thought about searching for Harvey Johnston to see if he’d let me use his fucking pickax to break them open.”
I laughed. “That bad, huh?”
“At this point, I should probably throw in the towel and find a different hobby. But I bought so much kitchen stuff, it would be nice to actually use it.”
“You want me to come over and show you how to bake muffins?”
“I’ll book you another massage with Sven.”
“Done.” I reached over and she shook my hand. “Why me, though? Grace can’t be so busy that she wouldn’t come over and bake with you.”
“No, she would. But I want to bake muffins for her. The other day she said she was craving them. And yes, I’m well aware