CHAPTER 16
I SHOWED UP TO MY BIRTHDAY
PARTY AND YOU’LL NEVER GUESS
WHO WAS THERE!
VANESSA
I spent the morning of my birthday with Dad and Brent. Another Nar- Anon meeting and then out to eat. A meeting wasn’t really my idea of a good time, but I wasn’t above using my birthday as leverage to make them
go. Adrian watched Grace.
He’d wanted to come out with us.
First he offered to make me breakfast. Then when I told him where I was going, he asked me if I wanted him to take me. I said no. There was only so much bullshit I could in good conscience allow him to endure. Dad twice in less than twelve hours, a Nar-Anon meeting, and Perkins would probably be the end of this friendship.
I’d gotten back around 11:00 a.m., but Adrian told me he’d keep Grace so I could have a few hours of alone time. He always watched Grace for me while I showered, but I never drew it out. I didn’t want to take advantage. A few hours of alone time was probably the best birthday gift I’d ever gotten.
I was so freaking excited. I was going to take the world’s longest bubble
bath.
On top of this, I’d come home to flowers in my apartment. He’d cleaned too. There were vacuum lines on the carpet. He’d made my bed and done all the dishes. He’d even cleaned the bathroom.
I can’t tell you the strength it took to keep me from running back to his apartment and tearing off his clothes.
Last night I’d asked him to stay over—I wasn’t planning anything scandalous, but if he’d initiated something scandalous, I wasn’t gonna say no. Instead he’d politely declined before fleeing back to his place as quickly as humanly possible. Then he’d texted me at midnight with a picture of a cake and I’d told him to come over. I wasn’t kidding.
He’d sent me a laughing emoji.
It was fucking depressing. I was falling in love with a man who was totally uninterested, because of course I was.
I took my bath and a long nap. Then I got ready and met Adrian at his apartment at 6:00. He’d enlisted Becky to watch Harry Puppins and Grace over at his place while he took me out for my birthday tonight. He assured me Becky was perfectly capable and had plenty of babysitting experience. I think she would have assured me too, but she still couldn’t speak around me.
Adrian drove us to Summit Avenue, an upscale neighborhood in St. Paul.
The street was peppered with historic mansions, the residences of the railroad magnates and lumber barons of the 1800s. We pulled up to an enormous house, built in 1881 according to the historic landmark plaque on the front.
“Where are we?” I asked, peering up through the windshield as he pulled the car into the driveway.
He was grinning. “I’m not going to ruin it.”
The door was open, and Adrian let himself in. Unfamiliar voices drifted into the foyer from an adjoining room. The house smelled like something incredible was cooking.
Adrian set my birthday cake down on the credenza and helped me out of my jacket and hung it up. “Hello,” he called, shrugging out of his own coat.
“We’re here.”
The first person to clear the corner was the last person I’d expected. It was Malcolm. And he was filming.
“Happy birthday, Vanessa!” he said from behind his lens.
I laughed. “Oh my God. What is going on?”
“I hope you don’t mind that I called him,” Adrian said. “I know you’re having trouble getting content for your channel, and I figured tonight might be video worthy. I got permission from everyone here. You don’t have to use the footage unless you want to. It’s up to you.”
A second later I understood why he thought I might want it.
A woman came around the corner to greet us.
It was Sloan Monroe.
I actually shrieked.
“Hi!” She gave me a warm hug. “Happy birthday! It’s so nice to meet you.”
She turned to my companion. “Adrian, it’s good to see you again.”
He kissed her on the cheek.
I’d seen the pictures of her. The magazine covers and the black-and- white photo on the front of Sloan In-Between, the album her husband had dedicated to her. But Sloan was even prettier in person. She had long blond hair and an arm of colorful tattoos. She’d used some sort of shimmery eye shadow that made her brown eyes pop. I didn’t get a chance to ask her what it was because the rest of the guests were funneling out behind her. Adrian’s cousin Josh, his wife, Kristen, and Sloan’s husband, Jason, aka famous Grammy Award–winning musician Jaxon Waters.
I was breathing into my hands. “I can’t believe you did this,” I whispered.
Adrian smiled at me. “Sloan’s making you dinner. Her osso buco recipe from her cookbook. They all came down from Ely just for you. I got the house for the night. A client owes me a favor.”
I looked up at him, and tears filled my eyes.
This might be my last birthday. In fact, if family history was any indication, it probably was.
And he’d gone and made it the best one of my life.
* * *
Three hours later we’d had dinner and cake and I was sitting in the living room in front of an enormous crackling wood-burning fireplace with
Kristen and Sloan. The guys were standing over by the bar talking. I’d sent Malcolm home after they sang happy birthday to me. I appreciated that Adrian had thought to have him here, but I wouldn’t be sharing the video.
Adrian had told me once after I had to take a picture with someone at Trader Joe’s a few days ago that he didn’t know how I dealt with all the lack of anonymity. I dealt with it because it’s what made my fight against ALS possible. But Adrian had no such skin in the game.
My following was no small thing. If I shared that video, he would be instantly famous. He’d never be anonymous again. It was one thing for me to talk about a man named Jesus’s Abs, but it was something else entirely to put a face on him. He’d be recognized in public, viewers would hunt him down online, they might even show up at his work. Everyone else here was probably used to that. Sloan and Jason for sure, and Josh and Kristen by association. But Adrian still had his privacy. When I explained this to him, he said he was still fine with me sharing the video—but I could tell he’d rather I not. So it was a not. But I loved that Malcolm had gotten the footage. That way I could always remember this day.
I loved Adrian’s friends. I loved that they came here simply because he asked them to. I loved that they were all so grounded and nice and went completely out of their way to make today special for me. It sort of made me jealous that they were so normal and he had to deal with the shit show that was my posse.
I was slightly drunk. Jason had been making martinis.
Sloan ate the olive out of her drink. “God, it’s been so long since I had
one of these. I’m still nursing.”
“A boy or a girl?” I asked.
She smiled. “Girl. Emma. She’s a year now.”
I looked at Kristen. “And you guys have, like, what? Four?”
“Yup. Oliver is five. Kimmie and Sarah are ten and twelve, and the baby’s one.”
I tucked a leg under me. “Wow, who’s watching all of them?”
Kristen snorted. “Jason’s mom. The woman’s a saint.” She put her drink on the coffee table and leaned in. “Okay, you have to tell me. How’s the penis? Is it big?”
Sloan groaned and sat back in her chair. “Oh God, the penis thing again.”
I looked back and forth between them. “What? What’s the penis thing?”
Sloan shook her head at her best friend. “They’re just friends. She hasn’t seen it. Leave her alone.”
I put up a hand. “Uh, no, wait, I’m here for this. What’s the penis thing?”
“She’s here for it, Sloan. Stay out of it.” Kristen smiled, sitting on the
edge of the sofa.
Sloan rolled her eyes at her.
“Josh has this enormous penis and I have a theory it’s hereditary,”
Kristen said.
My eyes darted to Adrian across the room. “Really?” I whispered.
Kristen nodded. “Yup.” Then she made a space between her hands to show me, and Sloan started choking on her drink.
Sloan shook her head at her best friend, coughing. “This is so not appropriate.”
Kristen blinked at her. “This is important research, Sloan.”
I nodded quickly. “I agree, further study is needed.”
Kristen laughed, and Sloan looked slightly horrified. I got the feeling flustering Sloan was one of Kristen’s hobbies. She seemed very good at it.
I sat back against the sofa. “I would love to explore the possibility of Adrian’s magic peen. But unfortunately he’s not into me.”
Kristen and Sloan shared a look.
I glanced back and forth between them. “What?”
Kristen leveled her eyes on me. “I don’t know what he tells you, but that dude’s whipped.”
Sloan was giving me a slow, wide-eyed nod.
I scrunched my forehead. “What? No.”
Kristen looked up over me. “He’s literally staring at the back of your head right now. He’s been staring at you all night.”
I looked sideways, but I didn’t turn around. “Is it like he’s watching a tennis match?” I whispered. “Like, his head goes this way and that way watching me walk around?”
Sloan nodded. “It’s exactly like he’s watching a tennis match. That’s really accurate, actually.”
“He talked about you for thirty minutes straight on the phone with Josh when he called to ask us to come,” Kristen said. “Josh hung up and was all ‘Daaaaamn, I’ve never seen him like that.’”
My heart fluttered a little. And then it remembered it had no reason to.
I let out a sigh. “I really don’t think he’s interested.”
Sloan drew her eyebrows together. “Why?”
Impending death?
“My lifestyle isn’t conducive to relationships,” I said instead.
Kristen nodded. “Oh yeah, the fame thing. That shit sucks. You try dating and you end up with some dude who’s obsessed with your dryer lint.”
Sloan nodded. “It was hard for Jason too. He didn’t even tell me who he was until two weeks after we met. It’s not easy.”
“Yeah, it’s not really that,” I said. “Just some stuff I’d rather not talk about.”
Sloan smiled gently in a way that told me she followed my channel.
“Well, just remember, the universe doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”
Kristen scoffed. “Yeah it does. It does all the time. The universe doesn’t give a shit, it’s a total asshole.”