Surrendering Series Box Set

She waved off the thanks. “It’s nothing. I’m just a fan of people in love. I think it should be celebrated, especially with cupcakes. I’ll be right back.”

She vanished and came back a few moments later with a cupcake that was so large, it was the size of three normal cupcakes. There was something stuck in it that she lighted which turned out to be a small sparkler.

“Congratulations,” she said, and then headed off to take more orders. The people around us all stared.

“They probably think it’s one of our birthdays,” I said to Ryder.

“Probably. We should blow that out before it sets something on fire.” He had a good point. He picked up the sparkler and doused it in the rest of his seltzer water.

“That’s one way to do it,” I said, and picked up my fork. The cupcake was vanilla with a creamy white marshmallow frosting, and it was filled with what was almost like raw cake batter with sprinkles.

“How is it?” Ryder asked, watching me as I chewed and swallowed with relish.

“Have a bite and see,” I said, pointing to his fork.

He did and banged his fist on the table. “Damn, that is good.”

We slowly ate the rest of the giant cupcake. Good thing I didn’t eat dinner or else I might not have managed it. I finished my third bellini and leaned over on the bar. It was probably dirty, but I didn’t care.

“You happy we came here?” he asked, pushing aside the now-empty plate.

“Happy. Full of cake. Same thing.”

“Agreed.”

~*~*~

It took us a long time to get out of the bar/bakery. Mostly because I refused to move.

“Come on, lean on me,” Ryder said, putting his arm around my waist and hauling me out the door. It was freezing when we got outside.

“Can we please take a cab?” The nearest T station was too far to walk in conditions like this.

“Sure.” He held his arm up, and fortunately there was one passing at that exact moment.

Ryder got me in first and slid in after me as he told the driver my address.

“What about you?” I asked.

“I want to make sure you get home first.” Aww. How sweet. Like we were on a date. Which we were not.

I leaned against him and then realized I shouldn’t be doing that, and leaned the other way, up against the door of the cab.

“Do I smell?” Yes, he did. Really, really good.

“No, I just figured I shouldn’t be snuggling up with you. You know, since this isn’t a date.” I didn’t mean to sound bitter, but that was how it came out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to jump on you. I’m fine with the whole no-date thing. This was a really nice night.”

“It was,” he said, and looked off through the window at the traffic outside. “And I’m glad you agreed to come with me. I don’t have a whole lot of people to hang out with right now.”

I knew part of the whole recovery process was letting go of your former life, and that included former friends. Not that Ryder’s friends had been anyone special. They’d fucking bailed on him when he was in the hospital. Just dumped his stuff and hadn’t even stayed to see how he was doing. Assholes.

“Well, you can call me a friend, if you want. And you have your brother and Rory. And Tate and April. And Gil now. He seemed pretty cool.”

He leaned his head back and looked up at the roof of the cab. “I guess. It’s just hard to change your life overnight like that. It takes a lot of work. You can’t just flip a switch.” Was he second-guessing his sobriety?

“Yeah, I can imagine that it’s tough. You’re not thinking about backtracking though, right?”

He shook his head slowly and looked back at me. “No. Because then I’d have to redo all of this, and I’d rather fucking die than start over and go through the shit I’ve been through. Again. Sorry, I don’t mean to keep bringing it up. It’s just always on my mind. Sometimes it’s all I can think about.” He cracked his knuckles and the cabbie turned up the sports radio station he was listening to.