What the hell?
The elevator dinged open at my floor, and I went striding toward my apartment, trying to hide how anxious I was to get inside. I swung open the door.
“Surprise!”
A crash of voices lifted in the air. Gage and Juni. Eden and Gretchen and poor Baby Kate who’d gotten spooked by the sudden shouting.
Aster.
Aster who was there hovering to the side.
Unsure of where she fit.
My stomach flipped and my chest squeezed tight because she was right where she belonged.
My eyes took in the scene, affection twisting at my mouth.
So damned sweet.
Helium balloons were floating everywhere, streamers strung along the ceiling, and a confetti explosion had laid waste to the room.
Gage and Juni held a big poster board, one of them on each side, their precious faces full of excitement and this crazy amount of joy as they came running for me.
Or maybe that’s just what they hit me with.
Joy.
“Happy birthday, Uncle Logan! Happy birthday! Do you like your surprise?”
“What? This is amazing. How could I not like it when I have the best niece and nephew ever?” I scooped them up the second they got to me, and I squeezed them tight while trying not to crush the poster board they held between them.
Because I did like it.
Fucking loved it, actually.
I loved that it felt like coming home.
Like today mattered when it’d ceased to hold meaning a long-damned time ago.
Trent clapped me on the back before he wound around me and went striding for Eden.
No wonder he’d been acting like a freaking weirdo, and it didn’t have a thing to do with my birthday surprise, either. Dude never could wait to get his greedy paws on his wife.
“Look it, Uncle, look it!” Juni and Gage waved the poster around, but it was up so close I couldn’t read what it said. I pulled back a bit so I could read the words constructed of crayon and child-like handwriting.
Birthday Bash for Logan.
6:30.
My house.
Be there or be a square.
Laughter rumbled. “Tell me you aren’t planning me a party?”
I said it like it was absurd.
Juni threw her little arms in the air, and she screeched like it was the best thing in the world, “Yes! You guessed it!”