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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

RYAN KNOWS THAT he and his family are walking a fine line between overwhelming Louie and making him happy.

The party hat that Ryan makes him wear in the morning stays on during breakfast. Ryan would guess that Louie forgets all about it because he’s too busy trying to remember everyone’s names. Almost all of Ryan’s sisters are here, and some are with their partners. Emery has two kids and she’s only staying for a few days while her husband is on a business trip, but her visit also adds tiny humans into the mix.

It’s a lot, which is why he eventually extracts Louie from the house and takes him into town for lunch. They do birthday sundaes for dessert and Louie only looks horrified by the suggestion for a second.

He’s different. Has been different ever since he showed up at Ryan’s place and decided that he wasn’t going home. It’s almost like he realized that he has choices. He smiles more, too. Now that Ryan has learned that Louie does smile, he’s developed a strange obsession with cracking that shell of his even more. Whenever Ryan makes him smile, he feels like he won something.

On the way home, they stop at Ami’s parents’ place to say hello to their alpacas. Ami gives Louie socks that he won’t be able to wear until winter, but since Louie keeps petting the alpacas and saying “They’re so soft” over and over again, Ami probably hit the jackpot with this gift.

“He’s cute,” Ami whispers to Ryan.

“Stop,” Ryan whispers back.

If he chose to be self-aware, he might figure out why making Louie smile is so important to him. Needless to say, he will not choose to be self-aware. He watches Louie pet alpacas instead.

He snaps a few pictures, just for Louie. Ami also takes one of the two of them with several alpacas looking over their shoulders. That one’s going on the fridge.

“Don’t post those, okay?” Louie says in the car. “I don’t want my family to see.”

“Have you—”

Louie’s phone starts buzzing just then. “Oh, it’s Dominic,” he says and actually answers this time. “Hey, what’s up?”

Ryan hears Dominic laugh at the other end of the line, hears the loud happy birthday of two people. At least one person in Louie’s family cares about him having a fun birthday.

“Thank you,” Louie says. He listens to whatever his brother is saying. “Yeah.” He huffs. “No. I just told them I wasn’t able to make it.”

Ryan isn’t eavesdropping, and he’s not even sure it counts as eavesdropping since he’s only able to hear half of the conversation anyway, but he knows what this is about. Louie was supposed to fly to Vegas for the NHL Awards yesterday. Or maybe today if he’d hopped on an early flight.

He is extremely not in Vegas.

“I texted Bastien afterwards,” Louie says, “I told him I’d cheer for him from afar and he said it’s fine. He even sent me a birthday text this morning.”

Ryan will go out on a limb and say that Louie isn’t actually going to cheer for his brother to win the Calder, but that’s a mean thought that will stay locked away forever and always.

“You’re not there either,” Louie adds .

A pause.

“Yeah, well…”

A longer pause.

“I went home with Ryan. His family is throwing me a birthday party.”

Ryan pulls into the driveway of his parents’ house, keeping an eye out for cats. He parks in his spot. Because even when everyone is home, he still has a spot and he has his chair at the table and he has his room with his bed. Although he’s sleeping next to his bed while Louie is here with him. Point is, there’s room for him here.

“All right,” Louie says. “I gotta go, but… thank you. And I’ll come see you when we’re back.” He rolls his eyes at whatever Dominic’s reply is. “Yes, I promise. Bye. You too. Yeah. Bye.”

“Everything okay?” Ryan asks. He probably shouldn’t.

“Yeah, Mom called Dominic this morning to ask what’s going on with me and he had no idea. Apparently, Dad is very disappointed that I’m not coming and has correctly deduced that I’m off somewhere celebrating my birthday.”

Ryan genuinely hopes that he never runs into Martie Hathaway again because he may punch him in the face.

“Am I a bad person because I didn’t go?” Louie asks. He glances at Ryan but quickly looks away again. “My brother may win the Calder tonight and I won’t be there.”

Aw, fuck, what the hell. “Can I ask you something?”

Louie shrugs. “Sure.”

“Would you be genuinely happy for him if he won?”

For a long moment, Louie thinks on that. “I don’t know,” he says eventually.

“Honestly, if that answer isn’t a quick and easy yes, you have no business being there anyway.”

Louie stares straight ahead and finally says, “Yeah. I guess you have a point there.”

“Are you good?” Ryan asks. He’ll sit in this car with Louie for another ten minutes if he needs to.

“I’m… yeah. Sure.”

“Okay.” Ryan holds up his phone. “Because I’m about to text my mom a sloth emoji and when I do, the party starts.”

“Uh, why a sloth emoji?”

“Because she likes it,” Ryan says.

Louie frowns at him. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

Ryan frowns back at him. “So?”

“Isn’t it a bit early for a party?”

Ryan’s family has started parties much, much earlier than two in the afternoon. He shrugs. “No?”

Louie seems to come to terms with that answer astoundingly quickly, nods and hands his phone back to Ryan because he apparently doesn’t want to look at it for the rest of the day. “Okay, send the sloth.”

Ryan’s mom has outdone herself. The woman loves a party, has always loved a party, but usually Ryan and his sisters aren’t around for their birthdays anymore, so she’s taken years of pent-up birthday energy and put it all into today.

She’s pushed two tables together in the backyard, decorated them in greens and blues and has brought out actual plates. She’s folded the napkins, set up candles for later, and put small pink flowers into shot glasses. One of the chairs has over a dozen balloons tied to it.

“There he is!” Mom shouts as soon as Ryan turns the corner with Louie in tow.

Going by the excited hollering, Ryan’s dad has already started mixing drinks. “Louie, I didn’t ask, do you drink?” he asks and holds up a pink cocktail that matches the flowers on the table.

“Uh, sure, yeah, kind of sometimes,” Louie says, his cheeks matching the cocktail. And the flowers. “Just don’t make me drink beer.”

“Right?” Ivy says and holds up her fist for Louie to bump.

This is almost as good as making Louie smile .

The two of them played cards until midnight yesterday, talking about their favorite songs to play on the piano. She almost got him to play something for her, but then one of the cats decided to dramatically meow at Louie and he started petting Pancake instead.

Ryan gets his own Cherry Colada and settles in for the presents. It’s a whole thing and Louie’s face has gone from pale pink to cherry red because all the attention is on him. He still says thank you every time he’s handed a new gift. Pictures of Louie playing hockey, drawn by Emery’s kids. The cake Mom baked that has big bees and flowers piped on it—it says HAPPY BEE-DAY LOUIE! on top. Ryan’s sisters hand over a potted basil plant, a mug with an I’d rather be playing hockey print on it, and a plush chicken. “I hear hockey players love protein,” Ivy says with a shrug, “but I wasn’t going to show up with raw chicken.”

The entire time, Ryan watches Louie’s face. There’s that fine line again. He has no idea when someone last threw a birthday party for Louie. He has a feeling it wasn’t a priority in the Hathaway household. About two weeks ago, Ryan asked Louie if there was anything in particular he wanted to do on his birthday, any traditions, anything that couldn’t be missing. Louie shrugged. He thought about it for at least ten minutes and then came back with, “Anything is fine, honestly. We never did anything special. Just dinner.”

“So, we’ll do dinner,” Ryan said—hence the barbecue they have planned for later. He called his mom and they made plans. She didn’t even let Ryan make too many suggestions. She just said she’d take care of everything.

Ryan’s dad has disappeared in the meantime and eventually shows up with a small coffee table that’s painted just like the one in the living room. “Monica said you liked it,” he says. “It’s not as big, but that just makes it easier to find a nice place for it.”

“Thank you,” Louie says, his voice soft, full of awe. “This is… you really didn’t have to get me anything.”

He needs to stop saying that. It’s his birthday— of course they had to get him something. And, honestly, Ryan’s sisters love buying presents. All of them. Even the one who isn’t here today. Ryan would bet they all had a great time. He, too, had a great time when he made Louie’s sandwich cake this morning. That one is for later, though.

All he really wants is for Louie to have a good day. And that he forgets about his shitty family and the NHL Awards and whether or not his brother will win the Calder. He’s almost sure they did it.

“Too late to return all of this, I’m afraid,” Ivy says and picks up the biggest knife Ryan’s parents have in their kitchen. “Now cut that cake. I’m starving.”