Page 4 of First Dates and Birthday Cakes: MM Romantic Comedy

I’d had worse birthdays, it was true.

And this one could very well turn out to be the worst of the lot.

I stood on my doorstep, my key frozen in mid-air, and stared up at Ravi’s face in horror.

Behind him, an enormous banner stretched across my hall, proclaiming in foot-high, powder-blue letters against a scorching-pink background, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY BOY!!!

There were balloons.

There were streamers.

He was wearing a sparkly rainbow party hat.

“You didn’t,” I groaned.

“Fuck yeah, I did. Woo!” Ravi opened the front door wider and hauled me through.

Two people burst out of my utility closet, the kitchen door whacked open at the other end of the hall to reveal my beaming parents, and three other people got wedged in the doorway to the sitting room when they all tried to run out at once. Dad did his thing with a party popper again, making my mother screech.

Everyone yelled, “Happy Birthday!”

I smiled, even as I said through gritted teeth, “Ravi.”

He slouched in the doorway, his black hair in its usual tousled mess under the stupid hat and his dark eyes shining with mischief. “Let’s party, bitch.”

“Actually—”

“Haha. Fuck no. There is no ‘actually’. You are partying. You’re forty, Ben. Forty! Life starts now! With a party.”

He snatched my gym bag off me and tossed it in the direction of my console table, then stripped me out of my coat with alarming efficiency and slung it on the coatrack. While I was saying things like, “My groceries are in the car,” and, “My ice cream’s melting,” and, “Why aren’t my parents in Scotland?” he fussed with my hair, took the hat off his head and stuck it on mine, turned me by the shoulders, and shoved me into the sitting room ahead of him.

He’d really gone all out.

There were even more balloons and streamers in here than in the hall, and even more people.

Eighties music played, platters of Waitrose’s finest party food covered every flat surface, and to top it off, my coffee table was all but buckling under the weight of a spectacularly huge birthday cake.

“This is terrible timing,” I hissed at Ravi.

“You want to talk about terrible timing? Where the hell have you been all day? You were supposed to be at home, brooding. I had a plan. Your mum was going to surprise you first, lure you out for the afternoon and keep you clear of the house while I set up for the real surprise, but you weren’t here and you weren’t answering your damn phone. We had to wing it. Lizzie sat in her car watching the top of your road for an hour to give us a heads-up. Sitting in her car is not Lizzie’s idea of a good time on a Saturday afternoon. I am going to have to service her like you wouldn’t believe to say thank you.”

“Ravi, no. Don’t tell me about your sex life.”

He ignored me. “Everyone gather around,” he yelled, clapping his hands for attention, then shooting finger guns at the cake. “You’ve all been drooling long enough while we waited and waited and waited for Ben to get his arse home. Let’s carve this motherfucker up.”

“I really do have a date,” I said behind him as the crowd of friends, family, and friendly coworkers surged towards the coffee table.

“Okay, hold your forks, people,” Ravi yelled. “Keep mingling. Go nuts with the buffet. No one touch that cake. We’ll be back in a mo.”

He scruffed me and towed me out into the hall. He ran me clear through the house, whisking me through the kitchen and all the way out the back door.

Once outside, he pushed me against the wall. “A date? Really? You haven’t had a date in five years, and you chose today to break your dry spell?”

“I’m as surprised as you are, to be honest.”

That was a lie. I was way more surprised.

“Right, well. You’re not getting out of your own party, so forget it. You will go in there and you will enjoy yourself—or pretend you are enjoying yourself—if I have to shove my hand up your arse and make you my muppet. I’m a trauma surgeon, and I’ve done much, much worse.”

I knew he had. I’d heard the stories. “I don’t want to be your muppet.”

More importantly, Ravi had gone to a massive amount of effort to spring this nightmare upon my unsuspecting head, and I was truly touched. I wouldn’t have to pretend anything.

“Call your guy and tell him there’s been a change of plans,” Ravi said. “Have him come along. I’m sure he’d love to meet a bunch of strangers on a first date, including family members of the guy he’s trying to shag and everyone knows it. Who wouldn’t?”

You’d think that Ravi was being sarcastic, but he wasn’t. Crashing someone’s surprise birthday party was his idea of a fantastic time.

“Brilliant,” I said. “Yes. You’re a genius.”

“I know.”

I’d enjoy the party, I’d get to see Jake, and I’d…I patted my pocket. “Hang on. Where’s my fucking phone?”

“I’m guessing it’s not in your pocket?” Ravi said.

“No!”

“Is it in your coat, maybe? Gym bag?”

“No, I always…in my back pocket…”

“I’ve told you a hundred times not to put it in your back pocket, or to at least size up your jeans. There isn’t enough room for your arse and your phone.”

“It’s convenient, and I like my jeans snug!”

“Not convenient right now, is it? It wasn’t convenient when you dropped it down the can, either. Twice.”

“You’re not helping,” I said over my shoulder as I rushed back inside. I barrelled through the kitchen and into the hall, glancing through the sitting room doorway en route.

As Ravi had ordered, people were mingling, and people had hit the buffet. People had point-blank ignored the order about the cake, though, because it had been sliced and loaded onto an elegantly arranged fan of plates. My mother was the one holding the knife and handing it out.

I snatched my coat off the coatrack and gave it a thorough shakedown. Nope. Nothing. Fine. No need to panic.

Gym bag.

I dropped the coat to the floor, hit my sore knees, and unzipped my gym bag. I scuffled through it, then lost all sense of decorum and upended it, scattering the contents to the parquet floor and pawing through it all frantically.

No phone.

I sat back on my heels and dropped my chin to my chest.

“Listen,” Ravi said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “This isn’t the end of the world.” He crouched beside me and started scooping things back up and stuffing them into the gym bag.

“It is the end of the world. I had a date planned, Ravi,” I said. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had a date?”

He grabbed my coat, he grabbed my arm, and he stood, dragging me up with him. “Five years. We just covered that. Keep up.”

“Five years! And Jake is so nice! He’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met, and now I’m going to be the worst guy he’s ever met, because he’ll be sitting there all alone at the restaurant, waiting for me to show, and I won’t show! Because I don’t know which restaurant to show at! Because I don’t have my phone.”

“We can find it. Think. Where were you and what were you doing the last time you remember having it? At the supermarket? Petrol station? In the car?”

Oh.“The ice rink.”

Ravi blinked. “The what now?”

“The ice rink. That’s when I last remember having it.”

I’d entered Jake’s contact details and sent him a text, and then done exactly as I’d told him I would—avoided the gym, went to the supermarket, ran a couple of errands, and headed home.

“Ben?” Ravi said. “I have to ask. What the fuck were you doing at the ice rink?”

I huffed. “I was sort of…I was depressed this morning, okay?”

“Uh-huh. And you thought, I know how to fix this. I’ll take myself ice skating?”

“It’s not the weirdest thing in the world,” I said.

“It’s not the most normal, either.”

“I was being punk.”

“By ice skating.”

“Yes.”

“…okay, I’m not sure how that works. Doesn’t matter. Moving on…if the last time you remember having it is at the ice rink, then odds are, that’s where it is.”

“Ugh. When I don’t show up for our date or reply to his texts, Jake is going to think I’m ghosting him.”

“Yeah, he is,” Ravi said. “But only for a while. Tomorrow, you”ll go and see if your phone is at the ice rink, which I’m sure it is, you’ll call him and explain, problem solved.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It is easy. Your phone will still be there tomorrow. This Jake guy will laugh about it when you explain, and if he doesn’t, then he’s a humourless bastard and you’re better off without him.”

“I suppose.”

“Or…” Ravi said thoughtfully.

I perked up. “Or?” I liked the sound of or.

He took out his own phone—front pocket—poked at it a few times, and lifted it to his ear. “I’m calling you,” he said. “If it’s at the rink and someone turned it in, they’ll have it at reception. Maybe I can charm them into bringing your phone here. When I say charm, I do of course mean bribe. You’re still not sneaking out of this party to meet him, but you can text or call him tonight. That way, he won’t have to cry himself to sleep, thinking the hot forty-something weirdo ghosted him. Oh. Hey, someone picked up. Hello?”

“Give me that.” I lunged at him. He held me back with a hand at the centre of my chest.

“Who is this? Oh? Really?” Ravi winked at me. “Hello, Jake. I didn’t see that one coming. I’m Ravi, and I’m calling about Ben’s phone.”

“Give me the phone,” I said and made another grab for it. Ravi ducked me again.

“Listen, Jake. I heard you were supposed to be going on a date tonight. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thing is, Ben won’t be able to make it. What? No, no. Nothing like that. I mean, he’s sexy as hell, but I just don’t see him that way. He has a prior engagement he didn’t know about. As in, I threw the ungrateful bastard a surprise birthday party, and we have cake and champagne and I think you’ll agree it would be pretty rude of him to go running off to meet some guy for a hookup and—Oh? Not a hookup? A date? I’m sorry, a first date? That’s good to know. Because my boy isn’t really a hookup kind of guy.”

“I mean it, Ravi?—”

“So how about you come over here and have yourself a piece of cake?”

“What?” I said loudly.

Ravi looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Would you hold on a moment while I check with him to see if he’s okay with you knowing where he lives?”

“You can’t say that,” I hissed.

“Just did. Want him to come over or not?”

I stared. “Yes?”

“Jake, he doesn’t sound too sure about it, so—oh my god, you bitch.” Ravi doubled over laughing when I got him in the side with a hard tickle.

I snatched the phone off him. “I’ll take it from here,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Tell him to hurry up. I’ll do my best to save him some cake but you have a bunch of jackals in your sitting room and I can’t make promises.” He raised his voice. “Bye, Jake!” he called, and swaggered off.

I held the phone to my ear, and heard a deep, amused chuckle. I swallowed, my throat dry.

“Hi,” Jake said after a moment.

“Hi! You have my phone.”

“I do.”

I smiled at the warm sound of his voice. “Where did you find it? Did I lose it on the ice? It must have fallen out of my pocket.”

“Someone found it under one of the benches by the lockers and handed it into reception when I was saying goodbye and heading home.”

“How did you even know it was mine?”

“Because you’ve dropped it in front of me twice and I recognised the dinosaur stickers.”

“And they just let you let you take it?” I marvelled.

He hesitated. “Technically, no. I, uh. I didn’t ask.”

I cocked a hip. “Are you telling me you stole my phone?”

“I saved it.”

“From the ice rink’s lost-and-found? Couldn’t you get in a lot of trouble for just walking off with someone else’s property?” I was fairly sure that he could hear my smile.

“Only if you complain to management. Like I said, I didn’t steal it, I saved it. I hoped you’d call yourself once you realised it was lost, and then I could get it back to you, as we’re supposed to be meeting later anyway. The battery’s down to five percent. I didn’t think it would make it through the night.”

“It wouldn’t. It doesn’t hold a charge for long. Hasn’t been the same since I dropped it down the toilet.”

He laughed. “You don’t take very good care of your phone, Ben.”

“There’s room for improvement.”

“So, now you know it’s safe and you don’t have to remote wipe it or anything, I can take it back to the ice rink when I go in the morning and you can drop in and get it from reception. Or…I know you’re busy tonight with your surprise party, but I’d still like to take you to dinner another night. I’m on a tight schedule at the moment, but can we set something up?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, yes. Yes, I’m free and I’d love to set something up, but why don’t you, you know. Come over.”

Did that sound like I was asking him for a booty call?

I didn’t correct myself. If he wanted to interpret it that way, I was fine with it.

“You don’t have to invite me to your surprise birthday party,” he said. “It’s cool. We just met.”

I clutched Ravi’s phone tighter. “I want you to come.”

His voice was a touch lower when he said, “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Very much.” After a moment he said, “Are you going to tell me where you live?”

“Oh! Of course.” I rattled off my address.

“You’re only about twenty minutes away from me,” he said, sounding pleased.

“Twenty minutes? Don’t dawdle. I’ll do my best to save you cake, but I can’t make any promises.”

“I won’t dawdle, but I have to at least get dressed first. I just got out of the shower.”

I blanked at the thought of Jake standing in his bathroom, twenty minutes away, in nothing but a towel.

Or…not even a towel.

Maybe he was air drying.

“And, Ben?” he said. “To make it clear, I’m not coming for the cake.”

I laughed nervously. “Okay, so. See you soon?”

We hung up and I stood there, staring at my front door.

“He seemed delightful,” Ravi said behind me, making me jump.

I whirled to face him. “He is,” I said, and blushed. “He really is.”

“Ooh. Look at you, going all pink.”

“I am not pink.”

“I was being kind. You’re a weird magenta. Come on. Get in here and join the party, stuff your face, and have some bubbly before your birthday treat from the universe gets here and dicks you down for the grand finale.”

“You heard the man. It’s not a hookup. It’s a date, not a dicking.”

“Penises can still be involved.”

God, I hoped so. “We were going to meet up for dinner, and there was some playful banter about a birthday kiss. That’s all. He was cheering me up, because I thought I was going to have a boring and lonely birthday.”

“Boring and lonely?” Ravi smacked my shoulder. “You wish. Speaking of, come on. Time to blow out the candles, cut the cake, and make a wish.”

“It’s too late. Mum’s already cut the cake and was handing it out, last I saw. Is there even any left?”

“Doesn’t matter. I got you a little wishing cake of your own. You didn’t think I was going to let you hose down the big one with all your germs and then make people eat it, did you? I am a medical professional. Only you will be eating your wishing cake.”

“My…?” I tipped my head to one side and regarded him fondly. “My wishing cake?” That was adorable.

Ravi narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t,” he warned.

“Ravi, you are the sweetest, most thoughtful friend in the whole world.”

“Ugh,” he said, and turned around.

He’d always been this way. He could dish it out, but he couldn’t take it. I followed him. “I appreciate you. I need you to know that.”

“Don’t be disgusting.” He sped up.

“You know what would make my birthday? Not a romantic birthday kiss after all. Just a big cuddly hug from my BFF. My bestest bud.”

“Keep it up, and I’ll go and tell your mother about Jake.”

I sucked in a breath. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

I did not try him.

Ravi might be the bestest BFF in the whole world and had been since I was three years old, but that didn’t blind me to the fact that he could also be an absolute arsehole.

Before he noticed that I wasn’t following him anymore, I changed course and whisked myself up the stairs and into the bathroom.

I didn’t want fresh-from-the-shower Jake to show up and find me still wearing the jeans and hoodie I’d been wearing hours earlier on the rink. I had twenty minutes to half an hour to make this shit presentable, and I was going to make it count.

I started the shower, stripped in record time, and hopped in even though the water hadn’t even warmed up. I bravely stuck my head under the spray anyway and got down to business shampooing and soaping and scrubbing everything that needed shampooing and soaping and scrubbing.

I threw in a bit of manscaping while I was there—just the basics, I still hadn’t attended the party yet—then rinsed off, hopped back out, and scrambled into clean clothes.

I slunk into the sitting room, congratulating myself on getting away with my sneaky detour, when I caught Ravi’s eye from across the room and realised from the expression on his face that, no. I had not, in fact, got away with anything.

“Oh, look,” he said loudly. “Our diva has finally finished his primping and has deigned to join us! Get ready to embarrass him by staring as hard as you can while he attempts to blow out all forty candles!”

“I wasn’t primping,” I protested. “Everyone else is dressed for the party. I’m catching up.”

“Joyce!” Ravi bellowed my mother’s name at top volume, aiming it at the kitchen. “Fire it up!” His expectant grin faded as we all turned and faced the same way he was facing. And waited. And waited. “Joyce?”

“I told you to give me at least three minutes warning,” my mother called back. “It takes time to light this many candles. I’m going as fast as I can.”

My eye twitched. “I’ll go and help,” I said.

Lizzie snagged the back of my jumper. “Stay right there. You can’t light your own candles. I’ve got it.”

I gazed wistfully at Lizzie as she vanished into the kitchen, and turned to see the entire room looking at me.

“Well,” I said. “This is nice.”

Ravi snorted.

Thankfully, my mother appeared in the doorway a few moments later, announcing her presence with a loud, “Ta-daaa!” She held a fun-size, sugar-pink cake with a mass of blue candles crammed on it, bristling at all angles.

“Oh my god,” I said and started towards her as she wobbled on her four-inch party stilettos. “Mum, don’t set yourself on fire.”

Ravi had lunged for her at the same time.

“For goodness’ sake, boys,” she said, shoving past us. “I am perfectly capable of carrying a cake.”

Everyone burst into a round of applause as she set it down with a flourish on the coffee table.

She straightened, smiling. Her gaze met mine, her smile grew, and she opened her mouth.

No, I thought, digging deep and mentally projecting down the unbreakable mother-son bond forged between us on a dark and stormy night forty years ago when I entered into this troublesome life screaming at the top of my lungs, and she caught me in her loving arms. Also screaming at the top of her lungs, because I might have torn some stuff on my way out.

Don’t sing.

Mum. Don’t sing.

“Happy—” she started.

Mother, no.

“—biiiiiirthday to yooooou!”

I went into a full-body clench as everyone threw themselves into it wholeheartedly, singing at me.

This morning, I woke up depressed and sure that I was at the top of the hill of life, staring down at nothing but a long dizzying slope with an open coffin at the very end.

Now, here I was, being sung at by people who loved me and liked me, or, in the case of my neighbour Brian from two doors down who was stuffing his face over by the piano, liked me well enough and wouldn’t say no to free food ever.

But my god. This was painful.

I couldn’t stop smiling.

Right up until I clocked that the low coffee table meant that even bending at the waist wouldn’t bring my feeble lungfuls of air into close enough range to get all forty fucking candles out.

“Looks like you’ll have to get on your knees for the blowing,” Ravi said cheerfully. “Shouldn’t be a problem for you, Ben.”

I glared at him. My parents were right there.

Ravi grinned, unrepentant.

I was not going to get on my knees, especially now that Ravi had put that unsubtle image into everyone’s head.

“Don’t forget to make a wish,” he said. “And remember, you have to get all the candles out in one go, or your year will be cursed. I think a demon will show up or something, I can’t remember how it goes.”

My mother whapped Ravi with the back of her hand.

I hyperventilated sharply, bent over, and gave it my best shot.

To my surprise, I managed to get all the candles out in one blow. I straightened, lightheaded but victorious.

“What did you wish for?” Ravi said.

At the same time, the doorbell rang.

My eyes met Ravi’s across the coffee table. His glinted with mischief. Before he could make a move, I said, “I’ll get it.”

“Play your cards right, and you will.”

“Ravi,” my mother said with a suspicious note in her voice. “Did you hire a stripper again?”

“Joyce. I’m both shocked and offended.”

I darted out of the sitting room and into the hall. If I opened the door to find a suspiciously buff cop with a boombox on the other side instead of Jake, I was going to write the whole year off, I really was.

I took a deep breath, took hold of the handle, and opened up.