Chapter 30

“Finally,” D’ante groaned. He all but flung their mostly-empty glasses and completely-empty dessert plates into a bus bucket and gave the table the most desultory swipe with the rag Andy had ever seen. “I got these,” he told Andy, “if you’ll finish the sweeping. Lock the back door on your way out, would you, then come up to Scooter’s place? We got a little after-work thing, for having survived another Memorial Day without killing anyone. It’s a tradition.”

Andy tried to laugh, but he was too tired to put much energy into it. “I hope it’s a tradition that involves booze,” he told D’ante. “Lots and lots of booze.” He slumped against a table to breathe, no longer required to be alert and fresh for the customers.

“Yep! Kat’s had the vodka in the fridge since this morning.” D’ante bent with a groan to grab a dropped spoon off the floor and tossed it in the bucket, then ducked into the kitchen. “One last shake of those tail feathers; sooner you get there, the sooner I can get my booze on and raise a toast or three to the newly-engaged couple.”

That was a thought worth smiling about, at least. Kat had pretended to be exasperated that Jason had taken so long to get around to it, but the bright flush on her cheeks had lasted all the way through lunch and well into dinner. And every time Kat had come into the kitchen, Jason’s neck and ears had turned bright pink. They were adorable.

Andy finished the sweeping, dumped out the dustpan and all but threw everything into the closet. Last one out, he cut the dining room lights and made sure the front door was locked. He shuffled through the kitchen, tossing his apron on its hook, and set the lock on the back door before slipping through and tugging it shut behind him. He leaned on the door to make sure the latch had caught; the damp salt air had warped the frame a little. Andy made a mental note to add that to the running list of handyman-type jobs to do.

The air outside was warm and humid, but it smelled of salt rather than grease, so Andy paused to take a few deep breaths before he headed around the side of the building. He stopped at the base of the stairs that led up to the second floor, where the residences were, and then sighed. He was going to have to lift his leg high enough to put a foot on the step. Multiple times. How was life so unfair?

“Ah, stairs,” he sighed, “my old enemy.” The inside lights were glittering around the edges of the window-blinds, shadows of people moving behind them. They would be waiting for him, because they were like that, he’d found. “Right. I can do this.” He used the railing liberally, practically hauling himself upward hand-over-hand. It wasn’t until he was standing in front of the door that he realized this was Scooter’shome; that he was going to see it for the first time.

He shouldn’t be nervous about that, should he? Nah. What was there to be nervous about?

He still had to take a couple of calming breaths before he knocked.

Someone threw the door open and Andy was half-blinded by a series of camera flashes and cries of “Surprise!” and “Happy birthday!” Spots dancing in front of his eyes, he found everyone clustered in a semi-circle around Scooter’s kitchen table, which was piled with brightly wrapped presents and a cut-crystal trifle bowl that held—was that tiramisu?

Andy blinked to try to clear the spots, looking in dumbfounded surprise from face to face—there were so manyof them! Scooter, Kat and Jason, D’ante, Melissa and Elaine were all grinning fit to burst. Just behind Elaine was a guy Andy only vaguely recognized as Elaine’s brother. And it was Raneisha who’d opened the door—what the hell was shedoing here; it was after midnight and she had schooltomorrow—

It hit him, then, that they’d done this for him. Not a post-holiday tradition, and not to toast Kat and Jason’s engagement, but…“Oh God.” It was Kat’s doing, of course, because she was the one he’d slipped up and mentioned his birthday to. Except that it had been D’antewho’d brought around one of his mother’s homemade pies, and Andy had rather nostalgically mentioned his own mother’s tiramisu. And everyone knew D’ante could barely make toast, which meant the actual creation of the dish had to have been Jason’s work. And—“Oh, God.” He was going to fucking cry, wasn’t he, exhausted from two long, hard days and now this…

“Are you surprised, Andy? I was surprised! You didn’t give us a lot of time to plan, but I think we did okay!” Raneisha tugged him further into the room so she could close the door. “Mom said I could come, special, but you have to open my present first, because we still have school tomorrow and it’s already super late.” Raneisha practically danced over to the table and grabbed one of the packages, bright red with gold ribbons, and handed it to him. She bounced up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “You’re my favorite. I’m so glad you decided to move here.”

Andy pulled himself together enough to hug her without fumbling the gift. “Me, too, ‘Neisha.” He looked over her head at the others, and smiled for them. “Me, too.”

He opened her present—candy from her mom’s store, of course, including Andy’s favorite chocolate-covered coffee beans. “These are going to be stone cold necessarytomorrow,” he said with a laugh, and hugged her again. He tore open the package and poured out a small handful for her. “Those are to get you through school tomorrow. Go on, then, you shouldn’t have stayed up this late just for me.”

Elaine nudged her brother—Arthur? maybe? “Walk her home, idiot,” Elaine hissed at him. Arthur rolled his eyes at his sister, but separated himself from the cluster of people and followed Raneisha out the door.