“You first.” I nod toward the two gifts already on the table when we get seated. One is an envelope, the other bigger.
“Oh fuck yeah, do I get two gifts?”
I nod again, mid-chew on my still-hot, delicious roll, and—as expected—he goes straight for the bigger one and tears into it.
“Oh, duckies!” he shouts, holding up the hideous turquoise Hawaiian shirt covered in bright-yellow rubber duckies. “This is awesome. Hey, there’s two of them!”
I snicker as he tosses one at me, smacking me right in the face. “Of course there are. Got to keep the tradition alive. It was my turn this year.”
Every birthday, we alternate buying each other stupid shirts and wear them the whole damn day while we do something fun. Since I wasn’t about to wear a neon-green mesh shirt like he did last night, this’ll have to do.
We both swap shirts, and the print hurts my eyes when I look at Lamar. He, on the other hand, isthriving—grinning like a fool as he opens the envelope and pulls out the pamphlet I stuck in there this morning.
When his expressive brown eyes go wide, I know I nailed it.
“We’re going to cuddle alpacas?” he says, punching me in the shoulder. “Yo! This is awesome.Look!” He shoves the paper in my face. “They have cows, too.”
“And ducks. And guinea pigs. And if I’m reading this right, you can collect eggs, feed the animals and do all kinds of fun stuff.”
I press my lips together to keep myself from laughing while he scans the list of activities at the petting zoo-slash-learning farm I found only about an hour’s drive away.
Lamar lives for dumb shit like this. He looks tough, but on the inside he’s basically a fluffy marshmallow.
“When are we going? Next week?”
“Nah, today. Right after lunch.”
He looks up with a frown, but it disappears almost instantly.
I tilt my head. “What? It’s not like you have plans.”
We’ve always spent our birthdays together—ever since we were kids. We exchange gifts, do something stupid during the day, and end it with a backyard barbecue with both our families, stuffing our faces until we pass out somewhere outside.
It’s part of the tradition. And a good one.
“No, of course not. It’sourbirthday. Now open yours!” He grins and shoves the box he brought toward me a bit tooforcefully, nearly sending his plate flying off the table, then immediately digs into his food like nothing happened. He’s acting weird. Well—weirderthan usual. Lam can’t lie for shit, so he better not have planned something, too. I paid extra for the cow-cuddling experience.
When I open the box, I snort. A picture of a massive purple dick is staring up at me. “What the hell is this?” I pull out two tubes from the box. “Clone-a-Willy?” I ask, inspecting the almost identical kits. One’s in a neon pink case. The other’s glittery purple.
“Yes! You can clone your dicks and make dildos out of ‘em! I bought two! I saw them online and thought they were cool. That way, if you’re missing your man, at least you’ve got a part of him.” He snickers, clearly proud of himself. “The mostfunpart, ya know?”
I’m not even going to ask how the hell he found this—I donotwant to know what’s in his browsing history—but I have to admit... yeah, I kinda dig this.
A grin tugs at my lips as I read the side of the box. “Oh, it has a vibrating function as well. Jace’s gonnalovethis.” My smile fades almost as fast as it came. “Too bad it’s gonna take a while before we can use it.”
Ten more weeks, to be exact. Every time I think of how long ten weeks is, and how long we already went without seeing each other, my heart just aches with impending dread. I can’t help it. Itryto stay positive, but then the call came the day before yesterday… and I just—
Lamar slaps my back, and my cap falls on the table from the force of it. “Aww. Don’t turn that smile upside down and get all mopey on me. We’re going to see alpacas this afternoon! If that ain’t something to look forward to, I dunno what is! Can you ride them too?”
“I don’t think you’re supposed toridealpacas. But I think I saw something about horses on their website. But is it the best idea to ride a horse with ya know…” I wave at his lap. “Withthat?”
He pouts and complains some more while I shovel in the last of my food and skim through the rest of the instructions on my gift. When Mom walks back in, holding the anti-whatever-cream, I cringe. Of course, I’m too late stuffing the soon-to-be dildos back into the box. Well, out of the closet, out of the box, I guess.
“Those look like fun,” she honestly says as she plucks the neon pink one out of my hands. “Maybe this’ll come in handy when your dad goes to visit your uncle in Oahu next month.”
I shudder and snatch the thing back. “Mom,Jesus. I don’t need to know that.” I glance at the two packages. Yep. They’re tainted now.
“No worries, Mrs. K. I’ll order you one,” Lam chimes in, completely unbothered, as he whips out his phone and starts tapping. “Mr. K will love it.”
