Birthday Girl(84)

“I’m Teresa,” she says, rolling her tongue over the r and looking over her shoulder at me with a smile. She gestures with my trays. “Are these cream cheese?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Yay,” she sing-songs, leading us over to the tables of food.

Everything is set up like a buffet, three long tables lined up together and filled with food. There are several coolers at the end, and the smell of charred hamburger hits the back of my throat, and my mouth waters. Groups of people lounge on chairs in their yards or in the blocked-off street, and kids run everywhere, playing tag or rolling down the hills of some of the lawns. A few teenagers not much younger than me sit around, playing on their phones, while the adults laugh and talk, occasionally stopping to bark orders at one of their kids. It might not be technically summer yet, but the heat beats down and is only lessened by the sporadic cloud cover. It’s a beautiful day.

“Come on,” Dutch says, nudging Pike.

Pike glances at me, probably to make sure I’m alright, and finally sets the salad down before walking away. He trails off, shaking hands with some friends and twisting off the cap of a beer someone hands him.

I shuffle next to Teresa as she places everything on the table. “How long have you and Dutch been married?” I ask.

She sighs. “Fourteen years.” She looks over at me. “And three kids later, I still want to kill him every day, but he makes good spaghetti, so…”

I snort. I’m sure she’s just trying to be funny, because I doubt she can explain them. She looks pretty put together, while he’s got on a flannel and Shit Kickers.

“This looks so good,” she says, removing the Saran Wrap. “Thank you for bringing so much. It won’t last long.”

Just then, an arm comes between us, the hand swiping up four poppers by the toothpicks and stealing them away. I recognize the ink on the arm right away.

“Hey,” I scold Pike, but I can’t shake my smile.

He peers down at me under heavy lids looking entirely too sexy. “Excuse me,” he whispers and turns away, heading back to his friends. He glances back at me, smirking, and I cock an eyebrow at him. Should have known he’d be all scared they’d get eaten before he had a chance.

“I hear you and Cole are staying with Pike for a while,” Teresa says.

“Yeah.” I swing our cooler over with the others and grab a water bottle out of it. “It seems paying for our own apartment was too-adulty for us,” I joke.

She nods knowingly. “Take your time. I wanted to get away from my parents so badly, and then when I found I had no money, because bills were way more responsibility than I bargained for, I ran back home.” She picks up her Solo cup and holds it up to her lips, gazing out at the guys. “I’m glad Pike’s got some company, though. That house is too big for one person.”

I take a drink of my water, following her gaze. I’d hate to think of Pike living in that house alone after I leave. He really should be sharing his life with someone.

“I know a few single women who wouldn’t mind changing that if given the chance,” I remark, thinking of April, my sister, and half the moms on our block who flirt with him when they pass his house on their ‘jogs’.

“Yeah, but he’s a loner,” she replies.

I nod, smiling in agreement. “Yeah, I’m starting to understand that.”

“He wasn’t always like that.” She glances at me, taking a sip of her drink. “He was a lot like Cole back in the day. Partying, laughing, speeding, breaking rules…. He even spent the night in jail once.”

My eyebrows dart up. Really?

I turn my eyes back on him and watch him pull the baseball cap out of his back pocket and pull it over his light brown hair, the muscles of his tattooed arm bulging against his T-shirt.

“But then Cole was born,” I say, guessing the story from there.

“Yeah,” Teresa sighs, rocking left to right to the music playing from some speaker in one of the houses. “Someone had to be the adult, and Lindsay…” She trails off and then straightens, clearing her throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to gossip.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “He certainly doesn’t give up much.”

I’ve seen Cole’s mom here and there, and it’s hard to picture her with Pike. She’s pretty ostentatious, and I feel like the Pike I know would get whiplash trying to keep up with her.

At least, I know from Cole has told me that it didn’t last long between his parents, and if he didn’t have some of the same mannerisms as his father, I’d wonder if Pike was sure Cole was his son. She’s had at least four boyfriends whom I’ve seen in the past couple of years.

Teresa exhales a breath and lowers her voice. “Pike is proof that we learn when we’re forced to and maturity is more the result of experience than age,” she tells me. “He was the only twenty-year-old I knew working two jobs without even a second thought to all the friends he was losing because he could never hang out.”

I look over at her, suddenly wanting to know it all. I want any insight into who he was before I knew him.

“All of his friends were buying hot cars,” she continues, “but he’s been driving his dad’s old pick-up ever since I’ve known him. It was never a sacrifice to him, and there was never any question about taking care of Cole. It takes conviction to do what you know you’re supposed to do regardless of what you want.”