aTRACKion

Chapter Thirty

"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Doug! Happy birthday to yoooooooou!" Mine, my mum's and Nancy's in tune and very pleasant singing of the happy birthday song, thankfully drowns out the enthusiastic yet very bad singing of dad and Tezzer.

"Now that is what a chocolate cake should actually look like." Doug grins, eyeing up his large birthday cake that both mum and I are now nervously carrying into the room with almost a boyish joy held within them. "Did you really make this?" He keenly asks, looking at me with his grin gorgeously growing wider as mum and I carefully put his cake down in the middle of the dining room table.

With the chocolate creation safely where it should be, I keenly step back from the table. "Yup, I did!" My shoulders proudly rise as I slowly nod with a smugness all over my lips. "I hope you like chocolate fudge...because there's a yummy lot of it?"

Doug smiles, staring back at his cake yet again. "I looooove chocolate fudge." Comes his very appreciative reply.

"Blow out your candles, then!" Tezzer teasingly interrupts, not only excited about getting a slice of the wickedly fudgey birthday cake, but super excited to see Doug being here at our house again.

Since us both getting back on Sunday, Doug then finally met my parents on the Monday. That whole 'meet the parents' thing went so incredibly well, he was eagerly invited back for dinner on the Tuesday. When mum found out that Doug was turning thirty the very next day, she absolutely insisted that he came around yet again, so that we could all help him celebrate his birthday.

So here we are—Doug, me, Tezzer, my parents, and Nancy as well.

"Okay! Okay! I'm blowing!" Doug chuckles, then his cheeks puff out  just before he's about to extinguish the 3 and the 0 that burn brightly on the top of his cake. "There you go, Tez...you can now have a slice." He teases, winking at my brother.

Just as my almost salivating and very embarrassing brother is about to pick up the knife, mum swiftly taps the top of his hand and is giving him one of her 'death glares'. "It's your birthday, Doug, so Terence will be giving you the first slice...won't you, Terence?"

Under the constant death glare of our mother, Tezzer quickly remembers the manners that he was supposedly born with. "Of course, how big a slice do you want, Doug?"

"Man size." Doug jokes, still amused by mum's comical scolding of my brother in front of us all.

"Man size it is." Tezzer agrees, carefully slicing the knife deeper into the succulent cake.

"Make that two man size slices, will you, Terence?" Dad now also joins in with the fun. For a quiet man, he has such a subtle sense of humour. It's a warm and understated kind of humour, that only reveals itself around those he is feeling absolutely comfortable with. So to watch dad joining in with Doug and Tezzer over the 'man size slice of cake' thing, quietly means so much to me.

"I'm due on, Tez...do you do hormonal sized slices?" Nancy teasingly intrudes, holding her hand up as if she were in school or something.

Now it's mum's turn to be silly. "Um, I'm just getting over the menopause, if anyone is having an hormonal sized slice...it's going to be me." She teases with a very straight face.

While Tezzer continues to cut the cake, Doug playfully nudges him. "I think we might need a bigger cake, bud?"

With the silliness unfolding in front of me, I watch it all with an elated smile on my face. Doug seems to have slipped right into becoming part of my family. They have all welcomed him in with wide open arms. And Doug himself is relishing in their quick acceptance of him.