mine {h.s.} | {b3}

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

— CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX —

june, year two.

On my thirty-second birthday, Harry walks me into the Fat Monk and I'm temporarily shocked by the fact that I can't remember the last time I was here. My childhood was spent in this building, picking up my mother and getting her home safely. My young adult years were spent here, drinking underaged while Fletch turned a blind eye. After college, I came back. I introduced a whole new group of people to this bar. It was one of the closest things that I had as a safe place to land for a long, long time.

Once I started a family, I didn't come as much. There was less time for me to waste in a bar; that time quickly infringed on the time that I could spend with my kid. Very quickly I realized that so much of that time is already stolen by my job, I didn't want to lose any more of it. Especially not at this age, when every day seems so critical.

For my birthday, Harry had rented out the space. It was the first time that he had very openly opposed the singular birthday request that I had for him: Don't spend any money on me. This year, he swore he couldn't sit idly by; not after I'd gone through the trouble to fly his sisters out here. The tagline for my party was born then: the kind of party that you would remember because of how much you forgot.

In the days and weeks leading up to my birthday, he let nothing slip.

Only today, my birthday, did I find out that he was planning anything special at all. A babysitter showed up at our door just after we had a nice dinner together, all of us: Harry, Edie, Zana, Ruth, Fitzy, and myself. The babysitter, a neighbor from a couple of doors down who helps us out when we're all working, came in and made her way over to Edie and Zana immediately. "Harry," I asked him, "What's happening?"

"We're going out tonight." He answered vaguely, sending a wink over my shoulder to Ruth who was listening in keenly.

He ushered me out of the house, clearly not inclined to give me too much time to question him on the matter. In hardly any time at all, he was getting me out the door. I'd thrown on a t-shirt of his and tucked it into my jeans and he told me that I looked beautiful in that earnest way that he has mastered. Yet, still, the words never seem robotic coming out of his mouth. As ever, they seem genuine and truthful.

By the time that we settled into the car, some of the element of surprise was gone. After all, I'd damn near memorized the route to the Fat Monk in my childhood. Now I'm convinced that I could get there blindfolded, if I needed to. But still, when he pulled up and all of my friends were inside with drinks in their hands cheering upon my entrance, I admitted that I had not a clue about the lengths that my husband had gone through to plan this party for me. "You're not pregnant right?" He asks, his lips pressed against my ear while he guides me deeper into the party to get me my first drink.

"Nope," I shake my head once. "Not from lack of trying."

"Certainly not." He agrees, his lips spreading into a crooked smile as he pulls back to look at me entirely. There's a sort of glow about him in this moment. Something understated, but most certainly there. It's mutual adoration, I realize quietly. It's that look that I know I get all over my face when I wake up and he's already downstairs with Edie, bouncing her in his arms as he tries to get her to eat. It's the look I get when he waits up for me when I get home late just so he can kiss me goodnight. It's the mundane things that give us this look and in this moment, he has found something in me that he loves unconditionally.

The knowledge of the reciprocation causes a stutter in my heart. I've never doubted his love for me, and he's never left me wanting for any semblance of validation. For as long as we've been together he's told me that he loves me every day. Never in ways that makes it sound forced or routine, but in the small moments and the big moments where that love comes bursting out in the verbal format.