Trust me, babe

Chapter 25

Kenzie

As soon as the door closed behind Kathryn, I pulled out my phone and the list of preparations we had to do before the surprise party. I knew Kathryn would be at work for quite a long time but I was still stressed we wouldn't have enough time to get everything ready. I wanted her birthday party to be the best and it wouldn't be that if we were still in the middle of the preparations when she came home.

"Okay, first we need to get rid of your bed on the sofa," I told Jacky.

"No! Not my bed!" he shouted and jumped onto the sofa hugging the covers dramatically.

"Take this seriously, Jacky," I scolded him although I couldn't help the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "Besides, you'll get it back once the party is over."

"Understood, boss," he replied.

"You do that while I get started with the decorations," I decided.

After one more stern glance at him, I walked over to Kathryn's dad's bedroom which had been mine during our stay here. Jacky and I had bought a bunch of stuff we could use to decorate the house while Kathryn had been at school and hidden the bags under my bed, hoping she wouldn't get a sudden urge to start cleaning. I pulled the bags from under the bed and examined the stuff inside.

"Whose idea was it to buy all of these balloons?" I sighed as Jacky appeared into the room carrying his mattress and covers. I remembered how insistent he had been on buying not one but two packs of balloons, claiming it wasn't a proper birthday party if there weren't balloons all over the place.

"I promised you won't have to blow up a single one of them," he reminded me, dumping everything he'd been carrying on my bed.

"Did you even realize these are emoji balloons?" I asked, turning one of the packs around in my hand and studying the still deflated balloons inside.

"Yeah, I chose those on purpose," he replied.

I couldn't help but laugh. Emoji balloons were such a Jacky-thing to buy. "Well, time to get blowing then," I said and threw the packs at him.

"What else did we buy?" he asked as he sat down on the floor next to me. "Oh, party hats! I'd forgotten those!" He grabbed one of the hats from the bag and placed it on his head.

I laughed again. His childlike enthusiasm was so cute. He placed a hat on my head too and pulled the strap under my chin as I dug through the bags for the hanging decorations. We'd bought a banner that said "Happy Birthday" in big colorful letters and Jacky had also insisted on buying paper streamers in all the colors of the rainbow.

Finally I managed to find the banner and the streamers under the piles of party hats and balloon packs that seemed like more of them just kept appearing. We went back to the living room just as the buzzer rang.

"Did you tell them to come this early?" Jacky asked.

"I didn't say anything that precise," I replied, placing the decorations I was carrying on the now empty sofa. "But I thought it wouldn't hurt if we had more people to help get everything ready in time."

I rushed to buzz in whoever the first to arrive was and then made my way over to the front door and swung it open, waiting to see who would appear from the stairs. I didn't have to wait for long before a widely grinning Persimmon appeared in my view. She was carrying three heavy-looking bags most likely full of food.

"Hi!" she said. "I didn't realize the elevator was still broken! This is a proper workout to climb up the stairs with all these bags!"

"Let me help you," I said, taking a few steps toward her and offering to take the bags. She gave them to me and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand as she stepped into the apartment. "Did you bring food to last for the rest of the year?" I joked as I peeked into one of the bags.