deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 85: alex's nineteenth birthday

It took Sam a few moments to realize that she was no longer back in her apartment, but at the new place in Hell's Kitchen. But she had found her way back to that safe place, even if the surroundings had changed to of great extent. She shook her head to rid of her dream world and she placed the journal down on the table before her.
Marla had slept through the throes of jet lag for what felt like forever, and swift phone call back to Jon and Marsha's place allowed her to figure things out from then onward as the summer days dwindled down to autumn there in New York. Indeed, Anthrax themselves would make their grandiose return to the United States in no time once another trio of dates wrapped up for them. A full four weeks off and they would make the flight back to Europe for a fuller stint of the tour, and albeit one that would last them all the way to Christmas. It almost felt as though Jon was making it up as he went along but she had to take his word for it, especially given the shakiness of the music world, and especially since Aurora and Emile hadn't returned to New York City themselves.
Her best friend had gone off with her new groom and in turn left her there at the altar herself. She sat there on a stool next to the phone on the wall and she listened to Jon talk about things there at the label. Marla still hadn't woken up and Zelda had long left the apartment to deal with her own affairs with the Cherry Suicides: the latter of whom did, however, leave her duct taped boots there at the apartment, right next to the coffee table. There was that vase there at the far end, right where Sam had been laying, and she yearned for those yellow tulips once again. Sam cleared her throat but she never said anything while she listened and hung onto every word.
She had to do so: she was the most important person there at the label at the moment next to Jon.
"Besides, Alex's birthday is coming up here in a few weeks time," he added at one point, and that coaxed a smile out of Sam.
"He'll be nineteen now! Still just a hatchling."
Jon chuckled at that, but Sam was serious upon saying that. Alex still was a young boy about to make his transition into manhood. A nineteen year old kid who had already put out an album and yet she still struggled to make her way through the art world. There had to be an opening of sorts, something that could potentially free her from the whole tedium of going to school and going back home. It wasn't just the change in surroundings, but rather there had to be an escape out of there somehow.
Something to move her away from it all, even if it was just for a little bit, even as she and Jon bode their goodbyes and she hung up the phone.
The thrill and rush of being on tour had something to do with it. Being out in the world at large. All the world was a stage after all. She had that itch she couldn't seem to scratch once again, and the first day of school had to prove to be something more for her lest she find herself bounding off of the walls of Hell's Kitchen once more.
She strode back out of the kitchen so as to fetch her journal. So much drawing in such a short amount of time, and she remembered that school was about to start off a brand new quarter and ultimately a brand new year within a few days time.
She returned to those three drawings that happened as if they each were a hallucination. Something that came forth from another part of her mind, a place that no one knew about before. But she had to keep it under wraps for the time being, for the time in which she had right there at that very moment, that precise moment in time, the very present. At some point, Joey needed to know how she felt about him, and if it had to take her utmost intimate pieces of art to do such a thing then she was willing to undertake that task.
Marla needn't know about them, not until there came a time in which she had to talk about them for real. But then again, she had her privacy at her fingertips, the precious bit of privacy all to herself. She had her mind's eye fixed on the three men among the pages of that journal, the three men whom everyone knew but also didn't know at the same time.
A knock at the door caught her attention and thus jarred her back down to earth once again. She closed the journal and clambered to her feet. Lucky for her, Genie had curled up with Marla in the bed down the hall. Sam recognized that head of blonde hair down past the shoulders now tied up tight in a snug ponytail upon her head coupled with the doll-like features.
"Oh, hi, Bel," she greeted her.
"Hey! Is Marla up?"
"Nah, she's been out like a light for the last day and a half. I think she got up once after you left the morning after. What's going on?"
"A little bird told me that it's about to be someone's birthday soon," she replied in singsong voice. "A certain boy who happens to play guitar in the only five piece band for miles."
"Let me guess," Sam started as she let her into the apartment, "Jon told you."
"I won't tell," Belinda giggled, and then she shut the door behind her, and she turned towards Sam with her eyebrows knitted together.
"She got up once after I left," Belinda echoed her. "Only once."
"Yeah, Marla's just been wiped out lately because of the damn jet lag," Sam answered, and she tucked her hands into her shorts pockets. "I've been sleeping well, though."
"I have, too—wow."
"So what'd you have in mind for little Mr. Alexander?" Sam took her seat on the arm of the couch closest to the door.
"Well, I was thinking that—since he's a guitar player—maybe you and I can look into playing around with leather and make him a new strap?"
"Ooh, yeah! Like you can craft out the leather and I can paint on designs and whatnot on there. That's a great idea, Bel!"
"We'll have to do some reading, of course, but it's definitely something I've thought about in the past. Getting into leather work. It's just something that fascinates me."
"It sounds fascinating—like glass work."
"Well, since Marla isn't up, I'm thinking maybe you and I can go over to the book shop up the block here and find something about that."
"I'll take it," said Sam as she reached for her purse on the hook behind her. "Totally nice day for a walk, anyways."
"Right?"
Without another word, the two of them headed outside to the hazy gray afternoon and they made their way up the block to the book shop in question. Sam thought about that one place that she and Cliff had gone to down by L'Amour all the while, even as she and Belinda looked up the books in the crafting section, tucked back in the far corner of that main room. She gazed on at the beading books and the paper crafts, and she thought about Joey all the while: on the front covers, those beads arranged in all those arrows and points made her think of Native American baskets.
And then she remembered that Joey's birthday was coming up as well, exactly two weeks after Alex.
"Hey, Bel, you wanna do something for Joey's birthday?" she asked her.
"Sure!" Belinda then turned her attention to her from a book she had swiped from the shelves. "What'd you have in mind?"
"Something Native American related. You know, the whole leather work guitar strap thing but with something that's faithful to his heritage, though."
"Okay—well, I'm reading this here and it's rather easy to figure out. It's getting my paws on a leather work kit is the real bitch about it, though. This thing here says a single hundred piece kit is almost fifty bucks."
"It's worth it, though," Sam pointed out.
"Absolutely. I think there is in fact a place for that—up the block here. Where I can get a couple of strips of nice leather for those two boys and just buckle down with the tools. I think you can get paints there, too."
Indeed, the two of them headed back out, complete with Belinda buying that craft book as well, and then they further headed up the street to that craft shop in question. Just a walk along that sidewalk made Sam wonder about her own desires to break free of it all in favor of a change of pace. She peered up at the buildings that lined the streets and the hazy sun overhead. It was in fact home to her after all.
"I literally love how we can go just about anywhere here in New York," Sam remarked as Belinda held the door for her.
"Right? Everything we want and need—right nearby. We can either walk there, or hitch a ride on the bus or the subway. We can give it all what for even if we can't find what we're looking for with these two boys."
"I'm gonna give you what for if you don't wrap it up in paper," Sam teased her, and Belinda chuckled at that as they stepped inside the craft shop: rows of shelves stood before them, underneath a series of soft fluorescent lights, and Sam was greeted by the fresh smell of new tools right there in their face.
"How 'bout you wrap the whole entire thing up in paper with a little bow on top?" she retorted back. Sam then stopped right in her tracks, and she took a glimpse over at Belinda and the mischievous look on her face.
"When you say 'entire thing'," Sam began in a soft voice even with no one else in that shop there with them, "do you mean his dick or his guitar?"
"Both," Belinda replied without a shred of irony or hesitation.
"So you want me to wrap up his dick and his guitar in paper?" Sam asked her with a straight face.
"Yes? Yes."
"Who're we talkin' about?"
Belinda nibbled on her bottom lip, but she never said anything. Instead, she lunged forward to the row of metal shelves right in front of them.
"Bel, who're we talking about?" Sam asked her again as she adjusted the strap of her purse, but Belinda paid more attention to the leather kits in front of her face.
"We's talkin' 'bout leather, baby," she said as she took off the first one right over her head. She then turned to the spools of leather on the far side of the room.
"What color do you think they'd like?" she asked Sam.
"I'm feeling black with Joey and—creamy white for Alex. By the way, you didn't answer my question."
"What question's that?"
"Who were we talking about back there?"
Belinda pursed her lips together and she never said anything as she picked up two small spools of black and white leather for the guitar straps in question. She then led Sam back to the front of the shop, past the single file of paints for the leather in question.
"We's talkin' 'bout leather," she repeated again. "By the way, that book said that black can hold just about any color while off white leather looks best with jewel tones."
"Yes, but—who are we talking about?" Sam corrected her as she picked out a quartet of bottles, one scarlet red, one solid black, one pure white, and one sapphire blue. And Belinda still never replied to her as she doubled back to the register and she paid for it right there. Sam shook her head the whole entire time she put down the money and tucked her wallet back into her purse.
Belinda carried the leather kit and the pieces of leather under her left arm, and Sam volunteered to carry something for her.
"I got it, I got it—by the way, I was talking about both of them." She raised her eyebrows at Sam, who then looked on at her with a puzzled expression on her face.
"Talking about both of them," she echoed her over the noise of the street.
"Yeah. Sam, Alex is of age now. You can do whatever the hell you want with him now."
"Yeah, but—"
"But what?"
"I do not like the way you said the word 'but' just now."
"Thinking about Alex's butt?" Belinda teased her as she adjusted the kit and the bag of leather with her free arm, and she gave her blonde ponytail a little toss back.
"Pfff, you wish," Sam scoffed; she felt her face growing warm with embarrassment, or the warmth of the late summer sun.
"What, you don't think he has a cute butt?"
"I haven't looked."
"Well, next time you see him—like at the party that they're throwing for him—you oughta have a look. Libra boys have nice rear ends—at least so I'm told."
"Nice and round, I assume?"
"Maybe," Belinda replied with a shrug of her shoulders.
Within time, they returned to the apartment and Marla still hadn't woken up yet.
"Well, let's see," Belinda started once she had set everything down on the kitchen table. Sam took her seat next to her, and she gave her blonde hair another toss back even though she had no need to do so from the tautness of her ponytail. "—the leather has already been treated... I'm gonna have to cut these so they resemble to guitar straps. I'm gonna need you to help me. Even though it's gonna be a bit before their birthdays, and Joey's birthday in particular, I'm glad we're getting a head start on this."
"I am, too!" Sam declared.
"Lucky for us, we have these special scissors just for cutting leather—do you know how tall they are?"
"Joey and Alex? Joey is about middle height, like I can look at him right in the eye."
"How tall are you?"
"Five foot seven. I'm thinking he's five foot nine?"
"Okay. What about Alex?"
"He's a big boy, I know that much. I kinda have to look up at him. And I've seen him next to Chuck, who's pretty tall in his own rite—and I've seen him next to Joey, too."
"And how tall is he in comparison to Joey?"
"He's taller. By how much, I don't really know, to be honest. But I know he's taller."
"Okay—I'll see what I can do."
Indeed, Sam watched her go forth with the leather scissors and the measuring tape and the pencil for two guitar straps.
"If nothing, I can make Alex's a two piece and I can find a buckle," Belinda told her.
"Hmmm..." But Sam never went any further than that. Instead, she watched Belinda spread out the leather, twin black and white stripes before them on the wood. She picked up the pencil yet again, that time to sketch out the designs on the upside of the leather.
"Okay, so let's figure this part here will be on Joey's shoulder... and this part here will be on Alex's shoulder..."
She sketched out the ever so faint sketch of a bouquet of roses for Joey's strap, and then a cluster of something that resembled to tulips on Alex's strap. Sam looked over at the bottles of paint next to her: on one hand, she was glad that she hadn't picked out yellow for Alex's white leather. But then again, the very sight of those tulips made her think back to those drawings in her journal. Two pieces for a strap for Alex, which meant one of them had to find a buckle for it: Belinda sewed the ends of those off in place for a buckle, and then with the pick, she poked three holes into the larger part for the adjustment.
And within time, she took the awl and the hammer and began work inside of those lines.
She took her time in engraving into the black leather and then the white leather, but Sam didn't mind in the least. They were making something together for the two birthday boys. She propped up her chin inside of the palm of her hand as she watched Belinda ever so gingerly carve into the leather with that fine chisel tip, complete with a tap of the hammer head. The little continuous clink! that came out of the hammer's head didn't bother her in the least. The petals of the flowers all came to fruition even without a full color scheme: indeed, Belinda added a few more spirals and dots on Joey's leather for a more of a Native American look. She also added something that resembled to a Day of the Dead skull on both of their straps: the skull on Alex's strap had a flower tucked right behind it.
It took her most of the afternoon to completely fill out the engraving on the sketches on both straps of leather, but she managed to do it right there, right before Sam's eyes. A bit of work, for sure, but she could make it work.
"Gonna have to run a thread through these first," Belinda said once she set the awl and the hammer down. "So they don't come unraveled and whatnot..."
The big fat needle and the thick thread. Even more time and at that point, the straps were stitched and engraved, and lay there in anticipation for the head of a paint brush.
"Okay, you ready?" Belinda asked her.
"Lemme get my fine tipped brush..." Sam doubled back to her room for that fine tipped paint brush in question, and she returned with that plus a wash basin for the paints. Careful not to get any extraneous paint on the nice leather, she kept her hand right over the engravings for Joey's guitar strap.
"Red and white roses," Belinda muttered as the paint collected at the deepest parts of the engravings.
"And red and white roses," Sam added as she added a kiss of white on the otherwise red petals in the center piece of the bouquet. The colors bled for a second before they dried out right there. "Red and black tulips for Mr. Skolnick—"
"And white and blue sugar skulls, too, I presume," said Belinda.
"White and blue for Mr. Belladonna—black and blue for Mr. Skolnick—"
Within time, Sam had painted the leather and the sun had set over Hell's Kitchen. It made sense that the flowers would be in bloom and the sugar skulls would have their full color right there. Sam held the leather back on the table so they could have a better look at them.
"Beautiful," Belinda remarked. "They're just... they're gonna love these."
"Too bad we don't have a leather working class at the school," Sam said, "I actually kinda like this."
"I do, too! We can suggest it when school starts, though."
The two of them leaned back in their seats and looked on at the leather before them.
"I'm kinda hungry, you want something to eat?" Belinda asked her.
"Yes please. I gotta feed Genie, anyways."
* * * * *
School had started for the two of them as well as Marla in what felt like no time, and Sam wondered what exactly Bill had in store for her as she signed up for an appointment with him at one point in the future. Just so long as it didn't involve her working with something tedious like any of those general education classes: she was already taking three of those that term, and in turn less time to focus on the crux of her art degree. Marla assured her that it wouldn't be anything too serious, but then again, she herself had her focus firmly on her own senior project.
Meanwhile, Sam and Belinda had the leather straps placed in boxes and then wrapped up for Alex and Joey's birthdays in the coming days. For the first week of school, she had her eye on the daunting task of junior year of college and preparing for her even more daunting senior year, but she also had those two young men on her mind. She hoped that Joey would love his new guitar strap in particular: indeed, she thought of Alex's words about how he held his guitar during the shows of that North American stint. She knew that she kept it just between herself and him, but something in the back of her mind made her consider if Joey would question the length of it.
In the meantime, for the first two weeks of school and before Alex's birthday, Sam put in her final hours at the label before they were bought out. She had no idea what Aurora was going to do afterwards, and she sure as anything had no idea what she was to do with it, especially when school finished out for her. She and Belinda came to their spot up the street after school the last Friday afternoon of the month, and Aurora greeted them both a smile on her face, much to their surprise.
"What's going on?" Sam asked her as she put her arms around her.
"I'm pregnant for real now," Aurora told her, to which the two of them gaped at her.
"Seriously," the former blurted out. "Like, you're not messing with us right now." And Aurora shook her head.
"Osegueda can relax now, I s'pose?" Belinda joked.
"Yes, he can!" Aurora proclaimed.
"When did you find out?" Sam asked her.
"Just a couple of nights ago. I was gonna call you, Sam, but I guess you and Marla have your work cut out for you this year."
"Hell yeah, we do—especially me."
"Anyways, I felt weird, like internally, and so I went out for a test." Aurora set her hand on the lower part of her belly. "Bun in the oven, ladies."
"Please don't drink at Alex's party next week," Sam pleaded her.
"He'll be nineteen, so there's not going to be any alcohol there," Aurora assured her, "and even if there was, I've got Emile to check on me for that."
"By the way, where's his party even gonna be?" Belinda asked.
"The Zazulas' place. I'll come get you guys if you wish."
Given Alex's nineteenth birthday took place on a Tuesday, Sam, Marla, and Belinda all had to hustle out of school following their last classes of that day. But Aurora and Emile waited them there at the curb in their car: a packed caravan en route to the Zazulas' house at the far side of town. At one point, Belinda turned to Sam with a twinkle in her eye.
"You got the—" Sam then took out the square package enveloped in pearly white wrapping paper and with a black bow on top from her hand bag.
"Right here."
"You guys found a buckle for that thing?" Marla asked them.
"Beautiful platinum buckle—brand new, never been used," Belinda told her, and she never went any further than that, which led Sam to assume that she found it in the garbage somewhere. The guys from Testament were all there, as were Scott and Charlie, and James and Kirk. Sam chuckled at the memory of Lars in the kitchen the first time she and Joey went there together as she held her and Belinda's gift to Alex underneath her arm.
Aurora and Emile made their way to the other side of the house, while Sam and Belinda took to that kitchen door. Alex himself stood at the far edge of the house with a brown glass bottle in one hand: he and Greg were talking about something.
He almost didn't look the same with those tight leather pants. The black curls dangled about his shoulders like the ears of a dog: his hands pressed to his slender but shapely hips didn't help matters, either. She pictured Alex strutting along like he meant it, with that black hair splayed all around his head, and that plume of silver strong and high like a lightning bolt.
It was right there that Sam wanted him, and she wanted to see him naked for real. To see him and Joey both naked.
He had passed the right age after all: she could dream about him the way in which Belinda had joked about before.
A teenage kid about to bid his teen years farewell, and he stared back at her from across the room. Even though he was still underage, he held that empty brown bottle in one hand.
She nibbled on her bottom lip at the sight of him but then she and Belinda bowed into the house together.
They were greeted by the warm aroma of freshly baked cake in the kitchen and a small cluster of presents on the table.
"Aw, just a little party," Marla was saying as she signed the birthday card to him with a bright red pen.
"That's really all he wanted," Chuck told her. "Party with us, and then he's going upstate with his parents and his brother tonight. Gonna be up there for the rest of the week after this."
"Quick little party with us and then his parents are taking him out to dinner right afterwards," Eric called from the next room over.
"Yeah, that's it."
Sam then turned her head and she realized that Alex and Greg were a few feet away from there. She could walk past the back door and have a better look at them, but there had to be a reason behind it. Chuck handed Belinda the card for a signing; the aroma of the cake was almost intoxicating, as if it was right there and ready to slice into for all of them. Sam then had an idea.
"I'll be right back," she told Belinda with a raise of her finger, and she nodded in response to that. She bowed out of the kitchen and towards the back door, which hung right open for the stubborn warmth of the Indian summer.
She could walk by and make it look as though she was going to the bathroom or going to ask Marsha a question. Indeed, Sam strode on by so she could have a better look at the bottle in Alex's hand; he had turned to the side so it hung there right by his hip. It was sarsaparilla.
That also gave her a chance to look at the curvature of his thighs, albeit for a few seconds. She couldn't believe she had done that, either, given she already had a boyfriend. She had a boyfriend and he couldn't be there, and she couldn't tell him about it, either. She shook her head as she doubled back in the next room over and back to the kitchen to sign the card and to speak to Belinda. Lucky for her, Chuck had left the room so she stood there alone with her eye on the tags on each of the presents upon the table. Sam strode up to her with the warmth still fresh in her face.
"I need you to slap me across the face," she said to her.
"Why?" Belinda laughed.
"I'm having—thoughts," she stammered, even though they were alone in the room.
"Having what?"
"Thoughts. About... both Joey and Alex."
"Like... what do you mean?"
Sam leaned in closer to her face and hunched her shoulders a bit.
"Thoughts," she breathed right into her ear. Belinda looked on at her with a bewildered expression plastered on her face, and then her eyes lit up.
"Really? Sam, you little vixen! I knew you had it in you!"
"Yeah, but—Joey's kinda my boyfriend, though."
"So? Just 'cause you got a boyfriend doesn't mean you have to restrain yourself to him. Live and let live a little."
She sighed through her nose. Maybe Belinda had a point as she wrote "happy 19th birthday, Alex—with love, Samantha" at the bottom right corner of the card. Nothing fancy, nothing more, nothing less. She hoped that something would in fact happen that evening as she made her way back towards the front door for a bit of fresh air.
She recognized Frank's lush dark hair as he all but stumbled in through the front door.
"Easy there, big fella!" she declared to him, and he burst out laughing at that. She turned to the side and she almost ran into something slender but soft.
"Oh, hi," she greeted Joey, much to her surprise.
"Hi," he returned the favor and showed her a grin all the while.
"I didn't think you'd be here," she confessed.
"I ain't turning down free food, y'know," he told her.
"Okay, that makes sense."
Joey peered over his shoulder for a second, and then he returned to her.
"I've been thinking of your lips lately," he confessed to her in a husky voice.
"It's funny, I, uh—I have been, too," she said. He lowered his gaze to her mouth and he moved in closer to her.
"Um—Bel and I made something for you—for your birthday coming up here," she sputtered.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah, you just—you just might like it."
He showed her a little smirk: and she brought her eyes back down to those dark lips. She needed to kiss them. She needed to do something right there lest something happen there in the house that would wedge them apart. She closed her eyes and she leaned in closer to his face.
"Sam?" Marla called her. She opened her eyes and she stared on at Joey's face: his brown eyes gazed back at her, as rich and full as the earth underneath them.
"You're being paged," he whispered to her. She turned around right as Marla emerged from the kitchen.
"Could you get Marsha, please? She's in the back of the house."
"Yeah, sure."
Sam returned to Joey, who still showed her that smirk on his face.
"I'll be right back," she vowed to him.
"I'll be waitin' for ya," he vowed back to her, complete with a wink. She rounded him and headed towards the back of the house. She was about to head into that corridor there when the back door swung open before her. Greg bowed in first, and then Alex followed suit. He raised his eyebrows at her.
"Oh, hi," she greeted him.
"Hi—what're you doing?" he asked her with a grave look on his face.
"Oh, just—talking with Joey and now I'm getting Marsha."
"Oh, I see." He never changed his expression for a second, but she knew what he was thinking. She dropped her gaze to those lips and then to his neck and that prominent Adam's apple. She brought her attention only to his face instead and the puzzled expression there.
"Are—you alright?" he stammered.
"Yeah. Yeah, I just—I just—'scuse me—"
"Yeah, of course," he assured her with a puzzled look on his face. She bowed into the back room there, where Marsha looked over something on the desk. She raised her gaze to Sam.
"Marla wants you in the kitchen," she told Marsha.
"Cake's probably ready," she replied to her with a twinkle in her eye.
Sam nodded and then she returned to the hallway, where Alex had gone off to somewhere else in the house. Indeed, she headed over to the back door, where Aurora was about to take her seat on the step there. It was almost too much to bear right there. She needed to get out of that house because the thought of Joey and Alex getting into it at the latter's birthday party was almost too much to bear for her.
"I need you to cover me," Sam quipped, and Aurora looked on at her, stunned.
"Cover you in what?"
"No, cover for me," she corrected her.
"Yeah, cover you in what?"
"Aurora!"
"What?"
"Cover for me. Keep people busy. If they ask about me, tell them that I had to run next door real quick."
"Why would I say that?"
"Because you're my best friend."
"Well, yeah, but really why would I lie to people about where you went?"
"I thought you were only a few weeks pregnant?"
"I am! But what's that got to do with it?"
"Ugh, never mind." But before Sam could do anything more, Marsha surfaced from the room there and she gestured for Sam to follow her into the kitchen. Indeed, she helped Marsha decorate the long rectangular sheet cake, in particular the "happy 19th birthday, Alex" right in the middle with the royal blue icing.
"Dunno if Zelda's going to be here," Marsha confessed to her as she finished the piping of the roses at each of the corners, "she said she probably won't make it because I guess the girls are hard at work right now in the studio—but let's get this sweet little party started, though."
Sam struck the match and lit the wicks of the candles.
Alex had taken his seat at the head of the dining room table with a small white party hat atop his head: the little sliver of gray poked out from underneath the edge, and his face turned a soft pink with being put on the spot as Marsha set the cake down before him.
"What do you wish for more than anything in the world?" Louie asked him, and Alex turned his gaze to Sam at his right. He squinted his eyes at her, but he never said anything. He then leaned forward and blew out the candles in a single breath. The wisps of smoke faded into nothing before their faces as Belinda and Scott both clapped their hands in unison. He offered to slice the cake but Marsha insisted.
She handed him the first slice of vanilla and raspberry cake, and then everyone else followed suit.
"Wanna open your presents, young man?" Jon called from the far side of the room.
"Yes please," Alex called back, "my parents are gonna wanna know what they got themselves into here..." His voice trailed off. Sam watched him dig into his cake, small bite after small bite. He ate slowly: indeed, she found herself doing the same thing. It was delicious cake after all. But she wondered what he had wished for before he blew out the candles.
Granted, if he talked about it, then it wouldn't come true. But it still made her curious nonetheless.
Jon handed him Chuck, Eric, and Frankie's gifts first, followed by that small square black and white box. The first thing he did before opening each of them was put the bows on his chest. He read the labels carefully right before hand as well, and he was careful to unwrap them as well with a sliding of his fingers under where the paper ended and the tape started, and so he peeled the paper off as opposed to tearing it apart. A new tuner from Chuck and Eric both, a Gary Moore shirt from Greg and Louie both which warranted a look of surprise from him.
"Wow, where'd you guys get this?" he asked Greg.
"Thrift shop. Lou found it when he and I were looking for new boots for ourselves, and I was like, 'dude, yes! He loves Moore!' So I got that for a nickel." He neatly folded the shirt and placed it on the table next to him, and then he turned to that square box.
"From Samantha and Belinda," he stated, and he opened the box.
"Miss Shelley and Miss Grimes," Jon followed up as he headed back into the kitchen once more.
And Alex's face lit up at the sight before him there.
"Oh, wow!" He held it out from the box, and he looked on at that clean creamy white leather with his mouth agape.
"What is it, a belt?" Scott asked them.
"A guitar strap!" Sam corrected him. "A little bit of leather work from both me and Bel here."
"This is gorgeous!" he declared as he held the strap before him and his eyes caressed over the design of the tulips and the sugar skulls. "Oh, and it's adjustable, too! This is absolutely beautiful, ladies—thank you!" Sam put her arms around him first, and then Belinda followed suit. He had a slender little body and yet he was as soft as childhood.
"Got our work cut out for us now," Charlie confessed to Scott in a not so low voice.
"I know, right?" Scott retorted with his eyes squinted.
But Alex was more than happy to have it all around him for the time being, especially by the time Aurora took a step next to him.
"Now, I hate to draw the spotlight away from the birthday boy here," she began, "but I wanted to tell you all that Emile and I are pregnant."
"Aw!" Marsha called from the kitchen.
"We thought we were when we were over in England last month, but—it's official now!"
"Start of a new chapter in life and the start of a new life," Scott declared as he raised his glass to them, but then again, Alex bowed his head a bit at that. Today was his day after all, and for Sam, that was oddly selfish of Aurora to do that to him. This was the second thing she had done that seemed so unlike her, at least for as long as Sam had known her. Thus she reached her hand towards him, just as Aurora began conversing with Marsha, Emile, and Scott about something.
"Happy birthday, though, Alex," she told him as he took a sip of his sarsaparilla.
"Thank you," he replied to her with a serious look on his face, "and yeah, thank you, everyone!" That warm blush returned upon his saying that. "When I'm done with my cake and my drink, I'm gonna call my dad and tell him that life is good right now."
Indeed, he turned his attention back to Sam for a moment.
"And I go upstate for a whole week." When he said that, he glanced across the table for a second. She followed his gaze and there was Joey at the far end. She sat closer to Alex than she was her own boyfriend; she then climbed to her feet and she strode on over to him as he finished the rest of his cake.
"Hi," she greeted him, and he brought a napkin to his lips. Chuck burst out laughing at something and thus he moved his head in closer to her.
"Wanna do sump'n this weekend?" he offered her in a low voice.
"Up by your place?" she asked him.
"Your place and then mine," he corrected her.
"I'd love to," she replied in a low voice.
"I'll pick ya up after school," he told her as he finished the last few bites of cake. Sam wondered exactly what he had in mind as she made her way back to her spot in between Belinda and Alex for the time being.