The Stacks

Chapter 26 Birthday Fun

Song: "Tell Her About It" by Billy Joel

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We walked into our family's favorite IHOP and again, it was easy to hear my family before we even spotted them. "There's the birthday girl!" Dad bellowed.

"Shh," I hushed him. "Don't embarrass me."

He just laughed and stood up to shake Harry's hand. "Hi there, Harry. Good to see you again."

"Thank you, sir," Harry said politely. He greeted my mom with a hug and everyone else with a friendly wave - Martin and Ilana, Charlotte, Lauren and Scott, Sean and Collin. Everyone was there - it was practically a crime in our family to miss a birthday celebration. Although the timing and festivities weren't huge theatrical displays, we had always been required to at least be present for the celebration.

We placed our orders for coffee and juice, and then perused the menu for a few minutes, one of the rare times we were rather quiet. When my mom closed her menu, she asked, "So where did you two go last night?"

I shot a grateful smile at Harry. "We went to the MGM Grand and had dinner at Wolfgang Puck's. . Then we played the slots and hung out in the lounge. It was a great evening."

"It was indeed," Harry agreed, squeezing my hand. My mom practically blushed with a pleased smile.

"You made pretty good time here today," Dad remarked. "You must have left earlier than usual." That was because I always thought I had more time to get to Troy than I did. I wasn't close enough to I-75 to just hop right on when I was at my apartment.

I couldn't tell if he was just making conversation or if he was fishing for information. I bit, not seeing any reason to hide it. "Yeah, It's pretty easy to take 75 from the hotel," I said as quietly as I could and still be heard.

"From the hotel?" Dad asked, freezing his fork in mid-air. All the siblings looked back and forth between Dad and me.

Thank goodness, Mom smoothed it over saying, "Of course, dear. I'm sure they were out late last night, and you probably had a few drinks, right?" She asked me at the end.

"Well, of course," Dad said, looking awkwardly at Harry and then back to his food. My parents weren't stupid. Still, I assumed it would be hard, especially for fathers, to think of someone with their daughters that way. It probably wasn't too comfortable for Harry to have Dad looking at him, knowing Dad was thinking of him violating me.

With perfect timing, the waitress returned to our table to take our orders. Once we had done that, my mom changed the subject entirely. "Harry, what are your holiday plans? We were just talking about when to celebrate Christmas."

I glanced at Harry and then at my mom with squinted eyebrows. "Don't we celebrate Christmas on...Christmas?"

"With our growing family," she smiled at the other significant-others at the table, "we want to take into consideration that you'll want to celebrate with your own families as well."

Harry answered the lingering question. "My parents are in England, but I'll be staying here. So I'm pretty flexible." I never thought about it, but I wondered why he wouldn't have been planning to fly back to see them. It seemed he would have enough money to do so.

"Okay," Mom said. "What about the rest of you?"

Ilana pitched in first. "My parents want us for Christmas dinner, which is usually around three in the afternoon. So we could do Christmas Eve or Christmas morning with you." She glanced at Martin who seemed fine with the idea.