Sweet Caroline

#36 Making love

"Hey honey, I was just calling to ask you what you'd like for your birthday." My mom's kind voice fills the room, making me smile. I'm cooking, so I'd put her on speaker phone when her name popped up on my screen. She's between my glass of water and the chopped carrots. Nathan is watching TV in the living room, but he turned down the volume and is carefully keeping quiet, so my mother won't hear him. At the mention of my birthday I see him turn his head in my direction, his expression incredulous. Yeah... I sort of forgot to mention that my birthday is in a few days.

"I don't need anything, Mom," I reply as I run the bell peppers under some water.

"Caroline Belinda Elisabeth Collins," my mother says sternly, "you say that every single year. And then I start yelling at you until you tell me what you want. Do you want to honor that tradition this year or are you finally old enough to just accept that no matter how much you hate birthday, your dad and I are always gonna get you a gift?"

Oh shit. I shouldn't have put her on speaker. Nathan's eyes narrow and he mouths 'hate?' to me, shaking his head. That's a conversation I don't wanted to have with him. Not yet at least.

"Surprise me," I say with a sigh.

Mom grunts. "Well, that's better than refusing to accept a gift, I guess. Okay. I will surprise you. And if you don't like it, you better pretend you do!"

Annoyed, I tell my mother that I need to hang up to cook, before she can say more stuff to embarrass me in front of Nathan. The moment I hang up, he gets up from the couch and comes over, leaning against the dinner table so he can look at me while I ignore him to chop some more vegetables for the stew I'm making.

"Belinda Elisabeth?" he asks, sounding incredulous.

"Grandmas," I explain. Caroline isn't a family name, but my parents wanted to honor both of my grandmothers, so I got stuck with Belinda Elisabeth as my middle names. Could have been worse. I actually like Elisabeth for a girl. If I ever have a little girl, I wouldn't mind calling her that. Lizzie for short. Or Betty. Both are pretty cute.

"When is your birthday?"

I glance up to see his carefully controlled expression, his emerald eyes fixated on my face. "Wednesday."

"And when were you going to tell me?"

I shrug, looking away from him and stirring my stew. I don't like talking about this. I'm not sure if I would have told him, to be honest. Probably not until the day of, when he wouldn't be able to do something special for me. I don't like making a big deal about another year passing by.

"Caroline..." Nathan sighs and moves into the kitchen. He presses against me from behind, his hands on my hips. A sweet kiss gets pressed to my neck and I lean into him with a sigh, enjoying his body against mine.

"Hmmm," I murmur as he keeps kissing my neck, running his tongue over a tender spot.

"Why do you hate your birthday?" he asks when he suddenly stops, his fingers digging slightly into my skin. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"What's so special about getting older? It's just the day I was born," I explain, knowing that he will catch on to the fact that I'm not telling him the whole story. I should just be honest, but I hate talking about this. I hate what happened when I was born. I hate every single thing about my birthday. And I hate that no one respects that.

"What happened when you were born?" Nathan asks, perceptive as ever.

I grunt and pull away from him, putting a lid on the pot and turning the heat down a bit so the food won't burn. This is not a conversation to have in the kitchen. I need to sit down for this. Nathan is a bit confused when I pull him with me to the couch and flop down unceremoniously. He follows my lead and puts a hand on mine, smiling encouragingly.