I did get downstairs, just in time to see Tanner cleaning up a broken vase. “What happened?” I bent down to help him, holding the dustpan so he could sweep.
He winced. “Well, I was thinking about surprising you later with a whole bunch of flowers. Grabbed that vase from the top shelf, and it broke. I’m not usually clumsy, but today I am. Go figure. I’m going to come up with another idea.”
I took his hand. “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt, and I don’t need gifts. Seriously.”
“You’re getting some, so you’re going to have to start.”
A thought dawned on me. “Sing me something. That would be such a perfect gift.”
“Really?” His cheeks reddened. “You like how I sing?”
“I love it.” I bumped my arm into his. “Do it again soon?”
He smiled. “Anytime you want, Maci. You are…amazing.”
I kissed his cheek. “I think you’re the amazing one.”
“Do me a favor?” His face fell. “It’s kind of a dark one.”
I took a long, deep breath. A clock ticked in the hallway, and the sun shot through the window, illuminating Tanner’s handsome face, the dark circles I’d been the cause of today showing in the brightness. “Dark favor? Sounds ominous.”
“It’s not that.” He laughed, looking at the ground. “Our birthday, all five of us, happens in the same week in October. The second week. We were born one day after the other. Rowan first. Caesar. Me. Ace. And finally, Griffin. Starts on the eighth to the twelfth. Griff likes to say he’s never had to be without the rest of us. I don’t know… It’s always been this big deal. Well, we made it one. Not from our families or whatever. But we’d recognize the week. Even this last year, when we basically stopped doing anything fun. We still recognized the birthday week. Like it mattered. And it kills me to think no one will remember it anymore.”
I swallowed. “You want me to remember your birthday week.”
“I do, if it’s not too much. Just say it aloud. Today is the week or something. We won’t care anymore. Sometimes, vampires remember the day they come out of the coffin, but it’s not…it’s not our birthday. Like our human lives didn’t matter. So would you remember them? For us?”
I took his cheeks in my hand. “Yes. Count on it.” I kissed him again. “Your human lives mattered. Very much.”
Not to mention we were putting a stop to my birthday recognition because there was no way, a week before they all died, they should be thinking about this. We needed to focus on getting them out of this hell.
The rest of them were in the kitchen. Tanner followed me, and a second later, Griff arrived, so we were all together.
Caesar was making the same eggs from yesterday. They smelled like heaven. If life was fair—which I knew it wasn’t—there could have been a lot more mornings like this. But there was a countdown, and I knew it. He quickly spooned the eggs onto the plate in front of me. “I think you’ll like these even better. I put feta cheese in them. Even better than yesterday’s, I think.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at him. “You are so nice. You didn’t have to cook me breakfast.”
“Maybe he didn’t,” Ace said. “But he totally has to make them for me. I insist.”
Caesar grinned. “I made plenty for everyone.”
He quickly handed out plates, and I closed my eyes against the utter joy his eggs created in my mouth. Had I ever had feta cheese before? I didn’t think I had, but it was heaven. It was perfect. I chewed and swallowed for a long moment before I said anything else.
“This is the best. Really. I…I love it. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
Caesar lit up like a light bulb. “Really? That makes my day. I wanted to do something nice to start your birthday.”
“On that subject,” I interrupted him, meeting Rowan’s gaze and then Ace’s before I continued. “No more of that. Okay? You guys have so little time left, the last thing we need is to focus on some stupid day for me. What we should all be doing is putting our heads together and figuring out how to get you out of this eventuality.”
Tanner winced. “This is my fault.”
“Brother, what did you do?” Caesar finally ate his own eggs.
Rowan held up his hand. “There’s nothing to do. Celebrating your birthday is exactly the sort of thing I want to do between now and the end. I want to have fun. A lot of it.”
“When I asked you to remember our birthday, I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to celebrate yours. Or maybe I made it too dark or whatever. I…I didn’t mean to. Anyway, that shouldn’t have put you off birthdays. It should have, I don’t know, emphasized them.” Tanner lifted his eyebrows. “We have to celebrate you. When you get home, we’re going to have a whole thing.”
Home?This was absolutely not that. My home was close by, but it wasn’t this ginormous place where Rowan lived. Even if I loved being here with them. For that matter, this wasn’t Tanner’s home either. Or maybe it was, because the guys were there with him. Maybe they were always at home together.