Page 108 of Game on, Love

Silently, he crouched in front of me and opened it up before he threw it around me. Tugging it tightly at the front, he held it up for me. “What do you need?”

Feeling my throat tighten up, I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

A pained expression crossed his face at my reply. “Want me to go?”

“No,” I replied instantly and his shoulders dropped, like he was relieved. Tracing his face with my eyes, I saw the happiness that lingered from his dinner, and I reached out to touch his face. “How was dinner?”

He leaned into my touch as a smile formed on his lips. “Really good.”

“I’m glad,” I whispered, feeling the lump trying to resolve itself. “I made you a brownie cake.”

He raised his brows. “That’s a thing?”

I nodded, my own lips tipping up.

“I don’t know if I can wait until tomorrow.”

I frowned. “You don’t have to; we can cut it at midnight.”

“Really?” He sounded so excited that I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Ever?” I asked, as he stood up and settled in next to me. “We always used to have two cakes. One for midnight and one for when we had people over later in the evening.”

“Nope,” He replied, pulling me to snuggle to his side as he threw an arm around me. “I used to only have one. Though I don’t think I can complain, they always used to be the most crazy-themed ones.”

“Which one was your favourite?”

He thought about that for a minute before replying. “Probably the one I had for my 15th. That’s when I really got into Batman—so much so that I’d made everyone, even my parent’s friends, be characters from the entire franchise. I had to compromise and have it a weekend earlier so people could get away with it being a Halloween party. But the cake was massive; it had like three tiers, and it had those fondant models stuck to it of just Batman in different poses.”

He wore an expression that was a little far away like he had stepped into the memory as he spoke about it.

“Did you ever have a really random one?”

“Yes. I had a weird EDM phase—where for like six months all I listened to was EDM music, and as a joke, my mum got the DJ mixer made into an actual cake,” He laughed.

I frowned. “Why was it random?”

“By the time my birthday came around, I had heard it so much that I made myself sick of it. I had to pretend the entire evening that I wasn’t cringing when the songs from my playlistwere playing in the background because I didn’t want to upset her,” He shook his head. “Still can’t stand it.”

I laughed, and his eyes lit up with warmth.

“Welcome back, love.” He whispered a second later, before placing a kiss on my forehead.

I laid my head on his shoulder, taking a breath as I felt the lump in my throat dissolve slowly. “Hi.”

I felt him lay his head on top of mine. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know… sometimes it just happens,” I whispered, as he placed his left hand facing up in my lap.

“What were you thinking about before it happened?”

I hesitated, placing my right hand in his, and he instantly interlinked them. It’s like he could feel my heart picking up the pace under his touch, and tightened his grip.

“I… I was thinking about my Mum.”

“What about her?”

I pressed my lips together, staring at our hands as he ran his thumb on the back of mine.