“Do you think he’ll like it?” I ask, but Shawn doesn’t have a chance to answer before Adam squeals, “Are those capes?!”
He practically dives into the pile and pulls out one that looks just like the one he described last Saturday—it’s red with a golden A stitched into it, just like Alvin the Chipmunk’s shirt, and he beams like a little boy in a candy shop. Rowan helped me remember the capes all the guys described when they were joking at the buffet, and I did my best to create them. Adam’s looks like Alvin’s shirt, Shawn’s is black with the Batman symbol stitched onto the back, and Mike’s is camouflage with pockets stitched to the inside. He laughs when he finds the toy guns I stashed in the pockets, and I don’t try to stop the smile that blooms across my face.
“Leti, yours is in my bedroom,” I say, and Leti disappears down the hallway in an excited blur. He pouted when he saw I was making capes for the other guys but not for him, but really I just wanted to keep his hideous sherbet-and-magenta-sequined cape a surprise. He runs back out with it secured around his neck and strikes a flawless Superman pose. The rest of the guys are fastening their capes around their necks too when a knock sounds at the door.
“Close your eyes,” I demand with my hand on the knob.
“Do I have to?” Joel whines from the other side.
“YES!” the guys all yell, and I chuckle.
“Are they closed?” I ask.
When he tells me they are, I open the door and lead him inside, plopping a plastic crown on his head and telling him to open his eyes. He opens them to find three grown rock stars and a very giddy-looking Leti wearing homemade capes and little-boy smiles.
“Oh my God,” Joel says with a laugh that tells me he loves it. I hand him his cape, and he holds it up, laughing even harder. “This is fucking awesome.”
His gaze travels around the room, skimming over the Ferris wheel carrying liquor bottles, the one-person beer-pong table with stuffed prizes hanging on the wall behind it, the painted cardboard cutout of two rock stars with holes for people to put their faces in. There’s a table covered with red-and-white-striped bags of popcorn and mason jars full of candy. The star attraction is a cotton-candy maker, and the entire room is flooded with rainbow streamers and balloons.
When I was covertly prying intel out of Joel earlier this week in my attempt to get ideas for his birthday theme, I asked what his favorite childhood memory was and he told me about the time his grandma took him to the circus. I ran with it, throwing together an apartment-sized circus in a matter of days and never doubting it would be worth it.
His expression is utterly unreadable as he takes it all in, and I nibble at my bottom lip, worried that he doesn’t like it. But then he finally looks at me, and his soft smile melts away all my apprehension. “This is too much.”
I shake my head. It’s not too much. It feels like it isn’t enough—not after everything he’s been through, not after everything we’ve been through—but I’m guessing no amount of streamers in the world is going to fix that.
Joel scoops me into a big hug and whispers in my ear, “Thank you.”
“Happy birthday,” I say, burying my face in his neck and squeezing him back. I’ve barely seen him over the past two days since I’ve been too busy setting up and wanted to keep the details a surprise, and I’ve missed him too much to try to hide it.
Another knock at the door interrupts our moment, and the rest of the guests begin trickling in—Driver, some other roadies, a bartender from Mayhem, a few guys from other bands, and a couple of Joel’s friends from high school. I got all the names and numbers from Adam, Shawn, and Mike, and lucky for me, they were all names of guys. Girls show up too, but on the arms of dates, and pretty soon, my apartment is packed with people. Most of the guests don extra capes I made—I reserved a special one for Driver, complete with a giant pot leaf on the back and hidden pockets on the inside—and the guests who think they’re too cool for capes seem content to guzzle down beer and shots and munch on pizza and mozzarella sticks. The cotton-candy machine is a huge hit, and so are the candy table and the rock-star cutouts. Guys play the beer pong game and win stuffed animals for their dates, and Joel nuzzles his chin into the crook of my shoulder as we watch.
He’s laughing on my couch surrounded by a bunch of friends when I sneak to the kitchen to put the candles on his cake—vanilla ice cream with confetti sprinkles. I stick two tall candles at the sides and drape a mini carnival-style banner between them that says, “Happy Birthday Joel.”