"These are your birthday cakes," he says, waving his arm over the selection. "I don’t know which flavour is your favourite, so I baked you one of every sort."
"You made all of these?" I ask him, momentarily shocked at the effort he’s gone to, for me.
"Uh huh," he replies cautiously. "I did."
"Shit Luke, that’s a lot of cupcakes," I say quickly eyeballing the table in front of me. "And each one is a different flavour? This must have taken you forever?"
"Well there are twenty-four here and at twelve per tray, I guess I made just over two hundred. But, yeah, I didn’t think you’d want that many and we do need to sell some in the shop," he says, a little more relaxed now.
"You made two hundred cupcakes?"
"Yep," he answers, smiling. "But these twenty-four are all yours, so where do you wanna start?"
Standing here looking at him, I just don’t know what to say. I wonder how he even found out it was my birthday today. How he’d known I would be home alone. How he’d known to come over, how he even knew where I lived? How he could even bear to talk to me at all after the way I treated him yesterday. I don’t know how he knows to do any of this. How he always seems to know.
"I think I’m going to need a coffee and you to help me with all these," I suggest quietly, amazed at what he’s done for me.
"Nope, they’re all yours," he says. "I’ll take the coffee, but I’m only eating what you don’t like."
Without another word, he moves into the kitchen and starts to make coffee and I’m immediately struck by how easy he makes this all seem. Ok, so he’s a chef and he knows his way around a kitchen, but it’s something else, something so weirdly comfortable about seeing him in my kitchen. As he reaches for the cups and acts as though everything is all so totally normal, I have to look away. I’m not going to start crying again and I’m definitely not going to start imagining a possibility I know I can’t have and shouldn’t even be thinking about. Instead I take in all the cakes, looking over the rich chocolate, the vanilla, the red velvet – my mouth watering in anticipation. I love all of the flavours he’s made me.
In the end, I only manage six before I have to stop. I try offering half of each one I eat to Luke, but true to his word he just shakes his head and says, "Only if you don’t like it." What can I say, they are delicious, I wasn’t giving them up.
"Why aren’t you cooking somewhere else?" I eventually ask him, lying back on the couch and feeling like a giant cupcake myself. "I mean you can seriously cook and are wasted just doing the stuff we serve at work?"
Luke just laughs now. "Wow, a fan of my music and my cooking, thank you," he says draining the last of his coffee.
"Luke I’m serious, those cakes are so good, and really, you are wasted in that place." Surely he can see that, "And you didn’t answer my question."
"Yeah...." he says running his hand over his head like it’s no big deal, as he puts his mug on the coffee table between us. "I’ve tried those other places, restaurants and that. But the hours are shit and I had no life. I work when everyone else is having fun and spend it getting yelled at by some pissed off asshole. Here I’m working regular days, am my own boss, can play in the band at night and I work with great people. All of this makes me happy, so why change?"
I look at him for a second, wondering if there’s more he isn’t telling me. I think there is, but I, of all people understand his reluctance. Discussing my own past is not something I willingly do with anyone. In any case, deep down I sort of admire him for just doing what it is he loves, regardless of what anyone else thinks. That he just does what makes him happy and it’s as simple as that for him. He might be a little stubborn at times, especially if today is anything to go by, but I think it’s only because if he believes in something or wants it, he just fights for it.
I wish I had the courage to live like that.
I smile at him, understanding a little bit more about him now. He’s definitely different to what I expected when I first met him, but it’s in a good way, a really good way.
"Yeah I guess that does make sense," I eventually say to him, smiling now.
"It does to me," Luke answers, smiling back at me. "So, what are we doing for the rest of the day?"
∞