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"I thought you had forgotten."
Lou didn't even glance up from her newspaper as she sat at the breakfast bar. "Forgotten what?"
Debbie rolled her eyes. "You're a terrible liar." She held up the cupcake she'd found in her room, returning after a day of scoping out the Met. "Unless cupcakes suddenly appearing by people's bedsides is some new thing I missed while I was in prison."
"That'd be the dream, eh?" Lou drawled, finally looking up, leaning one elbow on the counter, her hand carelessly draping off the edge. "And I figured you wouldn't be keen on the girls knowing. Never liked a big fuss."
"Okay, that explains the method of delivery, but it doesn't answer my original question."
"Didn't hear a question," Lou replied smoothly, with a hint of teasing.
"Stop being a dick, Lou."
Lou's eyebrows bobbed up. "Prison gave you a filthy mouth, didn't it?"
"Look, I know we're not really good and I get it," Debbie said, "but then you turn around and remember my birthday? Why would you—?"
Shifting, Lou put a bit more weight on that elbow, tipping her shoulders at an angle that might've been a shrug, her bright eyes flitting away. "Why would I forget it, Deb?"
"I don't...it's been a while," Debbie replied, testing the sudden edge in Lou's voice. "Not just prison. We haven't spent my birthday together since—"
"Since before him," Lou said with less malice than Debbie expected. Disappointment, instead. Debbie wished it was malice. "Y'know, we still had more years together than apart. And you never once let me forget your birthday. Remember that one time I did forget? And you dragged me out to some pisshole club and told me it was my job to dance with you all night. Or the year after, I actually planned something nice and on the way to the restaurant our car broke down. Spent half the night trying to fix it ourselves on the side of the highway and the other half waiting for a tow. But while we were waiting we watched the stars and I made up shit constellations until you were laughing so hard I thought you'd piss yourself. And when we finally got home you said it was one of the best birthdays you'd ever had."
As Lou paused, Debbie realized she'd stopped breathing. "Jesus, Lou. I..."
"Did Claude at least do something nice, for your birthdays?" Lou cut in. "Or could the wanker not even manage that?" Her gaze returned to Debbie, then, eyes diamond-hard. Waiting.
"He, uh, he always forgot," Debbie said, shame crawling up her throat.
Lou snorted, blistering. Then she rose. "I hope he was worth it," she murmured on her way past Debbie. A moment later she had disappeared into her room.
Fuck. And the worst part, Debbie realized, was that he wasn't.
But Lou was. She was worth anything.
So, Debbie would give Lou the biggest fucking diamond in the world. And hopefully she'd make things right.