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BAZ
It wasn’t a difficult task, or a lot to ask for. We both just wanted Snow to have a good birthday, but Penelope Bunce is so thick-skulled sometimes it’s a wonder her neck can support it at all.
“Just let me carry it, Basil, you’re going to drop it.” She kept reaching out to me, chiding me as I dug into my pocket with one hand to grab my keys. I rolled my eyes, tightening my hold on the cake box I had balanced against my hip. It was perfectly secure between my hand and my body, but Bunce wouldn’t let up, insisting that I would drop the box if she didn’t have it in her hands immediately.
But the only things affecting my hold were her clammy hands trying to pry it away, jerking at it enough to dislodge it from my very secure hold. Which, had she followed through and grabbed hold of the box firmly, would not have been a problem.
But she didn’t.
And with one hand still in my pocket, and the other still desperately trying to regain purchase on the box, all I could do was watch in horror as the very expensive birthday cake I had just bought for my boyfriend went tumbling to the pavement.
Bunce, for once, has stopped nagging as we both stare in shock at the cake splattered across the floor. I have to close my eyes and take several deep breaths before I address her.
“I told you I had it, Bunce.” I spit her name like a curse, because at the moment her existence feels like a curse.
“If you had just given it to me when I first asked—”
“Are you trying to say this was my fault?”
“You were being stubborn!” Bunce is stubborn as a mule; she never apologizes or admits when she’s wrong. Sometimes that’s a trait I almost admire, but right now it makes me want to wring her neck. I would never, of course, because she’s Snow’s best friend.
Snow’s best friend, who just ruined his birthday cake.
“You’re the definition of stubborn. Now what do you suppose we do?”
She rubs at her neck, crosses her arms and stares at the mess on the ground. “Don’t suppose we could pop in for another, do you?”
“As this one was custom ordered, I’m going to have to say that’s unlikely.”
“Custom ordered?” Bunce shakes her head. “He doesn’t need some posh custom made birthday cake, we’ll just stop at Sainsbury’s and buy a party cake from the bakery.”
“We most certainly will not.”
“Basil, don’t be ridiculous—”
“I’m not being ridiculous, I just think that after the year he’s had—”
“We’ve all had a year.”
“Yes, and some of us had a greater part in the trials of that year than others.”
“Oh, not this again—”
“You of all people should be stopping at nothing to give Simon a good birthday.”
“Yes, I’m trying, but his obstinate boyfriend insists we keep bickering about this rather than getting in the car and buying him a new cake.”
“He deserves better than a fucking pre-made grocery cake shaped like a bloody dog.”
“He quite liked the dog one, you know.” I set her with a look and she sighs. “What do you suppose we do, then, Basil? Do you happen to know a spell for fixing cakes that were thrown on the floor? Or better, a way we could just magick one up?”
I finally pull the keys from my pocket and move toward my car, leaving Bunce behind in a cloud of confusion. There was no hope in losing her, though. A moment later she’s managed to catch up with me, puffing through her annoyance.
“What’re you planning?”
“You ruined his cake.” I stop at the passenger door, unlocking and holding it open for her. “Now we’ve got to make him another.” I gesture for her to get in and, shockingly enough, she complies.
I round the bonnet to the other side, sliding in behind the wheel. I’ve just managed to get us out of the car park when Bunce starts back in on me.
“Are we getting one from the bakery, then?”
“No.” I can feel her eyes on me but don’t give her the satisfaction of my attention. “I said we’re making him one, Bunce.”
“Making? As in, baking? You and me?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Baz, we can’t bake.”
“Best start figuring it out, then.”
SIMON
Penny’s barely through the door of the flat when she calls out for us.
She doesn’t need to—Shepard and I are both on the sofa, eyes trained on the television. Shepard’s elbow digs into my side and I laugh, knocking my arm against his hands in an attempt to jostle the controller he’s holding. He shouts something, but I don’t hear him over the sound of my own victory as I watch my kart cross the finish line.
“That was cheating, Snow!” He shoves at my shoulder, but I’m still laughing.
“You cheated first.” I remind him by digging my own elbow into his side, and he chuckles and pushes at my shoulder again.
“Boys!”
We both fall silent and turn to look at Penny, as if we’ve been scolded. Sometimes just a look from her makes you feel like you have.
“Shepard, do you think you and Simon could go out to grab the last few things for dinner?”
“You were just at the store, though?” Shepard frowns.
“They were out of some things. I’ll make you a list.” Penny grabs Shepard’s arm and hauls him off the sofa before he has the chance to argue further. I turn back to our game as they head off to the kitchen, and then Baz is sliding into Shepard’s abandoned seat.
He drops a kiss on my cheek as he sits, then rests his hand on my knee. He stays close enough to do that now. Touch me, that is. He’s always resting his hand on my knee, or my arm, or my thigh, whatever part of me is closest to him. I quite like it.
“Have you two been playing this all morning?” he asks, gesturing to the telly. I shrug.
“Pretty much, yeah. Figured it’s one of the perks of it being my birthday, video games all day if I want.”
“You play video games all day no matter the day, Snow.”
Part of me wants to argue with him, but I can’t, not over this. He’s absolutely right.
I lean over and kiss him instead. That’s always been better than fighting anyway. The hand on my knee slowly starts moving up my thigh as I run my tongue over his lips.
“Oy! You two can’t be alone for two bloody minutes, can you?” Penny says, and I resentfully turn my head to find her standing in the doorway with Shepard in tow. “You can snog however much you want later. Can you please go with Shepard to get the last few things?”
“Why can’t you go, Pen?” Baz is still rubbing my thigh and it’s making me want the other two to leave us for a bit.
“Because I’ve got to get started on dinner.”
“I can cook.” My gaze shifts back to Baz and he’s watching me with this look in his eye. “I’ll start on dinner while you get what you need.”
Penny sighs, a loud and exasperated sound. “It’s your birthday dinner, Simon, you’re not cooking it yourself. Besides, if I left you two here alone, I’m sure no cooking would be done.”
“You should just listen to her, love. She’s been like this all morning.” Baz leans in for one more chaste kiss, then stands and offers me his hand.
“Alright, alright.” I let him pull me to my feet, then turn to Shepard. “Even though it’s my birthday, I suppose I can accompany Shepard to the shops.”
Penny offers me a weak smile. “Thank you.”
BAZ
“You really made me play the villain in that?” Bunce asks as soon as Snow and Shepard are out the door. I shrug, a habit I’ve definitely picked up from Snow.
“You ruined his cake, you get to kick him out of the flat.”
She huffs as I push past her, into the kitchen. That’s as far as I make it, though, before I stare at the cabinets and realize I’ve no idea how to bake a cake.
“Have you got a recipe?” Bunce asks after a long minute. I’m tempted to lie to her, tell her that of course I already thought of that, and I definitely have a recipe. I don’t, though, so I shake my head.
She’s pulled her mobile out already, tapping her thumbs over the screen then holding it out toward me. “Which of these sounds best?”
I scan the list on her screen. It barely takes me a minute before I see the perfect one and tap on it.
“Of course,” Bunce laughs as she looks over the recipe. “What better for Simon’s birthday than a butter cake. Alright, let’s see if we’ve got everything we need.”
PENELOPE
Of course we have everything we need for a butter cake. Simon actually ends up baking a lot so we’ve got plenty of the usual ingredients. We’ve even got a couple boxes of cake mix, but Baz refuses them. For whatever reason, he’s insistent that we make this from scratch. I don’t bother questioning him, it would just be another argument distracting us both from the task at hand.
I’m not the greatest when it comes to baking. I’m marginally better at cooking, but even then I have the tendency to burn things or miss small steps that lead to big disasters. There was an incident with a pasta sauce that has me unofficially banned from the kitchen, actually. Simon really does do most of the cooking, and sometimes Shepard will help him out.
I didn’t expect Baz to be any better than me in the kitchen, but it seems he always has to be the smartest person in the room. Even when that room is my own kitchen.
Baz seems to be doing better, though, as I read the steps of the recipe out to him. I watch him measure out the ingredients, taking care to be exact. He looks like Simon’s polar opposite as he works, being slow and cautious with every measuring cup and ingredient.
This is still a side of Baz I’m getting used to, even two years on. His softer side. He’d probably skin me alive if he knew I called him soft, even in my own head, but that’s exactly what this is. He’s being gentle.
He cares. About this cake, and about Simon. It’s important to him.
He’s started mixing all of the ingredients together when I finally put my mobile down. After this it’s just putting it in a pan and letting it bake.
“What’s so important about this cake?” I ask, and Baz looks at me with one raised brow. “Not this literal cake that we’re making, but the cake in general. Why did you insist we bake it instead of buying him another?”
“Because it’s his birthday, Bunce.” He says it as if it should just make sense, but it doesn’t. I can’t remember the last time someone took the time to bake a cake for my birthday. (Well, actually I can. Simon did, this year. But that’s Simon. He already bakes all the time, it’s not going out of his way to make another cake, this time with my name on it.)
“And…?” I prompt.
“Do you not think he deserves an excellent cake on his birthday?” He’s always so combative. I wonder if he’s started pushing it onto me because he and Simon fight less now. Simon seems to have taken whatever energy he used to use to fight Baz and warped it into the energy to snog him. All the time.
“Of course I do, but I’m asking you. You bought the first cake, yeah? Why couldn’t we buy a second?”
Baz sighs, loud and dramatic. “That cake was custom made. It took time. It took effort. It took someone carving out a portion of their day and saying, ‘Okay, I am making this cake for a specific person’. And he deserves that, not some reject from the bakery section of a shop. It’s not about the cake, Bunce. It’s about the work, someone making this out of care. Making it for him.”
“And that’s going to make it taste better?”
“I just want to give him something good, something he can wholeheartedly enjoy for once. Crowley, Bunce, I don’t bloody care if the Sainsbury’s cake tastes like gold. It’s about intention. Just like magic, it’s—”
“The thought that counts.”
“Precisely.”
I watch him for a long moment, and he shifts uncomfortably under my gaze. He tries to hide it—it is a subtle shift, but I catch it. Finally, I say, “You know Simon doesn’t care about that. Even just thinking to buy him a cake is more than enough.”
“I care. I want him to have this, I want him to know I—” He stops himself, snapping his mouth shut. Did he almost say…?
He reaches for the pan we already pulled out and begins filling it with the batter.
“Basilton Grimm-Pitch,” I say. He looks alarmed, but also like he was hoping I wouldn’t say anything.
“Penelope Bunce,” he counters, turning his back to me as he pushes the cake into the oven.
“Were you about to say what I think you were going to?”
“I suppose that depends.” He’s being cagey, and he won’t look back at me.
I’m right.
“You love him.” As soon as it leaves my mouth, it takes me aback. He didn’t even say it, but it hits me all the same. I suppose I should’ve known; maybe it would have been obvious if I was bothering to connect the dots, but. “Great Snakes… Is that why you’re doing this? You love him so you’re baking him a birthday cake? Is that why you’ve been acting this way all day? Over a simple cake?”
“We all love him. We all want the best for him.”
I scoff. “Sure, I love him. But you… you love him, don’t you? You’re in lo—”
“Crowley, yes! Alright, Bunce, what about it? He’s my boyfriend, isn’t this perfectly normal?”
“Nothing about you two is normal.” I take a step closer and he looks at me over his shoulder. “How long?”
“How long what, Bunce?” He’s pushing the words out from between his teeth, but I know he’s not actually annoyed. I don’t know how I know, but I do. Maybe it’s that his shoulders, while held high from crossing his arms, aren’t actually tense. If I tilt my head just a bit, I can see the corner of his mouth upturned. Fighting off a grin.
“How long have you loved him?”
He shakes his head, shoulders slumping, and lets out another, softer sigh. “Since fifth bloody year at Watford.”
SIMON
It takes us nearly two hours to find everything on Penny’s list. I’m still not quite sure why we need to get everything on there—some of it doesn’t really sound like dinner ingredients, or even birthday supplies. But we do find it all, eventually, and carry it back to the flat.
Penny’s at the door almost as soon as we open it, barely letting us move past her. Shepard manages to step around her, but she only takes the bags I’m holding and sets them aside. “Thank you so much, Simon, just one moment.”
I’m a little confused as she reaches around me and shuts off some lights, plunging the room into darkness, since the sun set about an hour ago. I remain confused as I feel hands on my shoulders, and startbeing ushered forward in the dark.
Then the door to the kitchen swings open, and light re-enters the room in the form of over a dozen candles on top of a cake. Baz is carrying it, and he’s smiling, and I suddenly realize they’re all singing. To me. That embarrassing birthday song, like some of the kids sang to each other at the care homes when they knew it was their birthday.
No one has ever sung it to me.
I’m a bit overwhelmed by it, if I’m honest. I can’t recall the last time I even celebrated my birthday, let alone with a cake and people I care about being together.
“Happy birthday, love,” Baz says as he places the cake on the table in front of me. “Now make a wish, Snow.”
I look up and can just make out his face, absolutely grinning as he watches me. I feel Penny to my side; she’s hooked her arm ‘round mine. Shepard is behind us, clapping as he sings, which kind of makes me laugh. I think if I hadn’t had Baz spell my wings in this morning they’d be hitting him in the face. That makes me laugh harder.
I really can’t think of a wish. As I look around, I see that I’m already surrounded by everything I want. I’m alive to see this birthday and that feels like enough, honestly. I lean in and blow out the candles anyway, so we can eat it.
I don’t need them to grant me any wishes. Not right now.
Not today.
The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, but I’m still feeling overwhelmed about the cake. Especially after Penny tells me that Baz made it himself, from scratch. I think it takes me the rest of the night to comprehend that, as well as take in everything else. We do have a very delicious dinner, made by Penny, followed by playing a few rounds of video games and watching a couple of my favorite movies together until everyone is tired and starting to nod off.
Baz and I arethe first to turn in. He’s decided to stay over tonight, as a birthday treat. (At least, that’s what I consider it.) (Really, he’s started staying over a lot more lately.) (I’m not complaining, I’ll take everything I can get.)
We change in a comfortable, sleepy silence and climb into bed together. He’s curled into my side, his head resting against my chest, when I finally ask him.
“Did you really make that cake yourself?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
He tilts his head, grey eyes looking up at me. Serious. His voice is serious, too, when he answers. “You deserve someone to care for you that much, that they’d take the time to bake a cake for you.”
I don’t know why, but that makes my chest tight. I cup his cheek in my hand, pulling him up until our lips meet.
“Also, Penelope ruined your first cake,” he says against my lips. I laugh and roll into him.
“There was a first cake?”
He nods. “It was very expensive. She’s lucky I’m not making her pay for it.”
“Why not just bake the cake yourself to begin with?”
He laughs this time, breath puffing across my cheek. “Because I wanted it to taste good, too. I went to a bake shop Daphne recommended, run by these two lovely women. We talked about you for a while; they wanted to know who they were making a cake for, which is how I knew they’d make it special enough for you.”
“I’m sure that cake would’ve been delicious,” I whisper. “But I’m sort of glad I got yours instead.”
His lips are on my jaw when he asks, “Why’s that?”
“Things always taste better when they’re baked by someone you love.”
I think we both stop breathing for a moment, my last words hanging in the air. I’m immediately trying to think of a way to pull them back in, or make them dissipate altogether. Maybe I can just blame being tired? Being happy on my birthday? Or maybe—
“Simon.” My internal panic stops when Baz says my name, and I look at him. He’s smiling, in that rare way he does with his teeth showing and everything. “I love you, too.”
And maybe that’s all I needed from this day. Even if the cake had been shit, all I needed was to hear those words from Baz’s lips and to tell him mine, too.
I’m certain this is the best birthday I’ve had to date, not that there was a very high bar to pass. But I got to play video games all morning with a friend, I got to spend the day with everyone I care about, and I get to fall asleep in the arms of someone I love.
Someone who loves me enough that he took the time to bake a cake for me.