Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

edge of the bed while Daren smiled at him.
    "Make a birthday wish."
    Daren closed his eyes and then blew out both candles with a single puff. "How did you know?"
    "It's on your Wikipedia page," Sebastian lied. He hadn't shown Daren the newspaper.
    "I have a Wikipedia page?"
    "Yep."
    Daren picked up one of the cupcakes and turned it around examining it from all angles. "You know, I've never had one of these."
    "Really? Well, they are a sugary staple of middle-class America. Welcome to slumming it." Daren grinned and opened wide to take a bite. "Hold on. There's a procedure in eating these." Sebastian picked up his. "First you peel off and eat the white squiggle, then the rest of the frosting. After that you break it open, you lick out the cream filling, and only then do you eat the actual cake." Daren gave him a suspicious look. "I swear that's how you do it." Sebastian went after the squiggle on his, with Daren following suit.
    By the time he was licking at the filling, they were both giggling for no particular reason.
    "This is kinda gross but weirdly good."
    "I think you just described the whole Hostess product line."
    Daren sucked random buts of sticky cake crumbs from his fingers. Sebastian firmly focused on own cake. "So, is there anything interesting on my Wikipedia page?"
    "A few things."
    "Anything flattering?"
    "Um… Not really. Sorry."
    "That's okay. I don't exactly have a lot of good points worth going on about."
    "I'm sure you've got something worth putting up there." Daren shrugged. "A cause or something? Something you'd want on your page."
    Daren stared at the crumbs from his cake for a long time before giving a firm nod. "I don't believe in wearing fur."
    "Okay." Sebastian was a bit startled by that one, considering his social circle. "Is there a particular reason, or just because?"
    "My family has this estate that's about a million acres up in Vermont. My dad hunts up there with some of his business partners. When I was nine, I announced that I wanted to go with him. He said I had to learn to shoot first, and Richard offered to take me out and show me. I mean, he was SAS. He could shoot. He took me out with this little pellet gun one morning to shoot at rabbits. It took me about two hours to hit one. Then when I did and was all proud of myself, he handed me a knife and told me that since I had killed it I had to clean it and skin it. I threw up twice. He built a fire, and we ate it, and that wasn't so bad, but there was something about skinning it." Daren gave a little shudder. "So, girls who wear fur don't get my number."
    "Did you ever go hunting with your dad?"
    "No. And I got into a hell of a fight with my grandmother over the fur thing. She called me a hippie."
    Sebastian laughed, nearly choking on the last bits of his cake. "I think you've got a way to go before you hit hippie status."
    "I believe in legalizing marijuana?"
    "That helps. So I got some ravioli for your birthday dinner tonight. How does that sound?"
    "Sounds good. Actually, it sounds really nice." Daren sucked the crumbs and cream off the bottoms of the birthday candles. "Twenty. I am now twenty."
    "Twenty is good."
    "Is it?"
    "Well, I'm no longer sleeping next to a teenager so I feel a little less like a pervert."
    "You know I never thought I'd make it this far. I thought I'd OD or crash a fast car before now. I didn't think I'd be sitting here like this."
    "What were you going to be doing today?"
    "Party at our place in the Hamptons. Just me and a couple hundred of my closest friends."
    "Sounds like fun."
    Daren shook his head. "Twenty-one. That's going to be a blowout. I've got people negotiating to get the White Stripes back together for a one-off."
    "That is slightly obscene."
    "No, obscene is going to be the 100,000 dollars of champagne."
    "Jesus."
    Daren stretched his back as much as he could. "Shower?"
    "Sure. I've got another surprise for you."
    ****
    Sebastian was lingering over Daren's hair as he rubbed fancy conditioner into it. Daren was making happy humming noises and pushing himself up into Sebastian's fingers. Birthdays were meant to be a celebration of living through another year in many ways, and Daren making it to this one had certainly been in question. He figured Daren could use the bit of extra care.
    "I'm going to call the job I'm supposed to be starting and tell them I got a better offer."
    Daren gave a little hum of contentment. "Good idea. It's not like we don't have funds now."
    You're also not ready to