Sparkling Hope (The Eastburgh Devils Series Book 1)

Rule number one in a relationship: make surprises for your girlfriend.

I would be a bad boyfriend, which I have officially been for almost twenty-four hours, if I didn’t have anything planned for her birthday. Luna told me from the beginning that she didn’t feel like doing anything for her birthday, and a surprise party would have definitely been the wrong idea.

She seemed happy throughout the day.

After we ate breakfast, she freshened up and went out with Ethan and Ruby while I went to the ice arena, and Coach Henderson went over strategies with us to win against the Chicago Polar Bears on Thursday.

Seeing her so happy that day made me feel good, even though her birthday carried such a terrible memory.

I sat across from her and listened to her talk about the day with her Mom and Ethan and how Aria surprised her with a cake and a gift. As I watched her talk energetically about her day, holding the fries in her hand for what must have been five minutes and the ketchup already drained, there couldn’t have been anything better.

Luna could have told me about anything, counted from zero to infinity, sat silently, and talked about her exams, and it would have been the most exciting thing I ever heard.

For the third time, she dipped the already cold fries into the ketchup pot Rudy brought us.

I thought there was no better place to celebrate her twentieth birthday. Of course, Luna had her extra bowl of olives on the table, which was already empty.

I loved this girl so much, but I will never make friends with olives.

Never.

‘You know, a few weeks ago, I would have been looking forward to this day when we finally move out of your place again,’ she explained, and I understood why she looked like that because I felt exactly the same way.

At first, I didn’t really care, but then I realized that I started to feel jealous when she was around Landon or that Tyler guy. I began to feel warmth around my heart when I saw her. Those cheesy butterflies flooded my stomach when she stood in front of the coffee maker in the morning in her pajamas, with disheveled hair, making herself a cup of cocoa.

The more I pushed away this thought that she and Ruby wouldn’t live with us forever.

‘Yeah, I know, but we only live ten minutes apart,’ I tried to salvage the tilting mood.

The move would be on Wednesday.

The day after the crappy Benefits Gala.

‘But not two seconds anymore until I turn around and see you lying next to me,’ Luna said dejectedly, finally taking a bite of that french fry.

She screwed up her face as she bit into it.

‘Cold?’

‘Mhm.’

‘We have four nights left. We both go to the same college, I can pick you up in the morning, drive you home after college, and you can sleep over, and I can sleep at yours.’ I tried to take the good out of the whole move.

Of course, none of it compared to how we lived the last few weeks. But we get it done and make it work.

I had Luna, and she had me.

I paid for our meal, and this time Rudy allowed us to pay.

Luna bribed him because it was her birthday, and she said it was her biggest wish that he would allow us to pay for the food.

‘I have something else for you, Luna.’

Rudy ran to the kitchen and returned with a photo in his hand.     Without looking at it, I knew what kind of photo it was.

The worst photo ever.

This photo was just as bad as the one of Charles that Paisley had held up at his birthday at a hockey game.

‘If Weston needs to contradict you, then you show him this photo. That’s blackmail enough,’ he laughed and handed the photo to Luna.

In the photo, I was about thirteen, had the apron from the diner on, which was way too big for me, two fries in my mouth, which looked like giant big vampire teeth, and ketchup on my nose.

‘I think this is my new favorite picture of you,’ Luna smiled, nudging me with her elbow.

‘I don’t think so,’ I gave ironically, having in my mind that moment when the picture was taken.

It was Halloween, the school had ended early, and I was at Rudy’s. While Rudy was slicing tomatoes and cucumbers for the burgers, I was shoving raw fries in my mouth in the kitchen, putting on my apron, and smearing ketchup on my nose to scare him.

‘Hey, didn’t you hear Rudy? You can’t talk back to me.’

Luna thanked him and continued to look at the photo as we walked to the exit.

‘This is the photo I will hang up in my room.’

I took Luna’s hand in mine, and we walked out until she stopped abruptly and looked in shock at the door as a man entered the diner.

I’ve never seen her so shocked, almost scared, as she was right now. All color drained from her face.

Her usually red cheeks were pale.

Not a single emotion was to be found in her face.

Nothing.

I followed Luna’s gaze, and she stared at the slimly built man with brown hair, gray in between, as was his beard.

‘Luna,’ the man I didn’t know said.

Her grip on my hand tightened, and I felt the blood constricting.

‘Dad,’ she breathed out.

Why did this have to happen on the night of her birthday?

Just when her birthday was going well. She’d done something with her Mom and Ethan, we’d gone out to dinner, and who knows what else we would have done at home, and why did this man, the one who made her think she had to die and hate her birthday, have to be standing here in front of us.

‘What are you doing here?’ mumbled Luna’s Dad from between his whiskers, burying his hands in his jacket pocket.

‘Celebrating my birthday.’

She stood frosted next to me, like a robot that could just talk without showing any reaction or emotion.

‘Oh crap, I should have called you.’ He scratched the back of his neck and wiped his beard with his hands that had just been in his jacket pockets.

‘You didn’t a week ago, either. So one shitty day doesn’t matter anyway.’

I had never heard such hatred and, at the same time, so much fear in Luna’s voice color. I felt so helpless because there was nothing I could do. After all, I couldn’t drag her along and leave the diner.

She should decide.

‘Luna, please don’t say that. I have a lot to do. With team preparations, getting here from Chicago, and,’ she didn’t let him finish at all.

‘Getting your drinking problem under control or suppressing it to crash off the bridge again?’

That did it, and I realized I had a badass for a girlfriend.

I loved her.

‘Luna,’ he breathed her name embarrassedly.

The old man couldn’t get anything out except her name. If I were in his place, I wouldn’t have gotten that out of my mouth after Luna’s sentence.

Not only would she have ripped out my ego with that sentence, but also my vocal cords.

‘No, let it go.’ She took a small step back and came closer to me as her Dad tried to walk toward her.

‘I’m sober, really. Ever since you and your Mom moved away.’

‘At least that’s something,’ Luna grumbled.

The man, whose name I didn’t know, scratched the back of his neck and looked around the diner.

What was he looking for?

A ready-made excuse or a reason why he didn’t call Luna?

‘Do you want to get something to eat?’

‘We already have, thanks.’

‘How are Ruby and Ethan?’

‘Fine.’

Wasn’t it also appropriate to ask how she was?

‘Aren’t you going to introduce your friend to your old one?’ he tried to lighten the tense mood.

‘This is Weston. My Boyfriend. The one I’m leaving the diner with now.’ Luna didn’t wait a second for his answer and pulled me behind her.

She opened the door, which slammed against the bell.

‘Luna,’ her Dad stopped us.

She turned and waited, as did I, to hear what else he would say.

‘Happy Birthday.’

Asshole.

I thought my Dad was an asshole, but the man pretending to be Luna’s Dad was twice of an asshole.

We left the diner, and she burst into tears in my arms as we stood behind my car.