I step forward with a smile. “Hey.”
“Hey.” She steps close to me. “Danek,” she says in a whisper. “It’s not my birthday.”
“You told me that you spent your fortieth birthday in captivity.” I take her hand in mine. “I thought you should have a real celebration.”
“You what?” Her eyes start to fill with tears. “Oh, Danek—”
Later on, she’ll be embarrassed that she teared up in front of everyone. “Don’t cry just yet,” I tell her teasingly. “You don’t even know what the cake will taste like.”
“Cake?”
“Cake is traditional for human birthdays, yes? That’s what I’ve been told. After the hours I’ve spent practicing, if Alice was joking—”
“Hang on. You made cake? You baked?”
“With ingredients. Not syn-made.” Okay, I’m bragging. “It has pink icing.” I smile at her. “I’ve been told pink is your favorite color.”
I tug her to the table. Well, I try. Naomi digs in her heels. “You were practicing? When? Where was I?”
“Asleep,” I admit. “Every night, when you were fast asleep and nothing could rouse you, I baked.”
She stares at me. “And I never knew?” Her mouth falls open. “I smelled cake once, when we were in Noturn. I thought I was imagining it.” Her expression softens. “You’ve been baking all that time?”
Everyone’s watching us, but if Naomi doesn’t care about that, neither do I. “Well, I haven’t really done a lot of baking the last few weeks.”
“Yes, recovering from a virus that almost killed you will do that.” Her voice is dry. “Okay, but I never saw any leftovers. What did you do with the cake you made?”
I grin. “Let’s just say Pumpkin, Plague, and Pestilence were very happy with me.”
“Oh my God.” She puts her hand over her mouth, and then she starts to laugh. That’s my cue. I tug her over to the table, where the pink-frosted cake, its surface covered with lit candles, takes the pride of place in the center.
Alice starts to sing a birthday song, and the other humans pick it up. I wrap my arm around her waist. “Happy birthday, Naomi.”
Naomi eats cake and pronounces it delicious. I can’t help it; I beam with pride. Pumpkin, Plague, and Pestilence, who retreated to their cage when people started trickling in, are attracted by the smell of cake, no surprise there, and patter out to beg for some. The floofs are adorable, staring appealingly at our guests with big purple eyes, and they scam everyone into believing they’re terribly underfed and deserve to be fed from the table.
There are presents, of course. Everyone who attends the party brings Naomi something. She gets clothes, books, a wide variety of food items from the Exchanges, and so much more.
The party goes on for hours. We laugh and celebrate.
Finally, when everyone goes home, I pull out my present for Naomi, the one I held back until we’re alone. I hand her the small package.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“Open it.” Bast, I’m nervous. I think I know what her answer is going to be, and I’m still so nervous.
She tears the wrapping paper off and pops the small jewelry box open. Inside is a ring, made of solenium, studded with diamonds from Earth and moonglow stones from the Homeworld.
“I thought we’d make it official,” I tell her, holding my breath. “If you want, that is. Alice told me that the ring is what humans do.”
She looks up, her eyes shining. “Is this what I think it is?”
I take her hands in mine. “My favorite color is grey, which is pretty boring, I know. I didn’t used to have a favorite food, but I would eat the curry you make every single day. My favorite place is with you. I don’t have a favorite flower, or a favorite game, and you already know my favorite activity.”
She laughs softly. “I think I do, yes.”
“Most importantly, I have a favorite person.” I stare into her deep brown eyes. “You.” I get down on one knee, the ring in my hand. “Will you be my mate, Naomi Knoll?”
She throws her arms around my neck, her smile as bright as the stars. “Yes,” she says. “Yes. Always.”
Epilogue
Liz
When I was a little girl, my grandmother and my mom got into a fight about something, something they did a lot, and Grandma yelled to my mom, “This wouldn’t happen if you knew how to cook, Jessica. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
That’s the moment I decided to be a chef when I grew up.
That was a very long time ago.
I spent my early twenties learning to cook. I worked in the kitchens of Michelin-starred chefs. I worked in olive farms in Italy, eating the meals the nonnas produced for their farmhands. Pasta tossed with pesto made from sun-kissed basil, tender lamb redolent with rosemary and garlic, meals cooked by people whose names you’ve never heard of, but whose food put tears in my eyes. I bounced around from place to place, learning by doing, soaking it all in.
Somewhere along the way, life took a detour.
Now I’m here, far, far away from home. I’m on a planet called Ilinda, the new headquarters of the Rebellion.
They’re on the brink of a catastrophe.
A deathly virus has been unleashed. It’s killing wide swaths of people and maiming even more.
The people that should be in charge are in denial. Instead of fixing the problem and looking for a cure, they’re too busy pointing fingers at each other, trying to assign blame to everyone but themselves.
Back home, I was too busy in the hustle. Too busy for things like dating. I was blogging, podcasting, writing recipes, testing them, trying to build my ‘brand,’ all while working a fulltime job.
All of that has fallen away.
What does one do in a pandemic?
We act for the greater good.
We hug our loved ones close.
We feed our families. Take comfort in the simple things.
