I rolled my eyes at him. “God, Marcus, you’re the sweetest guy ever.”

He grinned stupidly. “Actually, that’s not true. I got it for you to begin with, because you two are attached at the hip and I figured you’d show up together. You’re so predictable.”

“And you’re not?” Kate shot back, shoving his shoulder playfully. “You show up here again with yet another cupcake?”

He scoffed. “I’m not being predictable. It’s self-preservation. I know you love these.”

“Whatever you say,” I grumbled, and marveled at the treat I was aching to devour. My day was about to get a billion times better.

“We’ve got to run or we’ll be tardy,” Kate said to him with a pout. “See you soon?”

“Of course.” He smiled and kissed her good-bye.

She waved to him, and we headed back inside for our lockers as he drove away. “I think I love him,” she said. We walked down the hallway, and she took a bite out of her cupcake.

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh? As of just now?” I took a bite of my own. It was sugar and deliciousness and so good.

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I think I have for a while, but I was just in denial. I’ve never actually loved a boy before. They’re hard to love, you know? At least Marcus doesn’t smell. I think that’s why I love him. And because of the cupcakes.”

“So I guess you’re sleeping with him now?”

“For a few weeks,” she replied. “He’s marvelous, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

I frowned, unsurprised. Marcus had two hundred years of practice with that. Then, of course, my thoughts went to Will…. “It was a simple yes-or-no question. I didn’t need details.”

“Oh, I won’t go into details while we’re at school,” she said. “I’ll tell you more later. You’ve missed a lot since you’ve been gone and then busy catching up in classes.”

“I’m sure,” I said. “We need to have a heart-to-heart all-nighter.”

“What are you doing tonight?” she asked, nudging my shoulder and frowning as we walked down the hall. “You should come over. Maybe stay the night Friday or Saturday.”

“I can’t,” I said honestly. “I’m sorry. I’ll let you know about this weekend, though. Tonight is a me-and-Will thing.”

“Can’t skip it for me?”

“It’s his birthday, actually,” I said. “He doesn’t know I’m planning anything, but I wanted to do something sweet for him.”

Kate nodded. “He needs it. And so do you. Did you get him anything?”

“He wouldn’t like a present if I got him one,” I said. “The celebration will be enough for him. Probably too much.”

“He’ll love it,” she said, grinning. “Even if he doesn’t freak out or anything—which of course he won’t, because he thinks he’s too cool to let anyone know he likes something—he’ll still love it. I think it’s a great idea.”

I smiled, mostly to myself. It would make him happy, and I wanted him to be happy. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure it’ll embarrass him, but oh, well. It’s funny when he’s embarrassed.”

“We’re really mean to boys.”

“They’re mean back.”

I bought a plain white cake at the grocery store after school, and as soon as I got home, I realized I didn’t want tonight to be just Will and me. I wanted all of his friends there, so he knew that he still had them, that he hadn’t lost everything but me. I called up Lauren, Marcus, and even Ava and made sure they’d be at my grandmother’s house. Lauren, thankfully, volunteered to come over and hang out with me before the party.

I also bought some icing tubes to scribble all over Will’s birthday cake, but once I got to decorating, I decided I didn’t want to make some boring cake. I wanted to create something that would make him laugh. Lauren sat across from me at the kitchen table as I kinda drew snarling stick reapers with angry eyes and sharp, gaping mouths on their bubble heads and outspread wings, all surrounding a figure in the middle who was supposed to be Will. I stopped in the middle of the icing drawing and frowned disapprovingly. The stick Will didn’t look much like real Will, so I dabbed on a pair of green eyes, outlined him a pair of wings, and painted a sword in his hand that wasn’t quite as fancy as the real thing. Then I took the red icing tube and splattered the whole cake with it until it was a freaking massacre of frosting stick reapers. I even smeared red on the sword and wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILL across the top in the drippy red icing. Nana glared at me and cleared her throat noticeably as she passed the table, and Lauren looked up at her apologetically. Regular cakes are no fun. This one was awesome.

At seven, Nana left to go play poker with her girl friends. (Or I should say she went to go destroy her girl friends at poker. Since she was psychic, it was sort of cheating.) I called Will to come over. Everyone arrived a few minutes before he did and went into the kitchen. It would have been impossible to truly surprise Will, since he’d notice Marcus’s and Lauren’s cars parked in the driveway—which of course he did—but he came inside very confused. I had on a ridiculous grin as I led him through the house toward the kitchen.

As soon as Will saw the cake, he burst out laughing and shook his head, running a hand through his hair. His cheeks were beginning to buzz with red and my heart lifted. “Ellie, what is this?”