"Come on, let me see!"
Chris laughed and moved himself in front of me as I tried to look around him into his bedroom.
"No, Lance, it's not wrapped yet, you can't see!"
"Come on Chris, it's my birthday, I'm going to see it anyway."
"And let you miss out on the fun that is unwrapping?"
I heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs, and as I turned to see who it was, Chris shut the door to his bedroom and locked it.
"Bothering someone else now, Lance?" Joey asked with a grin. I shrugged. I figured why not make my birthday interesting, I'd already had it before. I knew that Chris was going to get me Garth Brook's Greatest Hits, the double CD, and I was going to "freak out", but then Justin would turn red because he'd gotten me the same thing, and I wouldn't mention to either of them that I already had the CD set at my house in Mississippi. Joey would get me a state of the art palm pilot, in a shiny metallic sliver color, but the store he bought it from had forgotten to put the batteries in, so it wouldn't work. JC would give me a gift certificate to a nice restaurant, but when I would go to use it, it would turn out the computer had processed the certificate wrong, and then they'd throw me out because they thought I was a fraud. I remember all too well my 22nd birthday. The first time around. God, there's nothing more eerie than turning the same age twice.
"Yeah, well, I'm curious," I told Joey, giving him a smile.
"Well, I'm sure this'll be a birthday you'll never forget."
Yeah, tell me about it.
*
Once the guys got done singing, I blew out the twenty-two candles on my cake, knowing that I wasn't going to get seven of them on the first go. I didn't, and I finished them off in the second.
"Okay, so, should we eat cake, or give Lance his presents?" Justin asked, looking over at Chris and grinning.
"Presents," Chris said, and everyone but JC got up. "Jace, don't you want to give Lance his present?" Chris asked, but JC grinned and shook his head. "Lance gets his present when none of you guys are around."
Chris sighed and batted his eyelashes, "Oh, it's one of those touching gifts." He wiped a nonexistant tear from his face, but JC just rolled his eyes. Chris laughed and left the room.
"So," I asked, smiling, "what -did- you get me?"
JC shrugged, "Why don't you just wait to find out?"
"Why don't you just give it to me now?" I asked, grinning at him.
Before he could respond, the guys were back, holding their gifts. Justin gave me his first and looked at me expectantly. "Chris and I got you the same thing," he said, "but when JC asked us all what we got you, we found out, so we got you different things, with JC's input. Plus, you already had what we both got you," Justin said, shooting JC a thankful look, "so it's a good thing he knew."
Now I was very curious as I opened Justin's gift. It was two video tapes, home videos by the looks of it, and each video had a label on it. "Lance and JC's most obvious televised moments?" I asked, and Justin grinned. "MTV was very generous when I asked for all of the footage they've taken of us. So was anyone else I asked. So I watched all the shit we've done over the years, and put those times when you two get so flirty on camera. And it took up two freakin' tapes. You guys really need to learn how to be more discreet."
I laughed and thanked Justin, and then Joey gave me his present. I was a little surprised when it actually -was- the palm pilot, but then Joey said, "The guy at the store forgot to put batteries into it, but when JC was checking it out, we figured it out, so it works, don't worry."
"JC went nuts trying to make sure your presents were good enough," Justin said with a laughed, and I looked over at JC and smiled at him.
Chris gave me his present, and I was very surprised when I opened it to find that he had gotten me a windbreaker. "JC said you needed one, so I hope you like it. And I hope it fits," Chris said. "I did, thank you so much. Thank you, all of you," I said, smiling at my friends.
"Just don't look into the pockets until you're alone," Chris told me, giving me a grin I wasn't sure I liked.
"Okay, yeah, that's done, now let's eat cake," Joey said, and we laughed.
Well, it was certainly different from the birthday I had remembered. It was better.
*
JC and I went up to our room and as soon as he shut the door, I said, "So, are you going to give me my present now?"
He grinned and went over to the closet, turning on the light and rumaging around in it for a moment, before returning, walking over to me and handing me a tiny box.
I was curious as we sat down on the bed and I started to open the present. "I hope you like it, I just... I couldn't think what to get you, and then I had the idea to..." JC stammered, and I could see that he was blushing slightly. I opened the box and saw that it was a simple silver cross. I took it out and automatically knowing that there was going to be some type of inscription on the back. I looked, and sure enough, there was.
L- I'll love you always, J
It was one of those old cliche gifts, I'll admit that, but it was special to me all the same.
"Thank you. I love it," I said to JC, turning to him and kissing him gently on the lips. He returned the kiss, deepened it, and soon we were falling back onto the bed.
Made me want to live -all- my crappy birthdays over again.
*
