This day is a rollercoaster of emotions for me, But after he takes out a box with a cake in it I absolutely crumble at that.

Dylan uncovers the cake, it is chocolaty and round and perfect. And then he fishes out the candles from the paper bag, numbers two and one and puts them in the middle of the cake. I realize that my hands are shaking, and I put down the beer bottle. When he takes the lighter from his pocket and lights the candles, I feel the tears slowly sliding down my cold cheeks.

"I thought..." Dylan says but then he looks at me, his eyes go wide. "Fuck, I don't know what I was thinking. Sorry, this was a stupid idea, but..."

"No, no, God... it's... It's..." I can't even form a coherent sentence. "Fuck. I can't stop crying, I'm so sorry. I can't remember the last time I cried."

"Hey." His hand reaches out and his big palm squeezes my shoulder. "Crying is good, it means you're healing. Don't ever apologise for that. I just hope this is ok. I thought you would like to celebrate."

I wipe my face with my sleeves and take a few deep breaths. And I'm staring at the twinkling lights of the burning candles in between us.

"Happy birthday, Maya." He says and pushes the cake towards me. I swallow thickly and look at him, and then at the clear sky, imagining that one of the emerging stars is her soul.

"Happy birthday, Maya, I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you." And then I blow the candles out. Another rush of tears streaks down my cheeks.

Minutes pass in silence before Dylan clears his throat. "I bought some utensils, in case you would like to try some."

I turn to him and let out a long breath. Then there is a huge smile on my face. "This is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done to me. Thank you."

He seems uncomfortable at the words, just shrugs his shoulder. "I was a bit of a dick to you, I apologize for that. I should've asked you if you had any problems before firing you."

"Does this mean I'm allowed to come back?"

He doesn't say anything just rolls his eyes like he's done with me. I smile again. And then can't stop smiling. It's stupid because I'm still kind of crying. He probably thinks I'm such a mess.

"You'll come back. But no more drinking on a work day. Or any heavy drinking for that matter."

"Yes, sir."

"I told you not..." I laugh so hard at this and he presses his lips tight like he wants to stop himself from laughing too.

He peels the label of his beer bottle, like his thinking too hard about something. "I'll also appreciate it if you don't mention this to the others. Any of this from today. I am friendly with most of the guys, sometimes we even go to the bar for a few rounds on a weekend. But I try to be very professional. Also, I try to keep my private life private." He looks at me pointedly, and I know he means the man in his house from today. His boyfriend?

"Yeah. I understand. I won't say anything, I get it." I moul, wondering if I should ask this. But he's done all this for me, and I dare to ask. "So you're not out?"

"I'm not out but... I'm also not hiding it. If someone asks I won't lie. People close to me know it, my old man knows it... A long time ago, when I lived in Anchorage I was pretty open about it. I just chose not to say anything to anyone after... When I moved over here. I had my reasons."

"Not trusting people." I repeat what he told me not long ago. But I didn't miss that there is something else that he hides.

He looks at me. "You know something about that too?"

"Being closeted? I never was, even though my grandparents wanted me to be."

"Your grandparents raised you?"

"Hell no. I just lived with them for a while, after my dad passed." I look at him knowingly. "You know what happened?"

Dylan drops the gaze down. "I... connected the dots. Everyone knows Paul and his family's story. I'm sorry."

Is he saying sorry for my loss or for the fact that he knows something so personal and tragic about someone else that he shouldn't, I couldn't tell.  And I am not particularly bothered about either. I don't think I ever really understood what my dad's death meant to my eleven-year-old self, but after being asked too many questions about it I ended up being completely desensitized about that topic. It ended up being just a story, like a few lines I memorized and repeated on autopilot. People crying over it doesn't faze me anymore, I've permanently shut off that tear-jerking switch. No emotion. Unfortunately, drugs were the best way for me to get to that stage. But now I had no drugs in my system and strangely I wasn't feeling like I needed any.

"I was thirteen when my mum decided we needed to move from San Francisco to her parent's house. And then she left after a couple of months and I had to stay there and go to high school. Which was ... yeah. You can imagine. Small town. Bigots and racists on every corner."

"How bad was it?"

I shrug. "They were trying to make me go to church and set me up with girls, it was awful. My grandmother is a born-again Christian who spends all of her free time praying and making sure everyone else is praying or knowing that they should be praying to avoid hell, syphilis and unplanned pregnancy. She was certain that major cities were the breeding ground for all evil in the world. She's fanatical."

"And that's how you ended up in a big city?"

I nod. "The bullying started in school. I was on the football team but some of my teammates had a problem with sharing the locker room with a gay guy. You can imagine how that went." Images flash through my mind, each one worse than the previous. The pictures of my dad lying dead on a football field, all over my locker, gay slurs and death threats written in big block letters. "Anyway, I knew that I had to get out of there. The bigger the city the better the chance to hide."

My life, all of my belongings have been reduced to one backpack. It's all I managed to throw together in my rush out of my grandparent's house after the whole scandal that unfolded after what those assholes did to me in high school. "I hopped on a bus and Cincinnati was the first big city on the route. My plan was to go downtown and see if there were any jobs. And on my first day I met Maya. She was wearing a Wendy's uniform and smoking a cigarette, yelling at someone on the phone. Next thing I know, a guy comes out of Wendy's, a manager, shouting at her for leaving her station when it's not her break. She just went crazy at him, man. She took her work shirt off and threw it at him, said she quits and that he can fuck himself." I laugh at the memory. "Then she threw her phone at him too. I just stood there, on the street, looking, and couldn't believe what I was seeing. There wasn't much drama in the small town I came from. And then when she turned around to leave she saw me staring. Oh boy. She was pissed off. Asked me if I knew someone who would give her a job. I said I was looking for one too. That's how we started. We were inseparable from then."

"She seems like quite a character."

"Oh, she was. But she was also incredibly kind and would do anything to protect her friends. Unfortunately, she got with that idiot and everything went to shit. She..."

My voice fades, the weakness in it making me nauseous. Suddenly I'm feeling all kinds of wrong for even telling him all this because I can never finish the story of Maya. Or me. I can't tell him what happened when she died. Because then that would mean he'll ask why am I here. I didn't just come here for a holiday or family visit. I had to run. If I didn't end up in prison I would have ended up killed.

He looks up at me from under impossibly long lashes. "Everything ok?"

"Yeah..." I lie. "It's just hard remembering."

"I bet." He starts packing the cake back into the box, and then in the bag. "I guess we should get going. It's getting late."

He hops off the truck and I follow. But when I touch the surface, my ankle gives up on a bumpy ground and I end up in Dylan's space.

"Careful." His voice drops low and his strong hands reach out on instinct to steady me. The air leaves my lungs in a swoosh and I'm left staring at the set of the bluest eyes I've ever seen. Everything around me vanishes under the weight of his gaze as it strips me off, leaving me bare and vulnerable in seconds.

My spine tingles with proximity and I want to, no, I need to come even closer. I can't think straight when I lean in, wanting those lips on mine. So close. I swear he wants to kiss me too, his fingertips are pressing hard into my flesh where he grabbed me. I inhale. He smells like the sea and the woods. And raw desire.

I open my mouth, ready to taste his. But then he steps away from me as if remembering something. Clearing his throat, he says, "What are you doing?"

Those words are like a slap across the cheek, breaking whatever temporary haze this man's proximity has confused me with, pushing me back to reality. Fuck, seriously, what am I doing?

"Sorry," I stutter. "I'm sorry, I didn't..."  I'm squirming in my own skin, uncomfortable. I take a deep breath. The pause that follows is unbearable.

"Get in the car, Noah," he says coolly, with that tone he uses on the construction site when he's telling me I fucked something up with his decking. "I'll drop you off at home."

I move backwards toward the door. Dylan is already inside, passing me the bag with the cake and starting the engine. I lean my head against the headrest and close my eyes as I take control of my thoughts again engulfed in silence throughout the whole ride. Finally, we come to a stop.

Dylan looks at me and for a moment I see something unsettling on his face. He's pissed off but there is something else. I have to fix this, he just decided to let me come back to work.

"I shouldn't have done that. You have a boyfriend and..."

"Let's not talk about it. I'll see you at work Monday morning."

"Yeah, right. Ok. Um... Thank you again."

I slam the door and hurry up the stairs to my room. After closing it, I lean and inhale. Feeling more helpless than ever.

_______