“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Danny will absolutely feckin’ kill us. There’s no way you’re dragging me into this,” Kieran whined, as I laid out my plan to the boys.
I turned toward O’Connell, giving him my best puppy eyes, knowing that if I could rope him in I’d have Kieran.
“I don’t know, love. I’m not sure he’s gonna like this. He’s never mentioned his birthday before. I’m not convinced he wouldn’t just tell us to feck off.”
I grinned, knowing that he wouldn’t tell me no.
“Look guys, I’m not saying that we throw him a huge surprise party. The shock would probably give him a heart attack anyway. I’m just saying that it wouldn’t kill you to put up a few balloons, sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ and give him a cake.”
My suggestion was met with stony silence, and even the sight of them standing to attention with their arms folded was an emphatic no.
“Come on, pleeeeease,” I begged.
“How did you even find out it was the old codger’s birthday?” Mac asked.
“He needs to file his date of birth on his tax returns,” I answered, ignoring the fact that I was completely abusing privileged information.
“Fine!” O’Connell surrendered at last.
“We’ll put up the balloons when he’s out for dinner. You make the cake and meet us here at six. Kieran will pick you up in my car and give you a hand. You can sing ‘Happy Birthday’ while we stand behind you mumbling then we’ll go straight back to training when Danny explodes and shouts at us for wasting his fucking time.”
“Perfect.” I smiled, and they all groaned.
I was sure O’Connell thought he’d put me off with that little rant about how much Danny would hate my plans, but I was tenacious and all I heard him say was, “no problem, baby. What a fantastic idea. We’d love to help.”
“Thanks, guys,” I told them, knowing it was wrong to just let Danny’s birthday pass us by.
“You are soft as shite with her, ya know.” Mac chuckled to O’Connell.
“Like you could tell her no.” He snorted.
“Fuck me, no.” Mac carried on, as though I wasn’t even in the room.
“Especially when she does that doe-eyed thing. I don’t know why they call you the Hurricane. The way she tramples all over us, she’s more like one than you are.”
“What the feckin’ hell is going on here?” Danny barked, as he walked in the office.
“If you lot ain’t got nothing better to do than stand round here gossiping like a bunch of old ladies then you can all give me twenty-five burpees. I want every one of you sorry fat articles out in the gym now!” Danny barked, as he stomped back into the gym with the boys following single file.
“I’ve changed my mind. I say we let the evil bugger’s birthday ride,” Mac groaned.
“Told you.” Kieran pouted grumpily, as he marched off to take his punishment.
“This better be a friggin’ awesome cake, babe. Danny’s gonna have me doin’ burpees for a month for this,” O’Connell warned.
He didn’t look all that concerned, though. He could do twenty-five burpees in his sleep, even after the four hours of training that he’d already done. Yep, my man was a machine.
As it turned out, my cake was friggin’ awesome, and I should have received some sort of award for producing such a masterpiece in my little kitchenette. I’d made a square cake into a boxing ring and had used boxes of pre-coloured fondant to make the figure of Danny sitting in an armchair in the middle of the ring, cigarette hanging from his mouth and reading a paper while a boxer was doing push-ups on the floor next to him. The boys had loved it and their gushing enthusiasm for the cake far outweighed mine for their effort with the balloons. About twenty of the smallest, saddest, most pathetic looking balloons that I’d ever seen decorated the entrance to the office.
“Seriously! That’s the best you could do?” I complained.
“He picked ‘em,” blamed Tommy, pointing at Kieran.
“It’s not my fault,” protested Kieran, “I didn’t blow ‘em up like that!”
They started squabbling amongst themselves, and I rolled my eyes, knowing that it was a pointless endeavour to complain anymore. There was nothing that we could do about it now, anyway. Popping the birthday candles into the cake, I waited for O’Connell, the only one who wasn’t arguing, to give me the signal to light them.
“What the feckin’ hell is going on in here?” Danny asked without his usual bark.
I burst into a joyful rendition of “Happy Birthday” with the guys mumbling along behind me as promised. When I was done, I thrust the cake toward Danny and told him to make a wish. He looked at me hard, and I could practically hear the guys sucking in air as they held their breath, waiting to see which way he would go. Very slowly, Danny reached up to remove the half burnt out cigarette that was hanging from his lips, blew out the candles, and replaced the cigarette. Everyone was eerily quiet, and Kieran filled the silence with his solitary party popper. It was all really quite tragic, and I could see the corners of Danny’s mouth twitch, but he held back a smile and quietly said, “Back to training.” The boys didn’t need telling twice, and they legged it from the office like it was on fire.
“Seriously, you made them put up balloons?” Danny asked me when they were gone. Putting down the cake, I gave him a great big hug, which he definitely wasn’t expecting.
“It does them good to remember that birthdays are for celebrating,” I told him. “Now sit down and open your present, and I’ll make you coffee to go with your cake.”
Sensing that he was about as used to receiving gifts as I was, I didn’t want to embarrass him by watching, and set about making his coffee while he opened his gift. When I placed it down in front of him with a plated slice of birthday cake, he was still palming the butter soft, leather tobacco pouch that I’d bought him.
“You’re something else you know that, sunshine,” he spoke quietly.
Standing up, he gave me a quick kiss and no more was said. He sat down and tucked into his cake and coffee before putting the boys through their paces. I smiled to myself, knowing that we’d done the right thing.
TAKING THE TIME TO BAKE Danny’s cake had messed with my study schedule, so I hit the books pretty hard after that. The long walks home from the gym or the library weren’t quite so painful now that I had my gorgeous new winter coat. With his first signing bonus, O’Connell had bought me a new dark grey, fitted woollen coat with a Christmas red cashmere scarf and matching gloves. He called them an early Christmas present but admitted there was no way he was letting me go any longer with just my thin summer jacket. I wanted to protest, but I was so grateful that I could have cried. There weren’t any jewels or flowers in the world that could mean the same to me as that gift did.