Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) by Brian Rowe Read Free Book Online Page B

and
motioned for me to leave her alone. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
    “But I do. I
want to know everything.”
    “You don’t have
to know everything .”
    “Yes I do! For
Christ’s sake, Leese, I feel like I know nothing about you!”
    I regretted
saying it before the end of the sentence erupted from my mouth. But there was
no going back.
    I saw her pen
drop out of the corner of my eye, and I half expected her to throw it at my
face, using only the forces of her mind. That
would really shut me up , I thought.
    Liesel didn’t
show a lot of emotion. She just stood up from the table and turned to leave the
room. But then she stopped and stood still, like she wanted me to approach her,
wrap my arms around her, and tell her I didn’t mean what I said. But I didn’t
budge.
    “I’m sorry,” I
finally said.
    That turned her
around. “I’m sorry, too, Cam. I’m sorry that I haven’t come clean with you
about everything. But you have to understand… I’m trying to adjust to this new
life… with you… with your family. Before you entered my life, things weren’t
so… well… complicated .”
    “Not
complicated?” I took her hands. “Liesel, you can do magic. What’s not
complicated about that?”
    “It’s something
I was trying my best to ignore. Plus, give me some credit. I’ve been completely
magic free since graduation night. Eight months and counting, Cam. That’s
pretty damn good for me.”
    “I agree,” I
said. “That’s smart, I guess. But Leese, your powers are extraordinary . It seems careless in a way for you to just
completely ignore what you’re capable of.” She stared out the window, onto the
shiny blue lake just a few yards past our backyard, and then brought her
attention to me. “I didn’t mean what I said before. I know you. I know your
spirit, and I know your kindness, and I know that nobody could ever make me
happier than you. I just have this strong feeling that there’s hidden demons in
your past that you have yet to let me in on. And as your fiancée, I promise,
you can tell me anything . And I won’t
judge you. I promise.”
    She nodded and
kissed my palm before caressing it against her cheek. “There’s things that I’ve
done that I’m not proud of. But I promise… I’m not hiding anything that I’m
ashamed of, or that I think might jeopardize our relationship in any way.
There’s just some things in my past that I’m still trying to make sense of.”
She grinned and crossed her arms.
    “You’re gonna
have to tell me sometime.”
    “I know, Cam.
And I will. Just not today. Not this weekend.”
    “OK.”
    “Thanks.”
    I kissed her on
the forehead. “Now, please, let’s enjoy our weekend. Can you believe this is
our first Valentine’s Day together?”
    She smiled big,
revealing her big pearly whites. “I know. It’s my first Valentine’s Day with anyone .”
    ---
    Liesel and I
walked hand in hand to the center of town early that afternoon to grab a bite
to eat and take in the local sights of what my parents still referred to as the
hidden gem north of Reno—I had been going to Lake Almanor nearly every
summer for the last ten years. Many of the Reno locals elected to just drive up
the hill thirty minutes to the gorgeous but crowded Lake Tahoe. But there was
always something more mysterious, and more of a true destination, about
Almanor, which was always mostly empty yet provided lots to do. This weekend,
Almanor, while maybe the coldest it’d been since my family and I had started
coming here, was particularly dead in town.
    “Can we stop by
the supermarket?” I asked, as we neared it on the winding sidewalk.
    “Sure, what
for?”
    “I want to get
up early tomorrow and make you the most amazing breakfast of your life.”
    “Yeah?” Liesel
let go of my hand. “I like the sound of that.”
    “Mmm hmm,” I
said, planning on banana pancakes.
    “OK. I’m gonna
go check out that antique shop at the end of the street. Meet me