CHAPTER 395: BIRTHDAY CANDLES

The chocolate cake that Clara had brought was store-bought. Not even a customizable type. Most likely from a bakery rather than a supermarket, judging by how it was packaged, but still. Just a generic one, picked from whatever was available on display.

That wasn’t to say that there was anything bad about it. Damien honestly didn’t care about the cake at all, he simply appreciated the gesture, as for Lane... Lane was fine as long as it was sweet. Which it was going to be, he could tell that much from the chocolaty, sugary smell. It definitely matched his preferences...

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to complain.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," he clicked his tongue, shaking his head, as he watched Clara take the cake out of the box and set it on the plate. "It doesn’t even have Damien’s name on it... If you wanted to give him a nice surprise, you should have at least done a better job at it!"

Clara’s brows twitched, furrowing slightly. She... actually didn’t disagree with Lane on this. Compared to the home-baked cakes Damien had always prepared for all the siblings on their birthdays, this random cake was almost inappropriate... Not that it was cheap - it was actually quite pricey, Clara wouldn’t skimp on her brother’s birthday cake, even if she suspected that Damien’s menace of a boyfriend would end up devouring most of it - but a store-bought was store-bought, in the end. It couldn’t compare to the care and effort that Damien had always put in for the rest of them.

Nothing could be done about it, though. She hadn’t originally been planning to drop by on that day, and she didn’t have time to bake a cake herself... She had no choice but to settle for this, as dissatisfactory as it was. She needed it as an excuse to barge in, after all.

However, just because she agreed with Lane for a change, that didn’t mean she was going to admit it out loud.

"Oh, yeah?" she snapped at him. "I would like to see what kind of cake you have given Damien, then!"

Lane’s smirk momentarily faltered. Naturally, he couldn’t have given Damien a handmade cake, since he had never even touched an oven. Or any other tools that might be necessary to bake a cake. Technically, he had given Damien a cake...

That was just a slice of cake with a candle on top, ordered as a dessert after their dinner at the restaurant. Lane hadn’t bothered with a whole cake, not even to satisfy his own sweet tooth, since the most important part of the birthday celebration wasn’t by the table, but rather in bed...

Of course, telling Clara about that sad slice with one candle wasn’t an option, not when he already criticized the cake that she had brought. So, he just put on a mysterious smile, as he said, "I’m not sure if you would want to see it. It was rather... X-rated."

He wasn’t lying, in a way. Although he wasn’t exactly sweet, and most certainly not a cake... He was a ’treat’, no? It should count...

It wasn’t clear how Clara interpreted his words, but her imagination surely took an unpleasant turn. She stared at Lane with wide eyes at first, then in horror, until finally, her expression contorted into disgust, and she turned away, as if she wanted to throw up. Damien sighed and shook his head, disapproving of Lane’s words...

But at least it worked. Clara didn’t ask any more questions about the birthday ’cake’, even as Lane complained about how she was ruining the cake, as she tried to find a place to stick the candles among the strawberries and other decorations.

She succeeded, eventually... But the results were far from satisfactory. The decorations had all been pushed around and displaced, all to make the space for a few birthday candles. And the candles themselves were also not the greatest... Just the standard spiral birthday candles in different colors, each of a different length - they clearly all had been used before. The number was also random - there were eight of them. Not that Lane expected Clara to fit twenty-nine candles on a single cake, but... She should have at least gone for nine, that way it would have made more sense.

Alas, it was the celebration prepared by Clara, so regardless of Lane’s complaints, everything was set up as she decided. It would have been another thing if Damien had supported Lane, but... In those sorts of Lane vs. Clara verbal fights, neither Damien nor the other two sisters intervened, not unless things got too far.

"There! All ready. Quick, make a wish!" Clara announced with a smug smile, acting as if she had just won something, not disturbed a couple’s private time with her store-bought cake and terrible candle arrangement. Damien leaned forward and blew off the flames...

And just like that, after a short moment, it was time to take the candles off the cake again.

"All this trouble just to blow the candles," Lane rolled his eyes. "What are you, a kid?"

Clara shot him a sharp glare in response. "Just because no one would care to celebrate your birthday with you, it doesn’t mean you have to be so bitter about other people enjoying themselves!"

Lane flinched slightly, feeling a bit called out. Of course, Clara wasn’t entirely right - throughout all the years, Ava would have celebrated his birthday with him if he wanted to, since they were besties - but when he was younger, back in his ’family’ home...

He quickly recovered from it, though, and snapped back, "I have people who would be more than happy to celebrate! As a matter of fact, Damien had prepared a cake for me on my last birthday! With candles and all!" he announced proudly. "It looked far, far better than your sorry attempt! And it was home-baked!"

Technically speaking, that was for Valentine’s Day, since Lane hadn’t told Damien about his real birthday or identity back then just yet... But Damien already had his suspicions, so it was also meant as a birthday celebration in a way.

"...Huh?" Clara blinked, surprised. Not by the fact that Damien had done it - that was pretty much expected of him. He would have done it for everyone he cared for, and he clearly cared for this pink-haired sorry excuse of a man way more than he should - but rather by... "You already knew each other on your birthday?"

"Huh?" Lane flinched again, glancing at Damien. They knew each other, yes. They had been dating for like, what, two, three months? at this point. And Damien had even met the real Lane. They were not ’close’, but that was personal, and no one but them knew the details.

The problem was that back then, Damien’s boyfriend ’Xavier’ had just ’died’... And he was kind of in a secret relationship with ’Oscar’. Lane didn’t know how much Clara knew exactly about Damien’s relationships... But she knew ’Xavier’, they had even met. And if Lane remembered correctly, she had even brought up his name at some point in the early days of his dating Damien officially as ’Lane’. Personally, Lane didn’t care... But Damien might not want Clara to think that he ’moved on’ so quickly, no? He glanced at Damien, trying to figure out how to respond...

But then it struck him.

"You know when my birthday is?" he asked, furrowing his brows.

"A, ah?" Now it was Clara’s turn to be flustered. Her eyes slightly widened, darting around the room, as her mind was clearly racing. Which, honestly, made it even more suspicious. "W-well, I’ve just heard it before... And I have a good memory, so... Do you think that I want to remember useless information like that?"

"Hmm, is that so?" Lane observed her intently, not knowing what to make of her behavior. "Heard it where?"

"Just mentioned..." Feeling cornered, Clara gave Eloise a pleading glance.

Eloise let out a quiet sigh, but still came to her rescue. "Let’s sit down, alright? The tea is getting cold... And we all have work tomorrow, so we shouldn’t stay for too long."

Unexpectedly, Clara’s eyes turned sharp again, glaring at Lane. She took a seat by the table, as Eloise suggested, but before Damien could even slice the cake, she asked, her tone interrogatory once more, "Speaking of work... I’ve heard that you and Damien were acting weird today."

Damien froze with his knife hovering over the cake. Then, after a moment of pause, he exchanged a quick glance with Lane.

Clara wasn’t on their team. She wasn’t even close with anyone on their team. She knew some of them, but it’s not like anyone would report to her what her older brother and his boyfriend were up to. Especially since nothing really happened, it was just their moods were somewhat... unusual. No one would see the need to inform her about it...

No one but one person.

"So it was Ethan who made you come here tonight, huh?" Lane muttered under his nose.