CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Isabelle POV

My birthday was tomorrow. The boys hadn't had another case since I found my dad and Cass in my room. I was currently sitting cross legged on my bed, phone blaring music while I worked on algebra and talked to Drew on facetime.

"Math sucks!" they exclaimed.

"It's not that bad," I countered.

"Letters don't belong in math. Letters belong in English. Numbers belong in math."

I chuckled, humming along softly with my music.

"Stop that. I can't concentrate when you're flaunting your angelic voice over facetime."

"You can't concentrate, period," I pointed out.

"Yeah, well, you don't help," they insisted.

"Fine, I'll try to restrain myself from singing if you can tell me the answer to the next problem."

"Belle," Drew whined.

"Tell me the answer and I'll stop with the distracting singing."

They sighed and I watched them chew on their lip, staring from their paper to the textbook and back again.

"Um... 9x with x cubed plus -2 in the parentheses?"

"Very good. See, you do get this stuff."

"Letters still don't belong in math," they grumbled.

"Oh, hush you. On to the next problem."

We continued to work through the problems together, with lots of complaining from Drew's end while the music faded into the background.

"Last one. Think you can do it without my help?"

Grey eyes glared at the screen before looking down at their book.

"-16m cubed plus 4m squared p squared minus 4mp plus p cubed," they muttered. "Group the first two together and the second two together. 4m squared comes out of the first two leaving -4m plus p squared in the parentheses. The only thing you can get from the second two is a positive p, again leaving -4m plus p squared in the parentheses. So you just recopy the stuff in parentheses since they match and the 4m squared plus p goes in the second set of parentheses."

I had reached their conclusion long before they finished talking through the problem, remaining quiet as they worked. When they stopped talking, grey eyes found mine through the screen.

"Nice work," I told them, smiling.

"We're done?"

"We're done."

"Halle-freakin'-lujah," they slammed the textbook closed. "So... I heard somewhere that someone's turning 18 tomorrow."

"Seriously, Drew, it's not that big a deal. I don't want everyone drawing a bunch of attention to it."

"Is Cass planning something special for you?" They wiggled their eyebrows suggestively at me.

"I honestly have no idea. No one has brought up the fact that tomorrow's my birthday yet. Which, I guess that can be expected of my dad and uncle since they haven't known me for very long. But you'd think Cass at least would have mentioned something about it by now."

I leaned back in my bed, moving the screen so Drew could still see me while we talked.

"You realize you could be the one to bring it up, right? You don't have to wait for them to do it first."

"But I literally don't want attention drawn to it, Drew. Maybe it's a good thing no one has brought it up. Maybe I can fly under the radar, make it through the day without anyone realizing what day it is..."

"Girl, you know you can't do that. If Cass found out you tried to pull that, he'd flip, I guarantee it."

"You've never even met Cass," I told them pointedly.

"So? He's your boyfriend. He's going to want to make you feel special on your birthday."

"Special... right," I sighed.

Neither of us said anything for a minute, the only sound being the song Close Your Eyes sung by Michael Bublé.

"That's ironic," Drew muttered after listening to the lyrics for a few minutes.

"Drew! Dinner!" a voice sounded from their end.

"Coming, Mom!" they called back.

"I gotta go. See you tomorrow, Birthday Girl."

"See you."

They ended the call and I turned off the music, silence falling in my room. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about Drew and my conversation. I really didn't want to do anything birthday related tomorrow, despite the fact that I was hitting one of the few big milestones of aging. I would legally become an adult at 12:07 AM tomorrow morning. Sighing, I rolled out of bed and wandered out through the halls of the Bunker. Cass was alone in the kitchen, leaning against the island and staring at the floor with a faraway look in his bright blue eyes.

"Where are Dad and Uncle Sammy?" I inquired.

The angel jumped slightly, looking up at me as I giggled.

"What?" he asked.

"Where are Dad and Uncle Sammy?" I repeated.

"Oh... Beer run," he responded.

"Cool. Whatcha thinkin' about?"

"Nothing of import," Cass brushed off.

"Really? 'Cause for 'nothing of import', you seemed really focused."

"It was nothing you need to worry about, Belle. Truly."

"Okie dokie."

I wasn't totally convinced as I made my way over to stand beside the angel, but let it go. If he didn't want to tell me, I wouldn't force him to. I found myself leaning into his side as we stood in silence, just enjoying the peace of each other's company. Cass and I had gotten a lot more physical since we kissed for the first time. Anytime we were close, there was some part of us touching. Arms, legs, hands... all innocent little things, but more than we had ever dared to before.

"Who were you talking to earlier?" Cass finally broke the silence.

"Drew. They're a friend from school. I was helping them with our math homework. It's not their strongest subject."

"Or yours, I recall."

"Yeah, well... I apparently understand it better than they do so I thought I'd help them out a little."

"That's nice of you."

"What are friends for?"

"You told them you didn't want to do anything special tomorrow..."

My eyes widened and I lifted my head off his shoulder, looking up at him. He met my gaze, face void of expression.

"Well, yeah, I mean... birthday's kind of lose their excitement the older you get, Cass. They become less fun."

Cass didn't say anything, face still blank as he listened to my words.

"Tell you what, we can do a small something for dinner if you want. I just don't want some big thing, alright?"

After a tense moment, he nodded once, breaking his gaze from my face to stare off into the distance again. My heart clenched in my chest and my stomach flipped as I continued to look up at him.

"Hey," I drew his attention back to me.

When he looked back down at me, I reached up, pulling his face down to mine and pressing my lips to his. There was a tense moment before he brought one hand to the back of my head and the other settled at the small of my back, pulling my body closer to his as he deepened the kiss. I felt his teeth briefly capture my bottom lip between them before he replaced them with his tongue, asking for access into my mouth, which I readily granted. Our tongues battled each other for a few moments and then someone cleared their throat behind us, forcing us to split apart.