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I smile at him, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Yeah, baby. Nolan’s family wants us to hang out with them more often. We thought this would be a fun way for you to start getting to know them better.”
“Can it still be Percy Jackson-themed, like I wanted?”
“Duh. I’ve already got ideas for decorations. I think swords and shields are a must,” Nolan says. He winks at me when I narrow my eyes in annoyance. Yes, let’s give nine-year-old boys swords to play with. Brilliant plan.
“Then I’d like to have it at Matthew’s house. That sounds really fun. And I don’t have that many friends to invite. Just four.”
“You can invite as many as you want, okay?” Nolan says with sincerity.
Cody nods.
“We better get started on planning. Two weeks doesn’t give us very much time.” To-do lists start forming in my head with everything I’ll need to get done. I should’ve been thinking about this long before now, but I needed this past week to recover after what happened with Bryce.
“We’ll divide and conquer. A lot of it can be ordered online and shipped to Matthew and Tilly’s,” Nolan reminds me.
“Can we go shopping for stuff, too? I want to help.” Cody bounces in his seat.
“I don’t see why not. Let’s see what we can get online first, and then we’ll drive to Greensboro to get whatever is missing,” I say.
Cody’s belly laugh is killing me. He hasn’t stopped giggling at Nolan’s ridiculous antics.
We’re walking around the party store in Greensboro, trying to find party favors and things for Cody’s birthday party tomorrow.
Nolan was able to find everything we needed online, but he didn’t want to disappoint Cody, so we decided to take a trip this afternoon when we got done with school. Much to my annoyance, Nolan’s family has bought entirely too much stuff for Cody’s birthday. I haven’t spent a penny on the entire event.
They’ve all said that since it was their idea to host a huge party, they should foot the bill for it. I didn’t agree, but I’ve been vetoed by every person in the family, including Nolan.
Nolan finds some silly disguise glasses and puts them on. They have a huge nose and a grey mustache. He looks ridiculous. “What about these? No one would even guess it’s me.”
“Nooo. Those are too silly.” Cody giggles.
Nolan sighs. “Fiiiiine. No disguises, then.”
They’re trying to find something fun to add to the party favor bags. Nolan found some T-shirts for Cody and his friends that say Camp Half-Blood from the book. They wanted to find something else to add to the outfit, but there hasn’t been much that’s jumped out at us.
Cody gasps and runs down the aisle. Nolan and I look at each other in question and follow quickly behind him.
“Check it out! These things look real, but they’re not.” Cody pulls out a sword and waves it around.
“Can we get them, Mom? Pleeeeeasssse.”
Nolan grabs one, too, and squishes it in his hand. It collapses easily, and he looks at me with puppy dog eyes that could rival Cody’s.
I drop my head back with a groan. “Fine. But I swear, Cody Ezra, if someone gets hurt, you won’t be able to do anything like this again.”
This is going to end in disaster. I can feel it.
“En guard!” Nolan holds his sword up to Cody, who immediately drops back into a fighting stance. The two of them sword fight until they’re laughing too hard to continue. Then Nolan grabs about ten more swords, and I raise my eyebrows.
“What? My siblings would be pissed if I didn’t get them swords, too.”
I grin. “Fair enough.” Cody runs up to the candy section while Nolan and I slowly follow behind. “Thank you for making this birthday special for him.”
“He deserves it. That’s why we’ve all pitched in and gone overboard. We did it with Noah, too.”
“Just know that he’ll expect this next year, as well.”
“Uh, duh. He’ll be ten, so we’ll have to do it up big.”
