After ticking off the list of various post-round formalities that needed to be dealt with before he could officially call it a day – the most bizarre of which, hands down, had been fielding questions from a sea of journalists inside the media centre – the sense of relief Mustang had felt as soon as their minivan had pulled back out through the gates of Royal St. George’s, knowing that he wouldn’t be darkening them once again until lunchtime the next day, was immense.
He’d, of course, enjoyed what he’d managed to achieve in his third round – in fact, he’d been pretty much walking on air ever since getting a near full standing ovation from those spectators surrounding the 18th as he’d made his way off the green. And to know that he was actually heading into the final day of the Open with a two-shot lead over Fletcher in their race for the Silver Medal? Having, at one point, been eight whole shots off the pace with just six holes to play? The significance of having such a cushion – any cushion, for that matter – was, obviously, not something he was taking for granted either.
Yet, after experiencing such an intense high as that which his back-9 charge had provided, Mustang was now looking forward to simply not thinking about golf for a while – even if it was just going to be for a few hours. Naturally, given this had been challenging enough to do on just Thursday and Friday, Mustang was under no illusions that it was suddenly going to be any easier now that he was on the cusp of playing in the final round of a Major with a chance at winning some silverware on the line – regardless of whether it was the main prize on offer or not.
But as they’d navigated their way along the near mile-long, private lane that led away from the course – passing the idyllic-looking fields and small tributary he’d become so accustomed to seeing on this small stretch of road – Mustang was determined to at least give it the old ‘college try’.
“So, you guys wanna watch a movie tonight?” Mustang asked, putting the question to Rodney and Ray as they walked slowly towards the front door of the house. “You know, after dinner and everything else?”
“What?!” cried Rodney, aghast, as the sound of gravel crunching beneath the tyres of the minivan grew ever more faint as it moved further and further down the drive. “But I thought you loved our nightly Playstation marathons?!”
“No, you love our nightly Playstation marathons!” laughed Mustang, readjusting the grip he had on his golf shoes. “Cause all you do is beat me constantly!”
“And you’re saying that’s … not fun for you?” asked Rodney, fixing his face with a perfect deadpan expression.
“Hey, I was just as surprised as you are!” answered Mustang, laughing again as he reached out and playfully shoved Rodney.
Having reached the porch where the front door was housed before them, Ray reached out and rang the doorbell. After waiting out the customary few seconds it would normally take for Cedric to open it, however, Mustang and the others, curiously, found themselves still staring at the wrong side of the door.
“That’s weird …” mused Ray, trying the doorbell again as he eyed the door up and down suspiciously. “Usually, Cedric has the door practically open before I even hit the doorbell once, let alone twice.”
“Maybe he’s upstairs?” suggested Mustang, stepping back out of the porch and throwing a cursory glance up towards the first-floor window directly above them to see if he could spot Cedric on one of his usual sweeps of the house, making sure everything was still as ‘spick & span’ as it should be.
“Well, wherever he is, unless he wants some of these hedges watered, he better ‘urry up and answer the door fairly lively!” said Rodney, now looking uncomfortably squirmy as his feet fidgeted restlessly against the flagstones covering the floor of the porch. “Cause I need to use the bloody loo!”
“C’mon, let’s just go ‘round back …” said Ray, calmly, as he exited the porch and began walking towards the side of the house, the sound of Mustang’s clubs clattering noisily against one another in his bag and that of his footsteps grinding against the gravel fighting for supremacy with each weary step he took. “See if the patio doors are open.”
After finally reaching the side of the house, however – wherein they’d swapped out walking on gravel for the neatly trimmed, now slightly damp grass that formed part of the large lawn which wrapped around the entire rear of the property – Mustang immediately noticed that something seemed different with what he was seeing.
There was a glow coming from the back garden … and not the one he was used to seeing.
Though the lights from the kitchen and living room did, indeed, cast a glow out into the back garden at this time of the evening, it was never as bright as the one he now found himself looking at. Even the colour of the light seemed wrong. Unlike the warm, almost orange light created by those inside the house, the one he was currently seeing had more of a bright, golden tinge to it.
“What’s going on back here?” he asked, more so just pondering aloud as opposed to actually looking for someone to answer him.
“Dunno …” replied Ray, coming to an abrupt stop in front of Mustang and, strangely, turning around to look at him. “Why don’t you, uh … go check it out?”
This was odd. Not only was Ray, suddenly, sounding as though he were hiding something, but he now also looked as though he was fighting hard to keep himself from smiling – a fight that, incidentally, he was rapidly losing.
“Ok …” replied Mustang, his suspicions now growing exponentially as he, himself, turned and looked at Rodney, who’d been walking behind him since they’d embarked on their journey to the rear of the house. “You got any idea what this is about?”
“Nope,” Rodney answered, though the smile on his face clearly denoted that he was lying; never mind the fact that he no longer appeared as though he was on the verge of needing a fresh pair of shorts.
With it not taking a ‘Sherlock Holmes-level’ of deduction to realize that Rodney and Ray were, obviously, both in on whatever was happening – and that, therefore, his chances of getting anything more out of them in the way of information were firmly dead in the water – Mustang turned back towards Ray, who, given the massive grin he was now sporting, had, plainly, surrendered in his efforts to keep it at bay for even a second longer.
“Alright … and I’m guessing that me just flat out refusing to walk back there isn’t an option, right?” asked Mustang, dryly, as he, too, afforded himself a wry grin at the thought of having been unwittingly led into a trap.
“Not unless you like the idea of bein’ picked up like a baby and me haulin’ you back there myself, no,” said Ray, jokingly, even if they all knew he could, legitimately, do just that if the mood struck him.
“Oh, please make him pick you up like a baby!” pleaded Rodney, chiming in gleefully as he clapped his two hands down onto Mustang’s shoulders. “C’mon! For me!”
“Well, given you’re enjoying whatever this is far too much already …” quipped Mustang, stealing a glance at Rodney. “I’m gonna have to take a hard pass on that.”
Realizing there was now nothing more he could do, nor no more tactics through which he could attempt to stall the inevitable, Mustang took a deep breath in and began to walk slowly past Ray. With each carefully measured step he took, however, Mustang was trying desperately to rack his brain in order to figure out what all this secrecy could possibly be in aid of. Yet, the closer he got to reaching the corner of the house – the glow from whatever lighting lay beyond it growing brighter all the while – absolutely nothing was coming to mind. Whether it was down to the fact he was just mentally exhausted after his efforts to claw his way back into contention for the Silver Medal, or perhaps, simply, the aftereffects of being out under the blazing sun all afternoon finally catching up to him, either way, Mustang was drawing a complete blank. It was as though he’d left his brain back at the course, tucked safely away inside the locker he’d been assigned for the week until he came back the next day for the final round.
Now just two short steps away from the corner of the house, Mustang, again, came to a momentary halt. It was strange. For some stupid reason, he was feeling more nervous now than what he had done at any stage throughout the course of his comeback against Fletcher. When he’d been about to hit that driver-off-the-deck at 14? Or sending that stinger rifling into the wind at 15? All of those seemed like a veritable cakewalk in comparison to the situation he currently found himself dealing with. In fact, so nervous was he actually feeling? The closest frame of reference Mustang had for what it was mildly comparable to was how he’d felt on the 1st-tee on Thursday morning.
When that thought promptly made him realize that he was being absolutely ridiculous, however, Mustang quickly shook some sense into his head, took a short breath to brace himself, and then rounded the corner of the house.
Whatever lay in wait for him, he wasn’t going to hide from it.
Like he did with everything else, he was going to try and face it head o-…
“SURPRISE!!!!”
Understandably, having not been expecting to find himself being screamed at by a small crowd of people as soon as he stepped into the back garden, Mustang struck a suitably startled figure as he jumped back and threw his hands instinctively up in front of his face. Once the lizard part of his brain realized that, contrary to what it had first thought, he wasn’t about to be attacked by an angry mob, however, Mustang was finally able to take in the actual scene that lay before him … and he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
There was a big, long table after being set up on the lawn; one covered with a pristine white tablecloth and neatly laid out with numerous place settings all decorated with gleaming silverware and glassware. Surrounding the table, a number of tall, evenly-spaced wooden poles had been hammered into the grass and perfectly wrapped in golden-coloured fairy lights that stretched from pole to pole right the way around the entirety of the table, creating the magical glow that had seen Mustang initially twig that something was up in the first place. And at the very head of the table? Hanging between two of those same wooden poles? There was a large banner that read, ‘HAPPY 16TH BIRTHDAY!!!’, in huge gold letters.
As overwhelming as all this, in itself, was to try and process, however, what had left Mustang thoroughly speechless was who he saw gathered next to the table. Desmond was there, obviously – with Cedric and the rest of the house staff dutifully waiting off in the wings. But all the others? Staring back at Mustang with huge smiles on their faces? Was a collection of people that, at the moment, he’d have bet any money were an entire ocean away. Dallas Rugger and Fr. Breen. All five members of the New Malo Pirates: Donny, Layla, Indie, Ryan, and Logan. Beau LaFleur and Jeanie. And, perhaps most importantly of all, standing at the very bottom of the table, a watery smile stretching across his face, was Mustang’s grandpa, Travis.
“I don’t under-… I mean, uh …” stammered Mustang, the connection between his brain and mouth, temporarily, experiencing some minor technical difficulties. “Wh-when … how?!”
Having deliberately hung back so that Mustang could have his moment in the spotlight, Rodney and Ray – who’d since jettisoned Mustang’s golf bag from his shoulder – finally reappeared back alongside him from where they’d been watching everything unfold from the corner of the house.
“Well, it was somethin’ of a combined effort,” said Ray, looking extremely content with the fact the surprise had gone off without a hitch. “See, I mentioned to Desmond at the start of the week that it was gonna be your birthday tomorrow, so I wanted to see if we couldn’t put on a little get-together to mark the occasion – something which he and Cedric then so kindly agreed to help me organize. But as for where everybody else comes in? Well, I think you should explain that part, Dallas.”
After getting his cue, Dallas – who was comfortably towering above everybody else at the rear of the welcoming party and puffing away on one of his ever-present cigars – spoke up. “Well, when Ray called me up Thursday and said he was looking for people to record some birthday messages that he could play for you at this party he was planning…” Dallas explained, after removing his cigar from where it had been clamped in-between his teeth. “I said why don’t we go one better and give the kid the ‘live experience’ instead. So, a few phone calls later – and with a lot of help from Jeanie here – we finally rounded everybody up; hopped on a chartered plane late last night, and hightailed it over here.”
“Which, for the record?” said Donny, jumping in quickly with a cheeky grin on his face. “Was a sacrifice we were all more than willing to make – you know … for you.”
“This is just unbelievable,” sighed Mustang, still shaking his head quietly in disbelief as he continued with his efforts to try and comprehend the insanity of what was happening. “I mean … I dunno what to say …”
“Well, I might not be sure how ‘surprise parties’ work nowadays, kiddo,” smiled Travis, who was looking particularly dapper in one of his old suits he’d rooted out especially for the occasion. “But back in my day, a good place to always start was to come say ‘hello’ to everybody!”
Quickly getting the hint, a smiling Mustang dropped his shoes down onto the grass and began to jog the short distance across the lawn to where everyone was gathered.
“That means you too, Hot Rod,” said Ray, leaning down and nudging Rodney encouragingly with his elbow. “Get over there and start introducin’ yourself to everybody.”
“I dunno … maybe I should go grab a shower first? Put on a shirt or something?” said Rodney, suddenly looking quite skittish. “I mean, you never said the girls were gonna be this pretty!”
“You’ll be fine,” replied Ray, looking to assuage Rodney’s concerns. “After all, they both play golf as well, so they’re used to bein’ around sweaty-smellin’ dudes.”
Rodney’s head snapped in Ray’s direction, a horrified expression now plastered across his face as the colour drained from his freckles. “Are you serious?!” he hissed, in a panic. “I smell?!”
“Just kiddin’!” laughed Ray, clapping Rodney heartily on the back. “You smell fine! Now, go on – get over there and hit ‘em with some of that ‘Burrage Charm’!”
“Not funny, Ray!” smiled Rodney, the colour now slowly returning to his face as he preemptively fixed the collar on his polo shirt and began to follow Mustang in moving towards where everyone else was now milling around and chatting excitedly amongst one another. “Not funny at all!”
As opposed to following Travis’ instructions himself and going over to officially say ‘hello’ to everybody as well, Ray, instead, just stood his ground for a second and allowed himself to drink in what he was seeing unfold before him – because he wanted to make sure he remembered it.
When he’d first mentioned the idea to Desmond of having a party for Mustang to mark his 16th, Ray could never have foreseen that this is what the end result would be. But now that he was actually seeing it right before his eyes? He couldn’t imagine it any other way. Seeing the smile on Mustang’s face as he hugged Travis? Seeing Rodney already making friends with Layla, Donny, and the rest of the Pirates? Seeing Desmond in the process of offering some cold bottles of beer to Dallas, Beau, and a wide-eyed Fr. Breen? Everything was just perfect. And, moreover, it was exactly what Mustang deserved.
“Hey there, stranger …”
Having been so consumed with looking at everybody else, Ray hadn’t even noticed that Jeanie – who was looking even more beautiful than usual in a floaty, red summer dress – had slipped away from the crowd to come greet him.
“Sorry, gorgeous …” he apologized, before bending down and giving Jeanie a warm kiss hello. “I was a million miles away.”
“I could see that …” replied Jeanie, smiling brightly as she slid her arms around Ray’s waist and looked adoringly up at him. “You ok?”
Before he could answer, the sound of raucous laughter coming from back across the lawn caught Ray’s attention. Having been showing Rodney and the rest of the Pirates the video he’d taken of him nearly jumping clean out of his sneakers when everyone had yelled ‘SURPRISE’ at him, Mustang had just yoinked Donny’s phone clean out of his hand and set off running around the garden so that he could delete the video before Donny, who had promptly given chase, could hunt him down and get his phone back.
“Yeah …” said Ray, now smiling warmly as he looked lovingly back down at Jeanie. “I’m great.”
*
Despite having not been at a 16th birthday party since Jason Beckerman’s ill-fated blowout back in high school when half his class ended up getting violently sick because they’d, foolishly, tried drinking the homebrewed pilsner Jason’s father had been cooking up in their overly warm garage, Ray was pretty confident that Mustang’s shindig really had been as good a night as he felt it had been.
The food, unsurprisingly, had been incredible. Right the way through dinner there’d been a constant buzz around the table with everybody chatting and laughing as they’d been eating. The birthday cake Desmond had arranged, of course, had been suitably extravagant, with a three-tier creation seeing an eerily accurate-looking model of Mustang holding his followthrough at the very top of it, as a “divot” in the green-coloured icing exposed the rich, chocolate cake lurking beneath. Add in on top of that, then, Logan absolutely killing it as the official DJ for the party? The uber-competitive Cornhole tournament where Beau and Fr. Breen had proven to be a surprisingly unbeatable pairing? Not to mention Dallas and Jeanie absolutely bringing down the house with their impromptu dance-off? And if all that didn’t add up to a successful party, then Ray didn’t really know what would.
Yet, with midnight rapidly approaching, and the party now having burned away to nothing more than glowing embers – given pretty much everybody had headed for bed following the exertion of their hop across the Atlantic, inevitably, catching up to them – try as he might to distract himself by clearing the table out on the lawn, Ray just couldn’t help but feel the tiniest tinge of regret over how one particular aspect of the evening had gone down: the presents.
Though he’d obviously remembered to buy Mustang a gift, when it had actually come time for Ray to give it to him after he’d blown out the candles on his cake following everyone serenading him with a mildly off-key rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ … he’d chickened out. Because with each gift he’d seen him open, Ray had only grown more and more self-conscious about the one he’d gotten for Mustang. The headcover for his putter that Fr. Breen and the Pirates had given him with his name and their team logo embroidered onto it? The new pair of sneakers from Jeanie? The fact Dallas had just straight-up given him five-hundred bucks stuffed into an envelope? They’d all just made Ray feel as though his gift couldn’t compete. And once Travis had then proceeded to soundly trump everybody else by officially giving ‘Maisie’ to Mustang? The very car he was named after? That had been Ray’s mind, definitively, made up – he wasn’t going to give him his present.
Because, realistically, how the heck was he supposed to follow that? No matter who they are, every kid dreams of getting a car on their 16th birthday – they just do. But to get one as cool as a yellow and black, ‘65 Mustang? That was the type of present that just couldn’t be topped. And the last thing Ray had wanted was to have Mustang open up his gift in front of everybody, just as he had done with theirs, and then sit there and have to endure seeing that one thing no one ever wants to see when you’ve bought somebody a gift that they don’t like: a forced, fake smile.
So, while using the cover of everyone fawning over the fact Mustang was now the proud new owner of his very own namesake, Ray had slipped his present off the table, hid it back inside his pocket, and then busied himself with the task of helping Cedric – despite his most polite protestations – serve the cake up to everybody.
Now that the party was over, however, Ray couldn’t help but feel ever so slightly guilty. Because, yes, he knew he should have just sucked it up and given Mustang his gift, regardless of how he thought he might react to it. But what was really concerning him, though, was wondering whether or not Mustang was now feeling in any way bad about the fact that he hadn’t given him a gift. Because while he was more than confident that Mustang wasn’t the type of kid who would have been expecting a present from him – especially given the way he’d been so adamant the previous year about not wanting there to be any fuss made over his birthday – the thought that he might be feeling even the slightest hint of disappointment or confusion over the fact that he hadn’t gotten him one was enough to prove suitably troubling for Ray.
“You do know that Cedric doesn’t mind doing all that, yes?”
With the grass having muffled the sound of his footsteps as he’d approached, Ray turned and took in the sight of Desmond now just landing alongside the table. If there was one particular thing that Ray had noticed about Desmond, it was that he never looked tired – which, given he’d seemed to have been steadily working ever since he and Mustang had touched down in the UK a week previously, Ray just found downright bewildering. Even to look at him now, as he took up a position leaning against the edge of the table, Desmond looked amazingly bright-eyed, even though Ray knew for a fact he’d actually flown to London early that morning, had a day full of meetings, then flown back to Kent in order to be at Mustang’s party, where he’d then proceeded to expertly play the role of host for the evening. Meanwhile, after the day he’d had, Ray was now seriously having to monitor how long his blinks were lasting just in case he inadvertently fell asleep, face-planted straight down onto the table, and wound up with a stray dessert fork sticking out of his forehead.
“Yeah, I know …” replied Ray, putting aside the thought that Desmond might, in actual fact, be a vampire of some description as he returned to dragging together the various pieces of confetti still strewn over the surface of tablecloth courtesy of the poppers everyone had let off earlier in the night. “But ‘many hands’ and all that.”
“That’s funny, Jeanie said pretty much the exact same thing when I told her that she didn’t need to be helping Cedric clean up in the kitchen either,” replied Desmond, smiling lightly, before lowering the volume of his voice just a hair. “Though, just between you and I? I don’t believe Cedric was quite so appreciative of her critiquing the way in which he fills the dishwasher.”
“Yep, that sounds like Jeanie, alright!” chuckled Ray, dropping the handful of confetti he’d scooped up in the interim into the plastic cup he’d been using to house it all. “At this stage, I just give the dishwasher as wide a berth as I can whenever she’s at my place – it’s just easier!”
Whilst still quietly laughing to himself, Desmond reached down and plucked a few peanuts out of a bowl that was sitting next to him on the table. “So, should I take it that’s why you decided against giving Mustang that gift you bought for him then?” he asked, nonchalantly popping one of the peanuts into his mouth. “You thought it would just be easier?”
Instantly recognizing that this was obviously the real reason Desmond had come over talking to him, as opposed to being concerned that he was exerting himself needlessly, Ray smiled ruefully before calling a temporary halt to his cleanup efforts. “So, you saw that, huh?” he asked, keeping his gaze locked on the inside of the plastic cup he was holding.
“I’m afraid so,” replied Desmond, deftly throwing another peanut into his mouth.
Placing the cup gently back down onto the tablecloth – itself littered with various stains following the night’s festivities – Ray turned around and, like Desmond, leaned up against the edge of the table. “Yeah … not exactly my finest hour, that’s for sure,” he sighed, crossing his arms in front of his chest and looking off at the rear of the house. He could see Jeanie was still busily darting around inside the warmly-lit kitchen as she helped Cedric and some of the other staff clean up. She, like Desmond, was someone else Ray had long thought was in the possession of superhuman-like energy levels.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Desmond, looking to lessen the figurative beating Ray was giving himself. “I mean, I don’t have any children myself – let alone any teenagers – but I’ve a few nieces and nephews that age and … well, from what I’ve heard from their parents, that moment when you give them a present they haven’t specifically asked for is always rather daunting.”
“And especially so when you wait too long to do it and end up having to try and follow the guy who just gave ‘em a goddamned car …” quipped Ray, as he now took to rubbing his hand wearily over his face – his bed was definitely calling him.
Desmond, again, chuckled. “Yes, I can imagine that’s not exactly the ideal act one wants to have to compete with, no,” he smiled, as he tossed another peanut effortlessly into his mouth.
“You can say that again …” said Ray with a sorry shake of his head.
“At the same time, though …” continued Desmond, now almost musing aloud. “This is Mustang we’re talking about, Ray. I mean, I’ve seen how close the two of you are this week – you can’t help but, really. So, yes, you may not have gotten him a car or … you know, a wad of cash. But whatever you did get him? There’s not a shred of doubt in my mind he’ll love it.”
“Yeah, but how can you be so sure of that, though?” asked Ray skeptically, though clearly wanting to believe what Desmond was saying.
“Because it’ll have come from you,” replied Desmond, pairing his words with an encouraging smile. “And in the end … that’s all that really matters.”
Ray looked back off towards the rear of the house. He knew Desmond was right, of course. And having heard him break it down into such simple terms, it almost made him feel all the more foolish for how silly he’d been.
“Yeah, you’re right …” he said with a heavy, though relieved-sounding, sigh. “I’ll give it to him in the mornin’.”
“Well, as luck would have it,” replied Desmond, now sounding particularly chirpy as he threw his final peanut into his mouth and leaned away from the table. “I saw Mustang wander into those trees just over there not five minutes ago – so, you can go do it right now.”
Ray could only smile and shake his head. “Well, ain’t that a happy coincidence?!” he said dryly, as he, too, now leaned away from the table and came back up into a fully standing position.
“Isn’t it just?” replied Desmond, his poker face, admirably, not breaking even in the slightest. “Now, go on. I’ll take care of this. You take care of Mustang.”
Heeding Desmond’s instructions, Ray began to move away from the table to go about finding Mustang. Just as he was walking past him, however, Ray came to a stop next to Desmond. He had something he needed to say. “Thank you, Desmond,” he said, meaningfully. “You’re a good man.”
“As are you …” replied Desmond, nodding his head graciously. “Now, get going: if I’m going to pretend I’m actually going to clean this table up, I should really make a pretend start.”
Ray laughed as he set off walking, once again, across the lawn, the damp grass squeaking against the soles of his sneakers with every other step.
Very quickly, though, that same levity evaporated and he began to focus in on the task at hand.
Because right now he had a job to do.
And step one? Was finding the birthday boy.
*
Going on what Desmond had said, Ray had figured that Mustang had only wandered just beyond the treeline at the bottom of the garden. After a few minutes of walking through the shadowy, moonlit thicket, however – and with the lights from the house now all but disappeared off behind him – Ray had yet to find him … and he was starting to worry. Because having walked through these trees earlier in the week, Ray knew that if you went far enough you would eventually emerge out onto an exposed cliff face where one misjudged step in the darkness would see you very quickly lamenting the fact mankind had yet to evolve wings as you plummeted towards the frigid sea lying in wait at the bottom of the cliff.
Just before the gnawing sense of worry he’d been feeling could begin to make too much in the way of real headway, however, a most welcome wave of relief suddenly washed over Ray as, only a short distance ahead of him, he spotted Mustang just outside the opposite treeline to that of where he’d entered on the garden side, standing on the very same cliff where his mind had been trying to convince him he’d already met his maker.
“Little late for ‘Hide and Seek’, don’t ya think, kid?” asked Ray, brushing past a particularly thick piece of undergrowth as he stepped through the treeline; the briars it was crawling with grabbing and clawing greedily at his shorts as he moved.
“Yeah, sorry …” smiled Mustang, turning to acknowledge Ray as he finally arrived next to him. “I went looking for the bean bag Layla flung into the trees when Beau and Fr. Breen beat her and Indie in the final of the Cornhole tournament. After I found it, though, I said I’d come out here real quick just to see what it was like at night – must’ve lost track of time.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it,” said Ray, calmly waving off Mustang’s apology as he, too, now took to looking out at the very vista Mustang had come in search of. “After all, who could really blame ya for gettin’ lost in a view like that, huh?”
Though not quite completely full as it sat unchallenged by any would-be clouds who might dare pass in front of it, the moon was still both large and bright enough that it was casting the most eerily beautiful, almost ethereal glow across the navy blue, oddly mirror-like surface of the sea. It was one of those views that, as soon as you see it, you know almost instantly that, no matter how many years might pass from that moment, you’re never going to forget it. And the fact that Ray just so happened to find himself drinking in a rare view like that with Mustang at his side? On the eve, not only of his 16th birthday but the final round of the Open? That was just going to make it all the more memorable.
“So, uh, listen …” said Ray, deciding it best to just bite the bullet and get to the very thing he’d come all this way to do in the first place. “I’m not sure if you noticed or not … but, uh … when you were openin’ everybody’s presents earlier … there, uh … well, wasn’t anythin’ from me.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” replied Mustang, sounding as though he wasn’t quite sure why Ray, all of a sudden, seemed so serious. “But I just assumed that the party was your present, no?”
“No, I had an actual present for ya,” smiled Ray, taking a moment to internally laugh at himself for ever being worried that Mustang might have been disappointed at not receiving a gift from him, when, just as he’d suspected, the kid hadn’t given it a second thought. “I was just too, uh …”
Ray contemplated telling Mustang the reason why he’d chickened out of giving him his present earlier. When he realized that doing that might, inadvertently, make him feel bad about the fact that Travis had given him ‘Maisie’, however, Ray decided against it. Mustang didn’t need to be dealing with that. Not on his birthday.
“Well, look, all that matters is that I did get ya one …” said Ray, quickly breezing past that particular part of the story as he reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out the small jewellery box he’d stowed away inside there earlier. “So, uh … yeah … happy birthday.”
Hurriedly handing the box off to him before he could chicken out once again, Ray watched as Mustang took it carefully into his two hands.
“Thanks, Ray,” said Mustang, glancing appreciatively up at him before turning his attention back down onto the box as he opened the top of it; the leatherette-covered pressboard it was made from creaking ever-so-slightly as he did so. “I’ve never gotten something like this befo-…”
As soon as he laid eyes on what was actually inside the box, however, Mustang – with his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape – immediately stopped talking. For, lying on the green-coloured velvet lining the inside of the box, neatly coiled around another velvet-covered, cardboard loop, was a polished, sterling silver dog tag fitted with an equally polished-looking, silver cable chain.
Though almost reluctant to touch it for fear of smudging it with his fingerprints, Mustang, nonetheless, carefully – and very delicately – lifted the dog tag up out of the box, freeing it from the cardboard loop it had been wrapped around. As he examined it under the moonlight, though, Mustang quickly realized that the tag had been engraved.
“Happy 16th birthday, kid …” he said, reading aloud the text by angling the tag just right so that the moonlight could catch the message that had been etched into its surface with the utmost precision. “From Ray …”
“And, uh … there’s also somethin’ on the back,” added Ray, sounding a touch sheepish as he still couldn’t get a read on whether or not Mustang actually liked his gift or not.
Quickly turning it over, Mustang angled the dog tag, yet again, so that the moonlight would show up the shadow of the engraving on the other side. When he actually read what the message said, however, Mustang needed to take a second before he could say those three very important words aloud.
“No matter what …” he said with a smile, once he finally found his voice after a second or two of composing himself.
“Now, you don’t have to wear it, alright?” said Ray, quickly jumping in as he couldn’t bear the silence that had followed Mustang reading what was written on the back of the dog tag. “Hell, even then, if you think you’d prefer somethin’ else? Like a video game or somethin’? Then you just say the word, kid, and I’ll go get it as soon as poss-…”
“Ray …” said Mustang, cutting bluntly across him in order to stop him from rambling.
“Yeah?” replied Ray, unable to hide the slight grimace from his face as he braced himself for the worst.
“I love it,” said Mustang, a wide, warm smile breaking across his face.
“You do?!” asked Ray, already feeling the relief coursing through his body. “Seriously?! You’re not just sayin’ that, right?!”
“I’m really not,” assured Mustang, looking excitedly back down at the chain. “In fact, how do I put it on?”
“There’s a little clasp at the top of the chain,” Ray answered, his mind now all a flutter as he tried to remember what the jeweller had told him when he’d picked it up. “Here, give it here, and I’ll get it ope-…”
Yet again, before he could finish what he was saying, Ray was interrupted once more – except this time, instead of it being Mustang, it was the sound of an alert coming in on his phone.
“Oh, wait a sec …” said Ray, quickly reaching into his pocket in order to fish out his phone. “That’s probably just Jeanie wonderin’ where we are …”
Now with his phone in hand, Ray promptly unlocked it. Once his face was illuminated by the screen, however, from the way his brow quickly furrowed after but a few seconds of digesting what he was seeing in front of him, Mustang couldn’t help but get the feeling that Ray wasn’t, in fact, looking at a message from Jeanie.
“Everything ok?” asked Mustang, a hint of worry creeping into his voice.
“Uh … well, it wasn’t a message from Jeanie,” replied Ray, still appearing rather troubled as he confirmed what Mustang had been thinking. “It was, uh … it was an alert from that weather app I use.”
“Ok …” said Mustang, his confusion at what was drawing such a peculiar reaction from Ray still not abating. “And that’s making you look as though you’ve seen a ghost because … ?”
“Well, accordin’ to this, we might be in for slightly different conditions tomorrow than what we’ve been seein’ all week …” Ray answered, carefully double-checking what he was reading to make sure he wasn’t prematurely jumping the gun.
“Why? Is it supposed to rain or something?” asked Mustang, not sounding overly concerned at the prospect of getting a little wet.
“Well, that’s one way of puttin’ it …” said Ray, rather ominously, before lifting his gaze from his phone and shifting it onto Mustang. “There’s a storm comin’, kid.”
GET THE FULL DIGITAL COPY OF THIS BOOK BY FOLLOWING THE LINK BELOW – THANK YOU:
https://mustangpeyton.bigcartel.com/product/mustang-ii-stormbreaker
Photo by Anna Groniecka.