By the time Emily opened her eyes the following day, Liam was no longer in bed. She touched the place where he had slept, and realized it wasn’t even warm. He must have left the house ages ago.

She pulled herself up. Last night had been one of her worst nights, after one of her best days... Even though they had slept while lying side by side, it had been like there was this huge space between them. She had even snuggled up to him to see if he would put his arms around her but he hadn’t, worse, he had turned to his other side. That made her realize that he really was angry.

She sighed. She didn’t catch much sleep and now that she thought that she could actually make things better, he was not even home.

She climbed down from the bed, pulled on her robe and walked out to the kitchen. When she got to the sitting room, the usual early morning coffee didn’t hit her nostrils and she yearned for it. Quickly, she rushed to the kitchen to make herself one. After a while, she went outside to see if he was there but he wasn’t.

In disappointment, she took her hot coffee with her back to the bedroom where she had put her phone to call him, it rang three times and he never picked once. Where could he be? She wondered.

Finally, she resorted to calling Daniel who picked on the first ring.

“Hello, Tee. Quite a surprise...”

“Yea, hi Daniel, been a while. Please is Liam with you?”

The man hesitated for a while before replying. “Oh, no, he isn’t. You guys are not together?”

“Well, no we are not. I just thought...anyways, don’t worry. I’m sure he would show up sooner or later. Please is Sammy there?”

“No, he isn’t. “

“Okay, thanks.”

She sighed. Then all of a sudden, she came up with a plan. She dialed Joe’s phone.

“Hello, Emily, it’s quite early, is there a problem?”

“Not really Joe except there is a problem for me.”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure, sure. I just want to know if there is every chance for me to come late today. I have something really important to...”

“No problem,” Joe interrupted.

“What?” she asked, unable to believe her ears.

“It’s okay if you want to take some time off, I must have ruined your weekend for you with all the work, so you can take some time off.”

She jumped for joy. “Thank you so much, Joe,” she ended the call. This was good. She was going to try and make a romantic breakfast before he came back from wherever he must have disappeared to.

Liam was having his early morning run. It has been a while since he last went on one. It wasn’t like he actually needed the run, he just needed a reason to get away.

He was no longer angry, but he was not happy.

The more he tried to reason if probably he was being a bad person, the more he became convinced that he wasn’t. Or maybe he actually was, he thought. Yes, it hurt so much that his girlfriend had forgotten his birthday but he could still forgive her, right? A relationship was supposed to be about forgiveness and he was not going to ruin things for them because of one single, well, a few, mistakes. He loved Emily and they had been together for a while. She has never forgotten his birthday before, this was the only important thing that she had forgotten, he could forgive her, couldn’t he?

He ran back towards where he came from, back to her place, their place, since he had been staying there for some time, abandoning his own place so they could enjoy each and every day together.

By the time he got inside, a delicious aroma of fried eggs filled the air. Could that be Emily? He couldn’t remember the last time she’d cooked for them.

As he moved further inside, he realized there were two candles lit on the table, two cups and a pot of coffee next to a covered dish. He chuckled and shook his head as he was about to advance further, he felt a presence behind him and was surprised as Emily embraced him from the back, resting her head against his back.

“Baby, I’m so sorry. I have been so selfish, so caught up in the moment and it was really bad of me. I snapped at you, lashed out at you when you have been nothing but nice and supportive, I am so sorry darling. Please forgive me. You know how I get when there is so much pressure but this is not an excuse. I am so sorry love. Please let me make it up to you.”

Liam smiled and turned around to face her.

“It’s okay, darling,” he started, holding her hands and looking deeply into her eyes. “I am sorry too and I forgive you,” he bent forward to kiss her on the lips.

Later, after they pulled away, they moved to the table hand in hand.

“Wow! This smells so nice. Wait, are you not going to work?” he asked as he took his seat.

“Well, I am, but we will be going together once we are done with this food.” she replied as she sat.

He smiled. “Wow! This is really good. When last did we go to work together? I can’t remember.”

“Well, we are today,” she replied.

“That is interesting.”

He took a bite and shut his eyes to savor the taste.

“Wow! This tastes delicious baby.”

“Thank you,” Emily replied as she started eating her food as well. “Did you go for a run?” She asked.

“Yea,” he nodded. “I thought I needed to get back in shape.” He replied

“Wow, thank God. I thought you were tired of me and you decided to go back to your old place,” she replied.

Liam shook his head. “Well, now you know.”

“I had to call Daniel to ask if you were there. He hesitated and I was thinking in my head that maybe you asked him to lie so that I would never get to know where you were.”

Liam smiled. “Well, I wasn’t so, I guess that is settled.”

Emily put a small wrapped-up box on the table between them. “Happy birthday in arrears darling.”,

Liam smiled as he picked up the box. “Wow! You see. I would have missed this if I had gone back to my place. Now, let’s see what we have here,” he said, picking up the box and unwrapping it. It contained a gold wrist-watch.

“Wow! It is so beautiful love, thank you so much,” he said, putting it on the table and leaning forward to kiss her. “I am going to wear this to work.”

Emily chuckled, glad that everything finally seemed okay between them. Liam was a wonderful guy, it was like nothing bad had ever happened between them.

“So tell me, how did you spend your birthday?”

“Well, my friends threw a party for me and we had fun. Half of the people that came over were strangers. You can imagine.”

Emily was laughing. “That must have been so awkward for you.”

“Yea. You have no idea. But at least they came through.”

Emily nodded. “Yea, I am happy that you had fun you know.”

“Yea. So I overheard you saying something about the ball of fame. Was that where you went?”

Emily nodded excitedly. “Yes baby. That was where Joe sent me. It was so exciting seeing all those famous faces that we have only seen on magazines. Baby, it was so ....wow!” she gasped, not finding the words.

“Wow! I can imagine. Glad you didn’t die of excitement,” Liam joked.

“I could have,” Emily replied, laughing.

“So did you end up having a crush, or someone crushing on you?” Liam asked.

“Oh! Stop! Nothing like that.”

“Really. I’m sure you must have turned heads. So it’s either there were no men or they were all blind, one of them must have walked up to you...”

Emily pursed her lips, half smiling. “Well, there was this one man but it was just...”

“I knew it!” Liam, exclaimed, banging on the table.

Emily only laughed. “It was nothing Liam, besides, he wasn’t my type and he didn’t even ask me out.”

“Well then, he must be stupider than I expected.”

They both laughed, as they continued their meal.

“I have a plan,” Emily started.

‘What’s that?’

“How about, we take a shower together and I promise to do that thing that you like so much.”

Liam’s eyes widened. “Well, then, I better finish this food hastily.”