I was awake far too early, having left the warmth of my bed and followed Christopher to Melt based on promises of the freshest bagels I’d ever had. Clearly, I’d been half-asleep and sex-addled, because I’d woken wrapped in Christopher’s arms, warm and comfortable, and then somehow I’d let myself be zipped into my coat and pulled down the street still in my pajamas, with only the word “bagel” registering through the haze. Now I sat on the counter, perplexed by the distinct lack of a bagel in my mouth.

I made an inarticulate sound of confusion and groped toward Christopher in the dark. He shook his head and grabbed for his phone. As it rang, he kissed me softly and murmured, “Sorry.”

When he answered the call his tone was harsher. “Tommy, where the hell are you? Uh huh. Nope. Yeah, you’re late. Okay, good.” He shook his head and pocketed the phone. “He’s out back. I’m gonna let him in.”

I briefly considered trying to make the espresso machine give me coffee in the meantime but abandoned the notion almost immediately, since it had more knobs and buttons than my stereo.

“Dude! This order’s not right,” Christopher said, the cold air from the open back door chilling the café.

“We had a little mix-up of cinnamon and sesame,” a voice that must have been Tommy’s said. “But people will like these, I promise.”

“Nope they won’t. People don’t eat cinnamon bagels. That’s why I don’t order them. Besides, what people will like isn’t your business, it’s mine. Your business is bringing me what I order. So make it happen.”

“Aw come on, man, I’ll be late on all my deliveries if I go back to the bakery.”

“Not my problem, man. Your mistake, you fix it.” There was a silence, then Christopher’s voice, which had been firm but friendly, took on an edge. “Tommy, I have a standing order with you guys because you gave me a good price and you’re local. If it becomes inconvenient for me to keep that order, though, there are plenty of other bakeries that would be glad of the business. Up to you. But I’m not paying for the order until it’s right.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay Chris, no problem,” Tommy said. I heard the sound of the truck door slamming, then Christopher came back inside, holding two bagels.

“Well, he screwed up half the order so he’ll be back in an hour, but I got these at least.” He sliced them and put them in the toaster. “You want coffee?”

I nodded, but I was playing the scene I had just heard over and over in my mind. Christopher had been clear and forceful—which, incidentally, was hot—and Tommy had responded professionally, even if he didn’t like it.

“That happen a lot?” I asked.

“Not too much, but it happens.” He shrugged. “I’m pretty laid-back about it, mostly, but I mean, bagels…in the morning…in a coffee shop…that one’s not okay.”

“Does it usually go like that? Like, that they admit they’re wrong and fix it?”

“Yep, usually. Here.”

He slid a bagel spread with cream cheese toward me and started with the espresso machine, flipping switches, measuring grounds, adding water.

I bit into the bagel, nonplussed. As a small business owner, I’d had similar encounters a number of times. But…they didn’t usually go that smoothly. Either people tried to convince me the mistake had been mine, or they expected me to pay to fix it. Only a couple of times had people responded to me the way Tommy had to Christopher.

“What’s up?” Christopher asked, handing me my coffee.

“Hmm? Oh. Nothing. Thanks.”

I took a sip and he kissed me, making a happy sound in the back of his throat, and I wrapped my legs around his and forgot about everything except his mouth on mine.

My birthday was two days later—New Year’s Eve—and when I got to the shop that day, I found that Morgan, Marcus, and Faron had decorated my station with a banner that spelled out Happy Birthday in Sharpie on inflated rubber gloves. Morgan and Marcus hugged me and wished me happy birthday; Faron bent to kiss my cheek. I grinned my thanks at them as my phone rang. “Hey, babycakes!”

“Happy birthday, Ginge!”

“Thanks. Oh my god, you have to see the banner M&M made me—I’ll send you a pic when we hang up.”

“Well I don’t want to keep you if you’re about to work, but I wanted to say that I didn’t get you a birthday present or send you a card.”

“Have you ever sent anyone a card in your life?”

There was a contemplative pause on Daniel’s end. “Uh. No.”

“Anyway, what use is a present that you didn’t find on the street and hand-deliver?”

Daniel and I had long abided by the rule that we weren’t allowed to spend money on each other’s gifts. Mostly because when the rule was established, neither of us had any. But it had quickly become fun to see how we worked within it.

“Soooo.” Daniel’s voice suggested he was trying to sound offhand and casual. “How’s stuff with Christopher?”

“It’s good, actually. We totally won him over to Camp Ginger and Daniel. He adores you and totally gets why I want to hang out with you all the time. And oooh, shit. I just…uh…realized a thing.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s probably considered bad form to forget to tell your, like, boyfriend person that it’s your birthday, huh?

Daniel snorted. “Wow. That’s. Uh. Yeah, I think your boyfriend person will not be impressed by that at all. Plus, what if he has plans for New Year’s?”

“Well, I guess that’ll be my own fault, won’t it. Anyway, clearly I need to go…like, tell him, huh?”

“I think that’s wise. Happy birthday, Ginge! Text me your revolution?”

Since my birthday was also New Year’s Eve, I’d grown up with people asking me what my resolution would be, and around age twenty had decided that since I liked my birthday and didn’t give a shit about New Year’s, I would decide upon a birthday revolution rather than a resolution: a thing in my life that I wanted to overturn.

And this year, I knew what my revolution was. It had been rocketing around my head ever since the conversation with Christopher the other night. I texted Daniel, Revolution: ACTION, NOT REACTION!

I considered just texting Christopher with, It’s my birthday—surprise! I thought about going over to Melt and just casually mentioning it. Like, “Oh hey, what’s my horoscope for today? And oh, look, it’s my birthday.”

But I stood there so long trying to figure it out that my first customer came in—a large back piece that took hours. Then my second. And a third. Phee came in just in time to take a walk-in who’d clearly gotten all her knowledge about tattooing from L.A. Ink, because she kept trying to tell Phee about her childhood and all the things that had led up to her choosing this particular bird for her tattoo. Phee was concentrating, and every now and then would look up, seeming confused that she was talking, and say some version of, “Oh yeah?” as he shot Faron looks that seemed to beg for help. But Faron, who was working meditatively on a large geometric thigh piece, just smiled like a sphinx.

Around dinnertime, we got a flurry of walk-ins, like we did every New Year’s, folks looking for small tattoos to commemorate the past year or welcome in the new one. Stars and circles and small words in discreet places. They were quick and easy to do, and the customers always left feeling like you’d been complicit in them making a change in their lives, so they tipped well. It was a good night.

Around nine, I was laughing with a customer I’d just given a recycle symbol tattoo, and didn’t see Christopher until he was right next to me.

“Um, hi!” I tried to sound enthusiastic in the hopes of distracting him from the whole ‘forgetting to tell him about my birthday’ thing.

“Um, hi.” He pointed to the rubber glove banner, now slightly deflated but still quite readable. “Is today your birthday?”

“Uhhh, yeah.” I bit my lip and tried, “Oops?”

He snorted and shook his head at me. He didn’t look angry, really, which either meant he was okay with the fact that I was absentminded about dates, or he’d so completely given up on me that he was resigned.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said, but his voice was tender and he wasn’t looking at me like he wanted to leave and never come back. He slid a warm hand up my back and I leaned into him, nodding. “I guess it’s safe to assume that you’re not super into your birthday, then? Because any fantasies you might have had of an elaborate celebration are now tanked.”

I grinned at him, relieved. “Nah, I like my birthday, but just cuz I take it as an opportunity to do whatever I want. Also because fuck New Year’s and parties and, like, those blowy noisemaker thingies.”

“What, unlike all the other days when you do what other people want?” He winked and threw an arm around my waist, squeezing me tighter.

“Ha ha. Well, on my birthday I extra do what I want.”

“Mmm, okay. Well, what do you extra want to do? And do I get to be included, or are you going to make me spend New Year’s Eve and my own girlfriend’s birthday alone?”

He shot me a look, then seemed to register that he’d called me his girlfriend, and flushed. But then he seemed to decide to just go with it and shrugged, like if I didn’t like the term I could say something about it. And, I mean, the word was silly, but…did I mind the concept? Not really. I squeezed Christopher closer to me as I thought about what I extra wanted to do. Things had been so busy lately that I hadn’t really given it any thought.

I ran through multiple options involving all my favorite things interspersed with Christopher, naked. Finally, all those things coalesced into the vision of waking up with Christopher on a lazy morning and lying in bed, then eating breakfast and having nothing to do all day. It had never happened, because he’d been opening the shop early, and I’d been painting in the mornings. But the second I thought of it, it became a kind of personal goal. I didn’t let myself ruin it by pointing out that it might be rather pathetic to have, as a relationship goal, eating a bowl of cereal with someone. I just went with the version of it that I could have.

“Okay. I want a cereal bar. Breakfast cereals. All of them. So I can mix and match and make different combinations in my bowl. And I want you to eat it with me. If you want.”

“I—that’s all you want for your birthday?”

“That’s exactly what I want for my birthday. And cereal ain’t cheap, mister. Not the brand-name stuff anyway.”

Christopher chuckled and held his hands up. “Okay, if that’s what you want. What about if you make me a list of cereals you want and I’ll go get them and meet you upstairs?”

I grinned at him and quickly scribbled down every cereal I liked. “Oh, and I don’t know what it is, but there’s some granola in the Whole Foods bulk bins that tastes like pancakes. Or, maple syrup, I guess? Can I have that too?”

Christopher shook his head at me. “Sweetheart, it’s New Year’s Eve. Whole Foods closed—” He looked at his watch. “Five minutes ago. Probably only Acme is open now.”

Oh, right. Time.

I made the list, and then I made eyes at him and pulled him in, hands on his hips. I slid the list into his back pocket, and gave his ass a possessive squeeze while I was there.

“I assume you have no milk,” he said, leaning in to me.

“You assume correctly.”

He kissed me, deeper than he usually did in public, and snuck a hand around for a little grope of his own. “Your wish is my command,” he murmured against my lips, but I didn’t have to die of cheesiness because he gave me a dark, filthy look that clearly said I should start thinking about all the other things I wanted to demand.

When I got upstairs an hour later, Christopher had lined up the boxes of cereal on the coffee table.

“Wow!” It was more cereal than I had ever seen outside a grocery store, and he’d gotten regular milk and almond milk, which I sometimes liked better because it had that nutty taste.

“I may have added a few to the mix.” He handed me a spoon and a bowl that wasn’t mine. “I also bought cereal bowls because if you want to mix, your bowls are useless. Way too shallow.”

I kissed him. “Damn, you’re an expert.”

“Oh, of course. I attended culinary school.” He winked.

I put on music and we talked as we tried out different cereal combinations.

“I think I stand by my combo of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Peanut Butter Panda Puffs, and a sprinkling of Honey Nut Cheerios with almond milk,” I said later, collapsing on the bed in exhaustion, in a position where I still had a good view of Christopher and all the cereal boxes. Because it seemed hard to be anything but pretty damn satisfied with those as my view.

“I still can’t believe you love cereal but you don’t like Lucky Charms.”

“Lucky Charms taste like that space ice cream. And I don’t like fruity stuff.”

He shook his head at me, and closed up all the boxes, taking our bowls to the kitchen. When he slid into bed beside me I was already half unconscious, lulled into a stupor by the twin forces of a busy day and a metric ton of cereal.

“Hey, midnight happened and we didn’t even notice,” he said. “Happy New Year.”

“Hppynwyr,” I mumbled. “Thnksfrthecrl.”

“You’re welcome. Happy birthday.” He kissed the back of my neck until I moaned, and I tangled our legs together. He pushed up on one elbow, as if he were going to say something else, but lay down and gathered me close without saying a word.

I drifted off in his arms after we’d eaten cereal together, like I was living a perfect day in reverse.