Twenty For A Dozen

21 || Happy Birthday

21 || Happy Birthday

ONE MONTH LATER

"Kira! Yo, you ready yet?" Lee's voice beard as he bounded up the stairs. Without any preamble he slammed Trevor's bedroom door open.

"Come on, everyone's waiting downstairs."

Kira only hummed in reply, her grip on Trevor's messy dressing table light. Her reflection stared back at her in the mirror. It wasn't just the difference she had recently developed in her poise, but the brown smoky eyeshadow and highlighted cheekbones trapped Kira's gaze on herself. Further down, her eyes roved over her side braid and long white dress that ended at her knees. She stopped at her pretty white sandals.

"Are you seriously checking yourself out?" Lee taunted her. Kira didn't even bother looking at him and only shrugged before straightening up and blinking at herself. A stupid grin was growing on her face and she struggled to keep it low.

"It's not my birthday every day, you know."

He grunted in response, and gestured to his ratty baseball cap, Blue Jays T-shirt and beige shorts. "Even dressed for a game in the Rogers Centre I still look better than you do."

"You take that back!"

"In your dreams!"

Exhilaration rushed through her, the kind that was only felt when one experienced a piece of his or her childhood - may it even be yelling at a sibling. A safe feeling, of being pampered and cared for, snuck over Kira.

She pouted and stuck her tongue out at her younger brother and sighed before nudging past him out to the stairs that would lead her to the Moreno living room. Her grumbling stomach accompanied the symphony of butterflies that fluttered within her. She could already smell Uncle G's legen-wait-for-it-dary pancakes.

"I can't believe you won't let us organize a major event for you. Every single year, this girl crushes my hopes and dreams," said Auntie Em as Kira entered the kitchen. Pecking her cheek, she greeted, "Happy Birthday, nína!"

"Thank you, Auntie!" Her butterflies were long gone and she seated herself at the dining table. A deep inhale didn't help her grumbling stomach, however. It was long-lived, though, because her father quietly snuck up behind her, placing a plate of pancakes drizzles in maple syrup in front of her.

"Happy Birthday," he said and took the seat beside her.

This was all she wanted. The three F's - her beloved friends, family and food being the first thing she saw on her day of the year.

"Dig in, everybody! Birthday girl can do the honors," Uncle G winked at Kira and handed her a fork with a ribbon tied around it, making her grin even wider.

"God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. Amen. On your marks, get set, go!"