“Surprise!” the twenty-five guests shouted at once.
Bernard froze, then instinctively forced a wide smile onto his face. He jerked his head from side to side in the crowded living room, trying to figure out what was happening.
He had never been to a surprise party before. He hated them instinctively. Not just the crowd, but the whole idea of deliberately terrifying someone. And he definitely didn’t want to be the target of it himself. Especially not now, when his days were nothing but stress and he barely slept.
While his mouth eagerly shaped polite greetings, his eyes searched desperately for Noud. Instead, Timothy’s face was the first to come into focus. The shock hit him all over again. His throat went dry, and he lost control of his facial muscles. He stared at the man Noud couldn’t stand the sight of.
The chubby man with dyed red hair shoved people aside with childlike enthusiasm, determined to be the first to hug the birthday boy. Bernard sagged limply—like a rag doll—against his former colleague’s fleshy shoulder. As Timothy patted his back, Bernard tried to take in the faces around him.
The entire neighborhood was smiling at him. Some genuinely, others stiffly. Noud, pale as a sheet, clung to the handle of a silver serving trolley, fighting off a faint. So this absurd birthday party clearly hadn’t been organized out of joy. That alone gave Bernard a sliver of relief. Not enough to relax—but enough to know this wasn’t some kind of punishment for his recent recklessness.
He pulled free from Timothy’s embrace wearing a grotesque grin meant to be a smile. With uncertain movements, he made his way toward the guests, shaking hands one by one. First—almost as if he were a guest of honor—he stepped up to Ted and clasped the man’s cold, clammy hand between his palms. Disgust and dread tightened his stomach, filling his mouth with a bitter taste. The lump in his throat allowed only a strange, croaking sound to escape.
“Well, congratulations on surviving to forty in such a dangerous line of work,” Ted said, making no attempt to hide the mockery in his voice.
Bernard nodded mechanically, then—acting as if he hadn’t even heard his neighbor’s provocation—gave the sickening hand one last squeeze.