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“Touch the batter and I will break your fingers,” Naomi said cheerfully as they stared at Solomon reaching for the bowl they had just set down so they could get the cake pan.
“Naomi!” Luke whined at the casual threat.
“I just want to try it.” Solomon didn’t stop his hand, which caused Naomi to smack it with the whisk they quickly grabbed from the bowl. He withdrew and rubbed the back of his hand, clearly overplaying how much it had actually hurt, “Ow. How could you do this to me? I thought you loved me.”
“It sounds like you made an assumption.” They dropped the whisk back into the bowl and kneeled down to grab the cake pans out of the lower cabinets, “If you have time to bother us, go help Mads decorate.”
Solomon put on the most exaggerated pout he could muster, before placing his forearm over his eyes, “I’m wounded that you hate me so, Naomi.”
“That wound’s going to be external if you don’t get out of my kitchen in the next ten seconds.” They started counting down from ten just to make a point.
“Fine, Fine. I understand.” He shrugged before vacating the premises before they decided to carry out their threat, deciding to take their advice and head to the living room to see how Mads was fairing.
The answer was not well. When he found her, she was standing tiptoe on a chair trying to hang the edge of a banner against the wall. He flicked his fingers so magical hands grabbed the edge of the banner and lifted it for her.
Her eyes went wide at the sudden assistance she received before turning around to view him walking through the entryway, "Perfect timing!" She sang before stepping off the chair, "You're going to have to teach me that one day."
"Didn't I teach you a wind spell awhile ago?"
"Well yeah, and I tried that..." She motioned to a corner of the room that looked torn apart by a hurricane.
Solomon laughed. At least she had managed to create some wind. Next, he would have to teach her how to control it.
Mads made a face, "Did Naomi throw you out of the kitchen?"
"Unjustly so!"
"I wouldn't necessarily say that..." Mads muttered just under her breath, almost refusing to look him in the eyes.
Solomon clutched his heart, "Say it's not so. Say that my kind Madeline hasn't been swayed by the mean and rude Naomi! Oh, you wound me."
"Tell me I'm not hearing this!" Naomi called from the kitchen, "Stop distracting Mads and just finish the living room already!"
"You could be nicer," Luke told them as he put the icing he'd been working on in the fridge to cool and stiffen up.
"We're running short on time; there's no room for nice."
"I'm sure Simeon won't mind if-" There was more to that sentence, but he thought better of voicing it once Naomi pulled him into a hug and refused to let go. They were letting everything get to them too easily.
“We only have about two hours left before he gets home. The surprise will be ruined if it isn’t ready.” Their grip on him tightened, though not uncomfortably so, “I need my cute little son.”
“I’m not cute!” He groaned, but gave in as soon as Naomi leaned into him, “We’ll finish everything…”
“I know. I’m just stressed.” And the sound of things crashing in the next room wasn’t helping, “Luke-”
“Leave everything to me.” He beamed at them, “I can finish on my own” And it would be even better because then he could surprise them with how amazing everything would be. He didn’t need them to hold his hand and this was the perfect chance to show off everything he’d learned.
“Thank you.” They kissed his forehead with a smile.
“Stop it,” he grumbled, “I’m not a child!” Even though he would always be their precious son as far as they were concerned.
They would leave the rest of the dessert preparation in his capable hands, because the sight that greeted them when they entered the living room was the kind that was going to give them an aneurysm. The furniture was gone, there were glowing magical tentacles pushing around the vacuum (one of which had apparently knocked into the wall and made a minor dent in the plaster), disembodied hands dusting the corners of the room, Mads was floating in the air trying to add streamers to the ceiling, and Solomon was just leaning back watching it all.
Naomi slowly plucked the glasses off of their face and rubbed the bridge of their nose with a deep sigh. Against their better judgment, they had to know, “What is going on here?”
“We’re cleaning,” was all Solomon had to say on the matter.
“He’s helping, Naomi!” Mads added, "It's going so much faster now.”
“How?” They could already feel the headache coming on, “Do I even want to know where the furniture is?”
Mads pointed to the shelf built into the wall, “I think we put it over there.”
They hurried over to the shelf, finding tiny dollhouse-sized furniture scattered about. They had no words.
“It’s easier to clean when there aren’t huge pieces of furniture in the way,” Solomon explained, “We had to move them so they didn’t get sucked into the vacuum.
"Why didn't we think of this before?!" Mads asked, adding more streamers to the ceiling which was now a colorful array.
“Because it’s insane,” Naomi finally snapped, “Maybe you didn’t notice, but magic doesn’t have eyes. It’s bumping into the walls and making a different set of issues completely. And how many spells do you have going at once? If even one thing goes wrong, everything will collapse at the same time, then we’ll have an even bigger mess to deal with. I thought we agreed to leave the crazy magic out of this for once specifically to avoid any issues that could arise.”
“It’s not crazy to me.” As if to make a point, he motioned for the tentacle to turn off the vacuum and take it away to empty it out, “It’s still me doing the cleaning, just with more hands. Isn’t it convenient? It makes everything go so much faster.”
‘Count to ten before you do anything crazy,’ they thought to themselves, but one of the hands dusting the corners was not making it any easier by haphazardly moving around the photos on the wall and nearly knocking them over. Counting to ten was not an option.
“Please,” they sighed, “I just want today to go smoothly.”
“We do too, Naomi,” Mads said from her spot in the air, leaning back slightly, “That’s why we’re trying to finish everything on time.”
“But, but…”
Solomon was on them almost instantly, wrapping his arms around their shoulders and holding them from having the complete breakdown he could tell was oncoming, “Calm down and take a deep breath. You’re stressing yourself out.”
They nodded and took a deep breath in before exhaling. It didn’t make anything better.
“We’ve got this under control. Why don’t you go lie down?” Mads suggested.
“Can’t. Still have to wrap the presents.” It was hard to find time to do it when he was home, so they had put it off until he went out.
“Okay. We’ll finish this here and wrap the presents, but you need to-”
Then, the worst possible scenario happened. The front door clicked open and all three of them froze. He was back much earlier than expected.
“Mads!” Solomon said and motioned in the direction of the entrance.
“On it!” She called as she dropped out of the air and quickly dashed toward the front door where Simeon was locking it behind him. She threw herself around his arm with a smile, refusing to let him turn around.
“Simeon,” she practically sang, “you haven't taken a picture with me all day!”
Simeon blinked down at her in confusion before returning her smile, “I’m sorry. I had business today so I haven’t had a lot of time. We can take it here if you want.”
“No!” She cleared her throat, “It can't be here let's go take a picture outside in the gardens. It'll look sooo much better. It's your special day and I want the perfect reminder.”
He laughed softly at her, “It’s not that special, but if that’s what you want I don’t mind.”
“Perfect, let’s go,” she said as she pushed him out the door and away from where the others were still getting everything ready.
No matter what picture the two of them took, she kept saying it just wasn’t good enough and she needed to take another one. He just kept on his smile, allowing her to take as many pictures as she wished. Somehow, she had easily killed nearly half an hour with constant retakes, but she was running out of times she could find something wrong with the pictures they’d taken.
When she got the message from Solomon that she could finish distracting Simeon, it was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
"I think that's the one."
"I'm glad." He straightened out his clothing and then hers, "May we go in then?"
"Sure…"
He held out his hand, wordlessly asking to be her escort so they could go in together. She allowed him to, careful to help guide him toward the living room before anywhere else.
As soon as he passed the threshold, confetti rained down from above.
“Happy birthday!” Everyone shouted.
Simeon stared in shock at Naomi, Solomon, and Luke all in party hats as they held the poppers they'd just set off.
Mads tried not to laugh at his stupefied face, "Are you surprised?"
"Very surprised." Then he pointed between the two of them, "When do we get hats?"
"Already ahead of you there." Solomon held up a single hat before walking up to Mads to clip it into her hair.
Naomi held up another, "This one is yours." He bent down so they could reach the top of his head and put the hat on him.
His eyes twinkled at them before kissing them quickly and returning to standing straight, "Thank you, Naomi."
They went stiff and stammered, "Yeah, s- sure." They pointed to the table in the corner which was decorated with food and drinks, "We got Demonus and wine so pick whatever you want."
"I think I will. Thank you."
"I'll go with you," Solomon called after him, walking beside one another on their way to the drinks.
“You let Solomon use magic, didn’t you?” Mads asked as she moved to stand next to Naomi.
Naomi nodded bashfully, “We didn’t have much of a choice. There was no way to finish everything before you ran out of ways to keep him busy.”
“It was scary,” Luke added. “We had to let Solomon touch the food.”
“He didn’t make any of it, so hopefully nothing gives anyone an ulcer later.”
“Well, it looks delicious if that helps.”
Luke puffed up his chest with pride, knowing that he was a huge part of the menu. Naomi reached over and ruffled his hair even with his hat in the way.
The men watched the others talking from a distance, Solomon leaning against Simeon’s shoulder as he sipped at his drink.
“You knew she was distracting you,” Solomon didn’t even have to ask.
“I did, but she was trying so hard that I couldn’t help but play along.” He nursed his own drink, “Plus, I wanted to see what my partners were planning. I wasn’t expecting all of this.”
“Naomi insisted.”
“And you helped? Without causing them problems?”
The wizard shrugged, “I put the problems away after their second nervous breakdown.”
“The second?” Simeon raised an eyebrow.
“The first had nothing to do with me, surprisingly. It was something about the butter and eggs not blending correctly.”
Simeon placed his free hand over Solomon’s and smiled at him with all the affection he could muster, “Thank you for keeping the bullying of our girlfriend to a minimum.”
“And thank you for letting our other girlfriend keep you busy while we finished up. I don’t know how we would have handled a third nervous breakdown.”
“Hey, you guys!” Mads shouted across the living room to get their attention, “Luke wants to see Simeon open the presents.”
“Mads!” Luke whined and turned a very bright shade of pink, “I just think he should do it so we can see his reaction.”
Solomon gave Simeon a side-eye, “Well? Are you ready to see the rest of your surprises, Birthday Boy?”
Simeon chuckled, “I doubt they’ll be quite as grand as what you’ve all done already, but I am curious.”
“Heh, you’re about to be shocked.” Solomon removed his hand from Simeon’s shoulder and walked over to join the others.
Simeon blinked with a face of confusion. What in the three realms could they have gotten him that would be more shocking than what they already did?