Now where did I put the blue napkins? Joyce thought, standing in the living room in her new house in Chicago. She was decorating the dinner table for Jim Hopper's birthday, which they would all be celebrating that evening; she, Murray, her boys and El, Alexei, and of course, Jim. Jim hadn't been too thrilled at first when Joyce had suggested the idea of throwing him a birthday party, but when Joyce had agreed that it would only be the closest friends and family, he had at last come around to the idea. Will and Jonathan were in the kitchen with El, preparing dinner. It was going to be nothing fancy really, just homemade pizzas for the main course and eggo extravaganzas for dessert.
Joyce smiled at the thought of Jim digging into a delicious eggo extravaganza.
"Is it these you're looking for?" a voice said, touching her shoulder.
"Jim!" Joyce exclaimed.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Your boys let me in. I just thought I'd get here early, so that I could help out."
He was holding the blue napkins in his hand.
"Thank you." Joyce smiled and took the napkins.
"I'm really grateful that you're doing this." he said.
"It's your day. You really don't have to do anything. You can just sit down and rest. We've got it all covered." Joyce said, worry creeping into her voice.
"I want to help, Joyce." he insisted, taking the napkins from her.
"Oh, I wanted to do something fancy with them." Joyce protested, when Jim walked over to the table, carrying the napkins.
"Really?" he asked, giving her a strange look.
"Maybe not." she said, scratching her hair.
Why was she feeling so nervous around him? Why did he have that weird effect on her?
Jim helped set the table, and at 6 PM, the rest of the party arrived, which were really only their good friends, Murray and Alexei.
"Hi, Jim, how're you feeling?" Murray said, patting Jim's back.
"Never better." he said, but Murray could see straight through his lie.
"If you need anything, you just say the word, you know that, right?" Murray told him, concern twinkling in his eyes.
"I know. Don't worry about me. I'm fine." Jim said, annoyance in his voice. He turned away from Murray and walked toward the table.
"It's a bit hard not to." Murray muttered under his breath.
"Food smells good." Alexei said.
Joyce smiled.
"Tell that to the chefs." she said, nodding in Jonathan, Will and El's direction.
They all sat down at the table, ready to feast on the delicious meal of homemade pizza.
Joyce sat beside Jim, and the nervousness she had felt earlier had increased. She had trouble sitting still, and she fidgeted with the blue napkins under the table.
She was just about to ask Jim if he could pass her the salt when he said: "Here. You want salt?" and passed her the salt shaker.
"Thanks." she said, stunned.
Jim's eyes glinted when he looked at her, and it was the first time since he had come home that she had seen that gleam in his blue eyes; for the first time in forever, he looked... happy.
After they had all dug in to the eggo extravaganzas that El had made (Jim ate three, but Alexei, surprisingly topped him by eating four), Joyce was getting ready in her mind to announce her toast to Jim.
This is it, she thought, still fidgeting with her napkin.
She was about to get up, when Jim gently took her hand and whispered in her ear, his lips softly brushing her earlobe: "Please, not today. I can't."
Once again, she felt stunned. Who had told him that she had prepared a toast? As far as she knew she hadn't told anyone, not even El or her boys. She had spent hours the night before, preparing the toast, finding just the right words, but she respected Jim's wish. She just wanted to know how in the world he knew about the toast.
She sat down, giving him a timid smile. For the rest of the evening, she couldn't stop thinking about the feeling of his lips touching her skin.