Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCR5AB7R06FX16P3DX0J7K6

Molly spread the blueprints across the hood of the van, smoothing them with the reverence of a surgeon laying out instruments. They were not, technically, blueprints. They were a placemat from the Rainbow Fun Palace, crayoned over in three colors, with the ball pit marked in ominous red. Bill studied it, chewing a straw. The party began at two. Sixteen children, one exhausted magician, and a mountain of gift-wrapped treasure stacked beneath a piñata shaped like a whale. "Entry through the bouncy castle," Molly said, tapping the placemat. Bill's eyebrows rose. Bouncy castles were, in his experience, unforgiving terrain. He had once lost a molar to one in Cleveland, during a christening job that still haunted him. But Molly's plan had the elegance of pure lunacy: two grown adults in dinosaur costumes, blending in among the inflatables, waiting for the moment the lights dimmed for cake. She handed him a foam tail. He accepted it with dignity. "Remember," she added, "no cake until the presents are in the van." Bill nodded solemnly, though privately he made no such promise. The mother had mentioned buttercream. There were limits to a man's professionalism, and buttercream sat comfortably, deliciously, on the far side of them.