Luke smiles when Reid says he'll have to share half of whatever he finds and he thinks that will suit him just fine. He takes a sip of his beer to give himself time to recover, to give himself a chance to rein in the grin that he feels threatening. Now and then he's thought about what his birthday might be like here, how it might feel to celebrate without Clary and Jocelyn, and he knows he never would have really celebrated on his own. The day would have come and gone, he would have at least acknowledged it, but there wouldn't be any cake. There wouldn't be any celebration, there would have only been a quiet day in the store without thinking about it much at all simply because it wouldn't have been the same. Without them, the day just would have been a little darker and it isn't that Reid completely undoes the sadness that comes with being without them, but he thinks about being brought cake, he thinks about someone -- no, not just someone, but this someone in particular -- coming to wish him a happy birthday and suddenly he's thinking the day might not be so quiet and difficult to get through after all. It won't be the same by any means, but something doesn't have to be the same as it was before to be enjoyable. That there's the possibility his birthday might still be something worth looking forward to is more than enough.

"The cake is non-negotiable, alright," he agrees when he swallows his sip of beer. "I think can probably make do with a day like that." That grin he's been trying to hold back threatens to break free again when Reid tells him just how common his birthdate is and the reason why. It's not something he's ever given much thought to himself, maybe at least in part because he doesn't have many memories of either of his parents. He understands at some point they were married, they were happy. At some point they were in love and wanted to have a family, but he has barely any memories of his father at all, had been too young to remember much of his death. The same goes for his mother, given that she had left him and Amatis when he'd been only five years old. Logically he knows there was a point at which his parents would have been very much looking forward to a happy family, but the idea of that seems to foreign to him that he almost can't quite comprehend it.

"I've never given that much thought," he admits, cocking his head slightly. "It makes sense. I imagine October in general is fairly popular, given the whole month of December often being one big celebration." He wonders what that would have been like, having a family on holidays, being able to wake up on Christmas morning to breakfast and presents and parents who were present. At least partly. He knows Reid's life has been far from perfect, but Luke thinks he would have been happy if at least one of his parents had stayed. He does his best not to spend much time dwelling on it because he can't do anything about it now, but it's difficult not to resent his mother for the choice she made. "I'm fairly certain I was an accident. Sometimes I wonder if my mother already knew she wasn't cut out to be a parent before I was born. You think that's the sort of thing one might realize with their first child."

That isn't what he wants to be thinking about, though. Not now. Not at a party for someone he considers a good friend, not when he's here with Reid, someone he's found himself growing quite attached to. He laughs when Reid says the number of candles on his birthday cake might be considered a fire hazard and his nose wrinkles slightly before he shrugs, as if he's unable to deny the allegation. "We wouldn't want to be responsible for burning anything down," he agrees. "Especially if that something were my store. I'm not sure I've been open long enough for them to believe it wasn't arson."