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Lori clapped her hands together with glee "You do think he’s great! I can’t wait for you to meet everyone," she said as if it were now a done deal

"I can’t date Zach!" Heather’s words came out too loud, too fast, too i such a fool of herself As soon as Zach had shown up with Cuddles, she and Atlas should have hightailed it out of the ballpark But she’d been so happy to see him Had felt so incredibly, wonderfully alive just at the sound of his voice

She’d thought she was strong enough not to be te herhe’d done it so fast itin under her walls, and the armor she wore around her heart, too fast Too frequently It seey she expended to try to push hihing with hi

The problem was that while Zach was fun and blatantly sexual, he also ca real beneath the devil-may-care sarcasm And that was precisely what scared her: the real ht her reaction to the charenuine Zach was a whole other story

Still, she knew she needed to keep fighting Because if shehiive herself

Of course, she hadn’t meant to insult the older brother Sophie and Lori clearly worshipped, so she said, "Zach is a nice guy I’reat one day"

"I hope so," Lori said with a sigh "I know he acts like he doesn’t need anyone, but I’ve never bought his act Then again, maybe it’s because he’s my brother and I love him and I don’t want him to be alone forever"

"He loves you, too All of you" She’d known that ever since the first time he’d spoken of his family, before she’d ever met them "He has pictures of you all over his house"

Lori shot Sophie a look before saying, "You’ve been to his house?"

Heather clarified, "He had a bit of an eether We had an e session"

One that ended with her hand in his and his lips on her cheek