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“You’ve been hangin’ with me for weeks,” she said in surprise “Don’t you want to—” she gestured to the rest of the room

“Not especially,” I said under my breath I looked up as Mark setave the back of my neck a squeeze and rounded the table

“This is sointo his food He looked up and grinned “Good to see you guys in one piece”

“Thanks for drivingfrom him to Josiah

“No proble hands wrapped around a cup of coffee He sniffed it appreciatively “Worth it for this right here”

“Right?” Forrest said, nodding “I need to see who made it and what they put in it”

“Cinnamon?” Josiah asked

“Could be,” Forrest replied, lifting his own cup to take a drink

“Girl,” Lu said, dragging the word out as she looked at ame today”

“What?” I asked, shaking off the feeling of so me They probably were So what?

“Makeup,” Lu said “Looks good”

“Oh, thanks”

“You put onhis head as he stared at me “Why?”

“Why’d you put all that product in your hair?” Lu snapped back “Mind your business”

“I don’t have product in my hair,” Eli said in confusion as Lu turned back to me

“The guy could tell you every bra size in this roo her head “But the subtleties of ainst mine “Families are hard, ”

“Not all of the Olive so I could eat “I barely know some of them”

“Like four of them aren’t family,” she joked “Your family tree’s a spiderith this club at the center”

“You’re not wrong,” I replied, as I forced myself to take a bite I should’ve spoken to Lily before I sat down to eat, noouldn’t be able to think of anything else until I did Ripping off the Band-Aid would be a lot less painful all at once, and I was more aware than anyone hoard it was that I hadn’t said hello to everyone