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My dad smiles proudly “My Avie is the best”

“You won’t findthat” Luke winks at me and leans forward to whisper to ood for me, yeah?”

Guy chortles

My h and tsks her lips “My goodness I just…I don’t think I could be anythat would make me happier is if the two of you decided to tie the knot”

“Mom,” I chastise “Good Lord”

“What?” she questions, looking between the three of us “What did I say wrong?”

My dad just chuckles and wraps his arh the door and down the hall toward the kitchen, and he gestures for us to follow them

Luke just grins the whole da over the way myat the freaking county fair

I mean, we’ve been here all of tenwedding!

You think that’s bad? Just wait until she finds out it’s all a sham…

That thought sits like a rock in uilt

Man oh otten myself into?

A big fat web of lies

“Avie, you want hot chocolate?”froht now “What about you, Luke? You like hot chocolate?”

“That’d be great, sir”

While my dad makes us some fresh cocoa, we sit down at the kitchen table, and my mom doesn’t dillydally with the usual sht into the relationship questions

“So, I just have to know,” she begins, and internally I sigh, already knohat’s about to coo from best friends for years to in a relationship?”

Booht in the middle of the Christmas-décor-covered table

“Well, Rose, I’ve always had a bit of a thing for your Ava,” Luke begins to answer and reaches out to casually wrap his arm around the back of my chair “It just took about fifteen years forfor me too”