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“Hi,” he whispered, his gaze traveling the room, taking in the surprisingly grand aesthetic of it. It wasn’t anything like ours but more like my parents, just scaled back. Decorated by people in their fifties who loved cats and chickens.
“It’s lovely to see you guys again,” Leslie smiled as she walked up to us, giving her daughter a peck on the cheek.
“Hi, Mom.”
Leslie removed an oven mitt and extended her hand to me. I took it, gave her a firm shake, and plastered my best smile on my face even though I felt a little like I was dying. This was a lot for me, and likely more so for Jamey, but I told myself it would be fine, that the evening would pass by quickly and we’d be able to sell them on the idea of our engagement. I needed things to go smoothly, for my sake and Sophie’s.
“Oh! The ring! Let me see, let me see,” Leslie babbled, grabbing for Sophie’s left hand with her mitt-less one. The worry on Sophie’s face complimented the blush spreading across it, and I crossed my fingers in the hopes that they didn’t realize it was fake. “Oh my goodness, this is gorgeous.”
Sophie laughed awkwardly as she glanced up at me. “Yeah, Hudson has good taste.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief. “It better be gorgeous. Spent a little too much on it if I’m honest.”
Martin chuckled as he slapped a hand against my shoulder. “Good man.”
“Nothing is too much for our Sophie,” Leslie grinned, leading Sophie into the living room by her hand, dragging along Jamey by default.
————
“So, Hudson, what do you do?” Aaron, Sophie’s brother, asked me around a mouthful of green bean casserole.
Clearing my throat, I wiped my mouth on my cloth napkin before returning it to my lap. “I’m a doctor,” I said. I lifted my glass of wine, holding it in front of me. “I work in a clinic near our side of town.”
“Like a general practitioner?” Leslie queried.
“Yeah, kind of,” I laughed. “I work in the family planning field.”
Sophie went rigid next to me, her fork halting its movement against her plate. She recovered fairly quickly, returning to eating before anyone could notice.
Leslie stared at me, her head tilting. “What’s your last name, Hudson?”
“Brady,” Sophie answered for me.
“Oh my goodness. Are you Betty’s son?”
How the fuck…? “Yeah,” I answered slowly, a little confused. “How do you know my mom?”
Leslie’s face lit up, her smile spreading so far it was almost comical. “I met your mother at the country club down in Brookline,” she said. “It was a few years ago, I think. She’s one of my closest friends. She talks about you all the time.”
Fuck. If she knew my mom… well shit, this was going to get bigger than either of us originally planned. “Oh, what a coincidence,” I said, desperately trying not to show how much it had rattled me. I wondered if Sophie was thinking the same thing I was, if she was coming to the same realization.
“Funny, your mom never mentioned you seeing anyone.”
“We haven’t told them yet,” Sophie answered far too quickly, but thankfully, no one seemed to bat an eye. “They’re next on the list.”
“Wow, keeping it a secret from everyone.” Aaron laughed. His wife, Michelle, chuckled along with him.
“We just wanted to make sure it was, you know, real. And then we realized how nice it was to keep everyone out of the loop, and it just sort of stayed that way,” I explained.
“How long have you two been together, then?” Martin asked.
“Just over a year?—”
“Two years?—”
Sophie and I stared at each other in horror as we realized we’d given different answers at the same time. Fuck, we should have thought of this. We should have planned for this. Play it off, play it off. “Has it really been two years already?” I asked, leaning a little closer to her and tucking a strand of her deep brown hair behind her ear.
She chuckled nervously as her cheeks turned rosy. “Yeah, it has.”
