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He nods. “Here and now.”
She scolds me. “Connor.”
I stand tall. “I’m not moving without their blessing, Mom. I’m sorry.”
“Whose blessing?” she asks. “And for what?”
“Alex and Ben’s for me and Dana.”
Rose’s jaw drops at her boys. “Just give it to him so we can go,” she says.
“I already did,” Ben says. “We’re waiting on Alex.”
“Alexander.” Rose uses her mother voice. “Give them your blessing.”
“No,” he says.
“Why not? They’re adorable.”
“I don’t care!”
“They do look pretty cute together,” Ben says.
Alex side-eyes him before glaring at me.
Rose groans softly. “Well, you better hurry because Daisy can only hold Trisha back for so long, and I doubt you want her catching wind of this.”
“Let her,” Alex says. “I want the world to know that—” he raises his voice “—Connor Morgan is a jackass who betrays his friends!”
“I said I was sorry!” I say across the casket.
“Apology not accepted!”
“Come on, Alex,” Ben says. “They’re in love.”
“Of course they’re in love!” Alex says. “He’s always been in love with her.”
“You knew, too?” I ask.
“Yes, I knew! Everybody did.”
“I didn’t know,” Ben says.
“I didn’t know, either.”
I snap my head to the left, drawn to her little voice like a magnet. Dana stands beside me, having wandered over with Violet during our squabble. I instantly smile. She takes my free hand, smiling back.
Alex exhales hard. “I knew you guys would hook up eventually. It was inevitable. You two always… just made sense.” He pauses, his expression drawn with dark lines. “But I didn’t think it’d happen so soon. I mean, we just started school, man, and you already have a girlfriend?”
“Well,” I say, “we haven’t really labeled anything?—”
John clears his throat loudly.
“Okay. Yeah, I have a…” I glance at Dana. She nods happily. “I have a girlfriend. So what?” I ask Alex.
Alex opens his mouth to speak, then glares straight ahead. “Can we get a little privacy here? Damn!”
The others all swivel forward, six of us still fixed in place. Our mothers step up to stand closer to our fathers, pretending not to listen while the others don’t even try pretending.
