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“How the fuck did you manage to drag me into this?” Charlie exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air.
“You’re being safe, right?” Farrah asked, looking surprisingly serious.
“Jesus, Farrah,” Charlie said, throwing back her drink.
“Mom,” Farrah corrected, looking at Charlie expectantly.
“Yes, I’m safe,” Charlie shot back. “I thought we were talking about how cute Kara and Draco are?”
“Oh, they are,” Farrah said, dropping her chin onto her hands as she looked at me dreamily.
“I change my mind on the drink,” I said, getting up from the table to grab a soda out of the fridge. “I’ll take some whiskey in my coke.”
“Atta girl,” Farrah said.
Lily rubbed my back as I passed her.
“Where did all the kids go?” I asked.
“I sent them out to the garage with the guys,” she said with sneaky smile. “They can deal with them for a while.”
“Leo will probably have them cleaning engine parts, assembly line-style,” I said as she handed me a glass with ice in it.
“Whatever keeps them occupied,” she replied with a shrug.
I sat down at the table and settled in. The longer we were at Lily’s, the calmer I became, but every time the front door opened, I braced for impact. Rose’s parents showed up, and Grandma Callie came right to Farrah and got herself a drink, like she’d been there the whole time. She and Farrah had been best friends since the beginning of time, even before Farrah had married Grandma Callie’s brother.
As I looked around the table, I realized that we were all sitting there with our best friends. Callie and Farrah. Lily and Rose. Me and Charlie. Three generations, almost. Technically, since Charlie and Lily were sisters, Charlie was in the second generation. There was such an age gap, though, that she fit in better with me and the twins.
As I watched the women around me, I also realized that the dynamics were pretty similar with each of us. Farrah was the crazy to Callie’s calm, just like Charlie was to me. Rose was way wilder and more outspoken than Lily, too. For some reason, whether proximity or necessity, we’d been drawn to each other.
“You’re having too much fun in here,” Amy teased over the chatter as she came into the room. “I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down.”
Everyone laughed.
“You want a drink?” Lily asked, rising from her seat.
“I’ll get one if I want one,” Amy said, waving her off. “You don’t have to wait on me, honey.”
She came and sat in the chair next to me. Leaning over, she said, “It’s a good thing they have such a big table.”
“I think they buy them in bulk,” I replied. “They all have massive kitchen tables.”
“It’s so we can do this,” Grandma Callie said, gesturing toward the table. “Room for everyone.”
“Our table isn’t that big,” Lily protested, looking around. “We just bought extra chairs.”
“You know, now that you said that, I am feeling a little cramped,” Charlie said, pushing her elbows out to the sides, jabbing me with one of them.
“Knock it off,” I said with a laugh.
“Stop needling your sister,” Farrah ordered.
“I’m not needling her,” Charlie replied. She looked at Lily. “I thought I was promised food? Where’s dinner?”
“Shit!” Lily said, popping out of her seat. “The lasagna!”
“If you burned my dinner—” Charlie said ominously, stopping to laugh when Farrah threw a piece of ice at her.
“It’s fine,” Lily called when she got to the oven. “It has five more minutes.”
Lily’s little kitchen became a hive of activity as we all pitched in to finish up dinner, taking a few seconds here and there to finish off and make new drinks. As I helped Charlie assemble a green salad, she looked at me, tilting her head to the side.
“She made frozen lasagna,” Charlie said with a scoff. “Hell, even I could make that.”
I laughed so hard, my stomach muscles started to ache.
“What?” Charlie asked, disgruntled. “I could.”
“I know,” I gasped. “Me, too.”
“Well, I don’t know about you,” Charlie said, almost knocking me over as she bumped me with her hip. “You suck in the kitchen.”
“I suck? Weren’t you the one I walked in on—” my words were cut off as Charlie slapped a hand over my mouth.
“Finish that sentence and I will end you,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “My mother is here.”
“Oh, now she’s your mother,” I asked, my words completely muffled by her hand. “I thought she was Farrah?”
“Hey,” Lily said, yelling at us. “Be careful with those knives.”
“No emergency room visits tonight,” Rose ordered, coming over to take the knives from the counter in front of us.
“I wouldn’t have actually resorted to violence,” Charlie said with a whine, dropping her hand from my face.
“She knows I could take her,” I announced to the group, just as the guys started filtering in from the garage.
