His eyes turn to me. The hazel is practically mocking, and even though I don't react, there's no way he doesn't notice the way my face warms when he stares at me a beat too long.
Jo would kill me. It's enough to get it from Amy, but me too? God.
_...
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- two years later -
"Do you think the Gently's are hiding a daughter somewhere in that big house?" Jo demands, hauling her suitcase up behind us as we make our way inside. "Serena didn't want to come to London, so I'm planning on making her jealous."
The boys are out at a pub together, and we (Amy, Jo, Beth, and I) are entering the Gently house by ourselves, hoping to get most of the unpacking done before they ever get home.
"Jealous you're not part of the group?" Amy teases, and pokes her older sister in the side. Her wedding band catches the London sunshine and winks at us, and the fat diamond on her engagement ring below it is a reminder that she's married to a lawyer.
"No," Jo sniffs, and rolls her eyes. "I'd rather die than have a husband."
"But a house wife would do?" I ask, and raise one eyebrow.
Jo promptly shoves my arm and blushes, causing Amy and I to burst into giggles.
Beth unlocks the house and casts us warning looks over her shoulder, her eyes bright with amusement. She'll only pretend to be stern—ever since she got better (she'd caught Scarlet Fever again, but Sawyer dragged his fiancée all the way to France for treatment) she's been more extroverted.
"Don't be jealous, Jo," Beth says, and pushes open the doors to the house. "You'll always be part of the group."
"Har, har." Jo grumbles, but I can tell she's pleased.
"I wish Meg were here," Amy sighs. "She'd go shopping with me. But no, it's all, 'but John wants to live in America'." She rolls her eyes. "As if. And as soon as Tom has everything settled, we're moving to Paris. There's a great firm there."
Amy keeps chattering idly as we head into the house, the familiarity of the house plants and huge glass windows giving me a rush of nostalgia. After staying here for seven months, it's hard not to feel at home in the sprawling mansion.
"Where's your room, Beth?" Jo interrupts one of Amy tangents about painting, and our youngest sister points to the stair-well.
"Up on the left," she says. "Sawyer wants to share a room but I told him we couldn't until we made it official."
