It was the first time Leonard hadn’t seen her in her sensible scrubs and he was having a hard time not staring at her lithe figure in a floral sundress. The cool blue fabric brought out the caramel highlights in her hair and made her eyes seem even larger. She turned those eyes towards his and smiled sweetly. He dropped his gaze to the ground, the water, anything that would make it seem that he wasn’t staring at her like a big creep.

Step One In Getting Through a Potentially Disastrous Social Occasion at Your Boss’s House: Stop staring at your boss’ guests.

“Leonard! I’m so glad you could make it!” Sonja exclaimed as Leonard handed her the wine and flowers. “This is so sweet of you! Nice bottle, too.”

“Thanks for inviting me, Sonja.”

“Well, we really haven’t had any sort of party here since we moved in,” Sonja replied. “Too many near catastrophes. Besides, we had to welcome Charlotte to town properly. And make up for that nightmare meeting.”

“And thank you for not inviting Jessica or Alex, even though it will probably be awkward at work tomorrow,” he said quietly.

She shrugged nonchalantly, then told him, “Go make yourself comfortable.”

Leonard grabbed a beer from the cooler and stood on the outside of the group, just watching the interactions. It was his normal MO during parties. There were too many opportunities for him to spill something or knock something over.

Jon followed Sonja inside, probably to fetch Charlotte another beer or pearls from the bottom of the sea or something super-impressive and romantic. Dani announced a need to visit the ladies room, leaving Zed to fold Cordelia into his arms and press a brotherly kiss to her forehead. Her boyfriend, Brendan, just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“I don’t need to remind you that if you hurt my Cordelia, I can and will snap you like kindling, Irish!” Zed called. Brendan replied with something rude in Gaelic–which Leonard didn’t speak, but he knew international profanity when he heard it.

“Are Zed and Cordelia related?” Charlotte asked Leonard.

Leonard shook his head. “No, but he adopted her formally–or as formally as a bear can–after she moved here. There was forehead-licking involved, that’s all I know.”

“Zed seems like a very nice man, but I would like my forehead to remain un-licked,” Charlotte told him.

“I would say that’s reasonable,” he conceded. “But he doesn’t just go around adopting people willy-nilly. Cordelia was in desperate need of family.”

“Well, that’s sweet of him,” she said. “Aside from the licking. So, your family, what are they like?”

“Haven’t we already talked about my family?” he replied. “Pretty normal, aside from the curse. What about yours? It has to be more interesting, what with the fairy history.”

“This is going to sound awful,” she said, cringing.