I stewed over how to ask her the entire weekend. We ended up celebrating not only her birthday, but all of the little occasions we’d missed while I’d been gone. We had champagne and strawberries for our anniversary, a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, green beer for St. Patrick’s Day, cake for her birthday, pie for mine, hardboiled eggs for Easter, and we even celebrated Thanksgiving…with a feather. It was all sort of ridiculous…and I loved every second. But it didn’t get me any closer to a solution, and by the time Monday rolled around and I needed to leave, I still hadn’t asked her.

Lana arrived with a limo to pick us up at the bar, and after saying goodbye to everyone, my friends and I piled into it and headed to the airport.

Griffin downed the free champagne while I chewed on my lip. “Something bugging you, Kell?” I looked over to see Evan studying me. He raised his pierced eyebrow. “You’re gonna see her soon, you know? Her graduation isn’t that far away.”

I rolled my eyes at the fact that I’d gotten to the point where my friends thought every goodbye with Kiera was going to leave me huddled in a corner, sobbing. “No, that’s not it. I wanted to do something before I left, and I kind of…couldn’t figure out how to do it.”

Griffin spat out the champagne in his mouth. “Oh my God…there was a sex thing you couldn’t figure out how to do? What was it?”

He leaned forward, genuinely intrigued. I gave him a blank look. “I know I’ve told you this before, but not everything revolves around sex.”

He smirked at me, then he dropped his gaze to my crotch and said, “Oh…I get it. That sucks.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I knew I was going to regret it, but I had to ask. “What sucks?”

He shrugged. “Obviously, you couldn’t get it up. So that sucks for you. And I guess for Kiera. I’ve heard that can happen though, as you get older. Maybe you were just dehydrated.” He held out a bottle of champagne for me. “You should drink more.”

There were so many things wrong with everything he just said, and for the millionth time, I couldn’t believe he was about to be a dad. I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep, cleansing breath. I heard someone smack Griffin, and I was immensely grateful. Opening my eyes, I saw him rubbing his arm and glaring at Matt. “What? I can’t offer advice? The dude clearly needs help. Some friend you are, Matty.”