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"Do you miss it?" Maddie asked

"No" Serena didn’t even have to think about it "Not at all"

"That’s cool," his youngest sister said "I was just thinking it e and live in a dors you’ve probably seen and done"

"It eird at first," she ad she couldn’t pretend the tabloid story hadn’t come out online with pictures of the two of the in the future, she said, "I know it e for all of you when those pictures of the two of us ca deal," Sean immediately said

Grant, however, was only a beat behind hiine it’s anything you can control, is it?"

"Unfortunately," she said with a little shake of her head, "it isn’t"

She could feel Sean bristling beside her, not nearly as bad as he’d been when he’d caught his friends looking at her video the night before, but definitely not pleased with the way the conversation had gone She wished she kne to fix things, but before she could figure anything out, help came from the most unlikely quarter

"Serena, do you want to co out Maddie’s birthday cake?" Olivia asked

Beyond grateful, Serena nodded and was sliding out of her seat when Sean slid his hand to the nape of her neck and kissed her, long and hard and in front of his entire fao, but she so and into the kitchen, where his sister aiting for her

"When those pictures of the two of you came out," Olivia said, point-blank, "I told him to be careful"

Serena had barely closed the door behind her, and between the kiss and the roller coaster of a conversation during their s "You love your brother Of course you would want hiht when Olivia shocked her, yet again, by saying, "You love hiined that she and Olivia would talk about in the kitchen, it wouldn’t have been love And yet, now that she’dthe Morrisons did, of everything they were, she realized it couldn’t have been anything else

"I do"

Olivia’s smile flashed so quickly that Serena al, "Losing our momit was hard So, so hard But she and Sean had a really special connection" Serena badly wanted to reach out to her as she added, "He’s finally starting to co hurt"

"I won’t hurt him," Serena promised