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"Fake it till you make it is literally the most true thing anyone has ever said, ever."

Clerise smiled as Otto threw her the side-eye, and promptly tugged him into her lap, arms wrapped around his middle. She nuzzled his shoulder, content with sharing her affection: Clerise always did have a lot to give. "Saw the Mister and Missus, and Gale looked awfully nice with his date. I got intimately familiar with the buffet, and got run off. They told me I have to wait and I can't take three plates at once, if you can believe." She scoffed, burying her face into the crook of his neck. Clarice had once called her a koala, but Ben had quickly said no, she's a spider monkey.

"Had a talk with Taym that was pretty good, really. He broke up with that girl, not that I was expecting it to last. You'd think it gets easier as you get older, but not really."

Otto melted into her arms, relaxing like a compliant kitten. Clerise was a hundred and ten percent sure that he'd purr if he were capable of it. It wasn't as though she could blame him, though: it had the same sort of soothing effect on her, too. Too bad midnight was fast approaching, she sure did want a nap.

"No death," she muttered darkly, "just nearly a fork in someone's eye. But it's okay, I took the entire platter of devilled eggs in retaliation." And she'd eaten it all in recording timing, too.

"Yeup, I don't even remember her name, bless her heart. You'd think he'd not want to burn every bridge on the island, but there you go." She relaxed back against the wall, bracing herself against it, so that neither of them would topple over.

"You decide if you want to do the whole college spiel? It'd get you out and about in the real world and s**t."

"That's the ******** beauty of general education, my friend. You don't have to know what you want, and you have the benefit of a career and life already ready for you if it falls through." She kissed his temple again. "I'm sure we can work out a touring schedule, if you want to look at your choice campuses before you commit."

"Sure," she replied, easily. "We'll have to figure out how to pry you away from your mom, though, I don't think she can actually stop you. We can either play sneak style and say you're going by yourself, or with someone else. I like spending time with you, too, darlin'. You should make a list of countries or parts of the states you want to visit? At the very least, we can do hippity hoppity portal floppity everywhere. I still don't get how it all works, but hey. It works!"

"Aw, boo. We can literally point at a map and we can take you wherever the hell you want to go. Maybe a nice beach school? By the ocean?" She bit his shoulder, lightly. Just enough to be a tiny bit of a 'hey, stop that!'

"Don't freak out, dude. One step at a time. You've got help the whole way."

"I think we should maybe look at international schools, then. Anywhere over the pond might be pretty nice, and they still speak English. Too bad you don't know any Spanish, Spain is great. The nice thing about Europe is that, it's like all the US squished together in a third of the size-- take a train, you can get like, annyyy whuurrr." She repeated herself, this time with a mysterrrrriousss whisper: "Anywhur."

Clerise laughed, and it was warmth, not malice, that bubbled out of her. "Cutest ******** thing I've ever heard. Every time I think there can't be anymo- you know? Yeah. Do it, ******** it."

Clerise pulled away, and shook his shoulders excitedly. "People totally do it, we can find a beach-y, music-y, college place, and you can have a drumset and hey you probably will have to have a dorm the first semester, but after that you can have a little apartment." She grinned. "Visiting isn't a problem, anyone you want could come. Do it."

"Good boy," she said, and smacked him right on the butt in response to the kiss. "I'll give them your love. Be good."