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Edith got up on tip toe and yanked John down to meet somewhere in the middle. She gave him a smile, it didn't have her usual confidence as it had given way to the sort of vulnerability she tried to keep out of sight, out of mind. "John I..."

Wow. For a second, Robert actually thought she was going to say no. He was already resolving to try and be okay with that, when her agreement made his breath - and all the words behind it - come tumbling out in a crash. "Okay good because I would really like to kiss you but I didn't want to act like it was something that had to happen but I mean I really wanted to.."

But his words trailed off when she told him that he had a lot of days ahead of him, and a lot of kisses to look forward to. He really, really never could have expected this night to go this well. He'd just been hoping she would give him a chance. Instead, she was giving him..

It felt like forever. He tried not to get his hopes up.

"Deal." He muttered through grinning lips, pressing his forehead down against hers. Then he sucked in a breath, and his eyes widened. "Hold on a sec-"

A second was all they had left to hold on to.

He reached out quickly, scooping his poor child up from the clutches of a frenzied dancing Jerry, and gave him a quick and amused shake of his head. Then he lifted Ramona up into his other arm, and held both of his girls again. "Sorry." He hedged, pressing the side of his head against Mimsy's. "It just wouldn't be right without her."

"HAPPY NEW YEARS MIMSY." Ramona cried out, giving the woman a very sneaky look. It was a look that said, I am the greatest mastermind ever and you are just a pawn in my game. She lifted her hands up as everyone screamed ONE, and threw what was left of her cookies up in the air. The world exploded around them, but that didn't really phase Robert.

He leaned in, and pressed his lips against Mimsy's. A soft stolen kiss. A tiny thing, chaste and awkward. Their first.

"Happy New Years, Mimsy." Robert parrotted his daughter, his smile goofy with affection.

Caelius and Velda danced on the terrace, the rest of the world dropping away as they moved to a tune that played between the beating of two hearts thoroughly caught up in one another.

He wasn't going to deal with this, couldn't deal with this, not now, not when the clock was getting ready to chime midnight and the person he most wanted to be alone with was in the midst of a group of people that were causing more drama than he wanted right now.

"Shiloh," said Ian. "Hey, come here, I need to talk to you."

He didn't even give Jack a second glance, or Lucky; Quinn and Percy were in their own world, and Ian was taking advantage of that. He wrapped his fingers around Shiloh's and pulled him away from the others, to a distance some feet away. It wasn't exactly private, but it was good enough.

Two minutes.

"Listen," said Ian, and his heart was in his chest. He felt vaguely panicky for some reason, but he pushed past that, refusing to let go of Shiloh's hand and hoping he wasn't weirding the other out. "Listen, Shy, we've known each other for a few years now, and really, your friendship has been so, um..."

He gave a small laugh, taking a breath. "It's meant a lot to me," he said finally, his expression softening, despite his nervousness. "In fact, it's meant the most to me, and I...truth be told, Shiloh, you're the most important person in the world to me, and I think I..."

One minute.

"I think I love you," Ian said breathlessly and then took a leap of faith, leaned forward, and kissed him.

Percy wasn’t the only one feeling nauseous. Jack was ready to puke at this point for a variety of reasons.

“I can smell the blood alcohol rising,” Jack all but sneered down at Lucky, while on the inside his stomach did dizzying flips. Maybe a bad mix of food and alcohol. Maybe it was ******** Lucky clinging to his good suit.

If he had ever wanted to be outed, if on that slimmest of slim chances in some parallel universe where things were okay all the time, Jack had decided to go with this insane decision? Not on this dimension or the next would he have allowed it to occur while his partner was past the “ready to party” drunk and in the middle of “forgetting how limbs work” drunk, in public, surrounded by the ******** gay pride parade, and, most importantly, acting without his prior consent.

Nope. ******** all of this, he was done for the night.

“Pathetic.” Grabbing Lucky’s collar, he wrenched the man off almost violently with a cold look. “Go find some other a** to lick, fagqueen.”

And there was only a twinge of guilt, a delayed reaction he’d feel much later when the champagne no longer made things bubbly and sickening. After all, Lucky had known the rules.