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If Thompsan had been any slower in his exit he'd have had to deal with a bony little knee jerking up to connect solidly with his groin. But his parting shot was cruel enough to stun, and Peyton couldn't do much but glare up at him, soft features alight with shock, as he left the room altogether.

<You really should do something about that. It pains me that anyone has the nerve to speak to you like that.>

I'm open to suggestions.

Insufferable a*****e... At least he was honest. At least she didn't have to play the game when she was only dealing with him. It was probably the only reason she ever bothered talking to him. Lord knows it wasn't the charm.

She was still frowning when another voice made her jump. Deeper this time, belonging to someone that actually pulled a genuine smile from the petite Sun. Even if that smile small and strained. "Hi Jack." Pale eyes automatically slid downward, giving him a somewhat obvious once over before offering a nod of approval, lips pursed. He cleaned up nice, always did.

"My cousin is off with Maebe." It didn't sound like a good reason to be pissy, not unless you really knew the dynamic that lay between the two girls. But of course very few did, and that was the point. And since she couldn't explain it in full to him, it was better to smile, to shrug it off, and pretend nothing was wrong at all. "Enjoying yourself so far?"

"Don't look at me. It was him, I saw it." Noah pointed his fork at Dwight.

Noah smiled at the red-haired kid and gave him a thumbs-up.

"If you don't have sugar, you can't have cake, or ice cream, or even fruit, because fruit has sugar in it," Noah informed the red-haired kid. "Who is your daddy, anyway?"

"Yeah, cuz girls have cooties," the kid replied as if this was common sense. At Noah's question about who his dad was,
he pointed right at Dwight.

Robert felt her hand pressing against his cheek again, and he knew his face was going red by the rise of heat on his skin. He leaned into it without thinking, but he didn't grab for it like he had last time. Still, it felt nice to be touched. It didn't happen often enough; even if it was just for comfort's sake.

"Mimsy." She was rambling in smart talk, which was why he'd convinced himself all this time that he was miles out of her league in the first place. "You can't fix something that ain't broken. I'm - aw geez, no, don't - " He'd started to hear the sniffles, and it was his undoing. There was no way he was going to forgive himself if he made Mimsy cry, on New Years. He'd promised Ramona he'd at least try to tell her he liked her, but he'd rather break his promise than end up making the woman cry. Nothing would be worse. So he turned around, sat up straight, and tried to give her his most winning smile.

"See? Nothing to feel sorry about!" He plucked her hand off of his face, lowering it without letting go. He never even realized that his fingers hadn't opened to release the hand; they were working against him, too.

"Why wouldn't you have come? Mimsy, you still look like you're gonna - " He stood up quickly, because if she hurled, he did not want his face to be at that particular level. "Listen, okay. Just.. shh. Everything's fine. Everyone's happy, and you definitely needed to come to the ball dressed like that today. Not that I needed you to - I mean, like, for your own sake. Gotta have fun sometimes. Right?"

He heard his daughter screeching, and for once, wasn't worried - if someone was making her yell, that meant she wasn't getting in trouble. It was when she went quiet, that he worried.

Enter
Melvin entered the buffet room and moved around little crowds and a fresh already-trashed tables (namely desserts) before leaning at the bar with a loud exhale. "Jack and coke. Light on the coke." He said, and leaned as the bartender happily made his drink. At least behind the bar, the servers were safe from trampling a small herd of sugar-rich children or rippin a dress. The ones in the floor seemed as if they had been training all year in some crazy course just for holding trays perfectly.

Once he was offered his drink with a napkin, he took a sip, nodded his thanks and approval and headed around the small herds littering the place to find someone to talk to. Wallflower didn't suit him.

Whe. He spotted Solia with a lot if bowls and some instruments, he was instantly drawn over and belonged it to her table. "I was wondering what was up with all the bowls. Though you got preggers out of the blue and wanted soup."

He pulled out a seat but didn't sit in case she wanted to science alone. "Can i hang here a bit?"