once bitten (and twice shy)

6. family heart-to-hearts are for movies only

🎄FAMILY HEART-TO-HEARTS ARE FOR MOVIES ONLY🎄

"Okay, so the wedding is tomorrow," Lin announced, plopping down on the couch next to Miranda, snagging some of the blanket she was using for himself. "What is the plan?"

"You don't know the plan yet?" Miranda asked, incredulous, insistently tugging the blanket back. They had finished dinner, ate double their weight in Christmas cookies, and survived a very heated White Elephant (he had ended up with weed socks and Snoop Dogg's cookbook), and were now curling up for their annual Michelle Hanify's hot Christmas cider.

"Hey," he defended. "I'm just here for the ride and to help out with whatever people want. Besides, Nelly and Alex literally picked the wedding date weeks ago."

"I'm guessing Michelle has a planner?" Dean asked wryly, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.

"I always have one!" was the answer shouted from somewhere in the kitchen where Michelle was warming up the cider. "Alex may be a master planner, but my wedding gift to her is trying to steal her title."

After the group's chuckles died down, Alex turned to Lin, patiently explaining, "Family is driving up tomorrow morning, and we're going to have a small ceremony in this very room."

"Though an outdoor wedding would be kind of cute," Nelly interjected from where she was laying down on the couch, her head resting in her soon-to-be bride's lap. "I mean we did have our first kiss in the snow."

"Half," Alex corrected. "We were standing on my front porch. I was originally planning on proposing outside too, but that plan went awry."

"Unpopular opinion, but indoor proposals are better than outdoor," Gen said, her eyelids drooping. Lin had to stifle a laugh; she was always a sleepy tipsy type person, a little too honest and soft.

"Was yours indoor or outdoor?" Miranda asked, and Lin feared that he might have strained a muscle as he whirred around to look at her. Did she just refer to Gen being engaged?

Lin knew that Gen didn't have anyone in her life, or so she had told him yesterday. So what on Earth was Miranda talking about? He couldn't the deny the relief he felt as well though, glad that it seemed that he wasn't the only one surprised. Looking around the room, Lin could tell that this was a shock to everyone minus Miranda, which meant that he wasn't the only one who had missed a significant event in Gen's life.

Gen hummed thoughtfully. "Outdoor."

"Hold on," Michelle said, mouth hanging open as she carried in a tray of hot drinks for all of them. "You got proposed to, Gen?"

Gen sighed but was smiling, so Lin figured they weren't pushing any boundaries. Instead, Gen curled up at her position of the foot of the couch across from the one Lin was sitting on, accepting an offered mug of cider. "There was a guy in California, Andrew," she started, a soft smile on her face. Lin had to swallow back the painful lump that formed in his throat. "We had been dating for probably a year and a half at that point? Anyway, it was October, and he arranged this extraordinary day, where we took a tour of the city and all these places that were significant to us and our relationship. And at the end, we ended up at the Santa Monica Pier Ferris Wheel, which was where we met. It was night and it was lit up, and everything looked absolutely stunning. And when we reached the top, he proposed."

"Aw, that's so sweet!" Nelly gushed.

Privately and bitterly, Lin found himself agreeing. The day sounded so perfect it made him sick. Gen deserved the very best, he had always known that. And by the sounds of it, she got proposed to in the most perfect, romcom-esque way. It's just that it wasn't him proposing; some traitorous part of his brain questioned if that made the proposal even more perfect for her.