DECEMBER, 2018, SEATTLE, WA
"WAIT, SO ARE you going to bring her to dinner or not?"
Charlie groaned, though the noise was exaggerated in the back of his throat, hardly telling of any actual irritation with Lindy as she pummeled him with questions. All of them had to do with one common subject — his supposed new girlfriend, Billie Lourd.
"Mom, please listen to yourself right now. It's been barely two months. Two months. I'm not bringing her anywhere near this house."
Lindy, who stood in front of Charlie with her arms crossed tightly as he sat perched on the edge of the couch, felt her jaw drop.
"What's that supposed to mean? You're too embarrassed to bring your girlfriend around us?"
"Dad," Charlie pleaded, shooting a desperate glance over at Kurt sitting stretched out on the opposite side of the couch. A bowl of cereal was propped on his chest.
"Don't look at me," Kurt said hastily. "This is between you and your mom."
"It's between all of us!" Lindy corrected. "Charlie has a nice, new girlfriend and we all want to meet her and spend time with her."
"Frances doesn't need to meet her, she's known her since she was a kid," Charlie attempted to reason, guessing accurately that Frances would be on the invite list to the prospective dinner.
"But we don't know her," Lindy said, pointing between herself and Kurt.
"Yes you do! She used to hang out here all the time! Remember when her and Frances tried to slide down the banister of the stairs and they almost broke their necks?"
"No, and if that's true, I'm glad I blocked it out of my memory. I don't remember much about Billie, to be honest. It's been so many years since I've seen her. And she's still only just lost her mom . . ."
Lindy truthfully didn't feel an ounce of guilt for vying so badly to meet Billie. Charlie had done an awful job at hiding his budding relationship with her, and just as Frances had predicted, he'd clearly fallen head over heels for her close friend. Lindy couldn't even count the number of times she'd caught Charlie smiling at a text he'd received or whispering soft laughs into his phone before hanging up quickly once she'd came around.
"All the more reason not to bring her here," Charlie said, jumping readily to his next excuse.
"The more family she gets to be around, the better," Lindy shot back defiantly.
"What's next, huh?" Charlie said, standing up and running his hand back through his hair, now almost to his shoulders. "Are you going to invite Beth and Kim to dinner too? Maybe Krist and Shelli, or Trae and Allie?"
"That's a great idea," Lindy enthused, earning another groan in return from Charlie. She wasn't going to buy in to his complaints. No matter what he said, she knew how he was feeling. He was happier somehow, more confident than he'd ever been before meeting Billie.
From what she knew (all of her information had been fed to her through Frances) they'd been on plenty of dates, but had yet to really spend alone time together. Charlie's demanding schedule with The Finks had prevented that and apparently, it was driving him insane.
"Char," Lindy began. "Bring her out to Seattle. Take a few days off. Let her meet everyone who's important to you. I know how much this girl means to you, I'm not stupid."
"I can't believe we're talking about my feelings," Charlie said, his face turning a light shade of pink.
"We don't have to talk about them for me to already know," Lindy asserted with a sigh. How did Charlie not yet understand just how well she truly knew him? She had raised him since birth after all, and he was predictable like his father.
