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“I’ll have to thank her,” Ryan said with a tight smile.

Before I could say anything else, the door banged open.

“Sorry,” Mom said, not looking very sorry.

“Mom, this is Ryan Jewel. Ryan, this is my mom Lee,” I said, pointing to Mom, who shook Ryan’s hand.

“I’m Everly’s Mama, Lydia,” Mama said, almost jumping up and down as she reached for Ryan’s hand. “Can I give you a hug?” At least she’d asked.

“Uh, sure,” Ryan said as Mama threw herself at Ryan with way too much enthusiasm. Mama grabbed on and Ryan gave me a startled look.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Ryan,” Mama said, her eyes a little shiny.

This was too much.

“Okay then, we should go,” I said, speaking loudly.

“So nice to meet you,” Ryan said.

“It was wonderful to meet you,” Mama said, reaching for Mom’s hand.

I waved to them as we walked to the car. Ryan held my door for me.

“Are they watching?” she asked in my ear.

I glanced toward the door as I got in the passenger seat, the bag of dip on my lap.

“Oh yeah,” I said, glaring at my parents and then giving them a wave.

Ryan laughed softly before walking around and getting in. She turned on the car and gave my parents a wave before backing out.

“They’re lovely, your parents,” she said after a thoughtful silence.

“They’re a bit much,” I said. “I hope you like beer cheese.”

“I have never eaten beer cheese in my life, and I have no idea what beer cheese even is, but I’m interested to find out,” she said, laughing.

“It’s good. You’ll like it. No one does a dip like Mama,” I said.

“Looking forward to it.”

“Well? What do you think?” I asked. We were on Ryan’s couch with multiple bowls of the chips and crackers Ryan had on hand.

Ryan had just scooped up a serving of beer cheese and tossed it right into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully.

“I love it,” she said, reaching for another chip and taking a bigger serving.

“I’m so happy I can widen your horizons into the field of beer cheese,” I said.

“I feel like we should be watching football right now,” she said. “Beer cheese seems like a football food.”

I dunked a bagel chip into the bowl of hummus. “Do you like football?”

Ryan shrugged. “My dad has a stake in a team, but I’ve never really enjoyed it.”

“Your dad owns a football team?” I asked.

“He owns part of a football team. A very, very small part,” she said, holding her pointer finger and thumb a millimeter apart.