“Mom says that Avery is bringing her boyfriend and another of her friends to dinner tonight,” I told Nikki as I helped her clasp a necklace around her neck.

“Oh, that’s nice. I wonder if it’s the girl Kate and I met at the ice cream shop?”

“You didn’t tell me about that.”

“I probably forgot. It was just for a few minutes while you were out of town. I think Kate ate with them, I wanted to get back home, though.”

“Alright, well any friend of Avery’s is a friend of mine. I’m just glad those pictures didn’t make Jeremy break up with her.”

“Young girls experiment these days. So do young boys. I’m sure he understood that she was just having a little fun.”

“Still, maybe he can be a good influence on her. I don’t think she wants to listen to her older brother tell her the proper way for a lady to behave.”

“Can you come out of 1950 for a minute? Besides,” she said, rubbing my shoulder, “Had I behaved like a proper lady, I doubt we would even be together.”

I thought back to our first nights together and smiled. Especially that night that ended up being the reason we got married a year earlier than we intended to.

“Ok, you win.”

“Smart man. Let’s just try to avoid any big brother lectures tonight and enjoy celebrating Avery’s accomplishments.”

“I think I can handle that,” I told her.