Notes: Thanks so much to everyone who has been supporting the fic!

Please take notice of the fact that this chapter contains a semi-graphic scene of medical trauma and treatment. There is blood and discussion of injuries. If you're squeamish, you can skip over it without losing too much content-it's the third scene of the chapter, starting with '"What happened?" Riley demands…' and ending with 'when he gives his instruction. "Turn."'

Also, please note that while I did a bit of research to accurately talk about treating the injuries, nothing in this story is done following any real protocols and the way some things are done is most definitely Grey's Anatomy or ER style, i.e. for dramatization purposes rather than realistic medical integrity. This should not in any way be considered medical advice. Do not try what you're about to read.

Anyways….

In this chapter, Lucas feels awkward, Riley saves the day, and Riley and Lucas climb up a tree.

"Not everyone can be the princess, or have a fairy godmother to grant all their wishes, or have a prince burst in and give them everything they've always wanted. Some people are just the ugly stepsister in someone else's story."

Lucas can hardly believe the words as they come out of Riley's mouth. How can a woman, who's so beautiful-so wonderful-think so little of herself? "You don't really believe that, do you?" He asks, unable to stop himself from furrowing his brow. The context of the conversation is ridiculous (it's not like fairy tales were ever a big thing for him growing up or anything that he ever bought into) but the root of the matter is clear; Riley somehow doesn't think that she's the star of her own story. Just a bit part in someone else's.

Now, more than ever, he wishes Riley were more interested in explaining her past, because he'd love to know who had convinced her to think that way so he could show them all the ways that they're wrong.

Riley sighs, pushing herself to her feet. "Could you not…?"

"Could I not what?" Lucas follows after her. They start down the beach, back towards the party and the bed and breakfast.

"Do the whole… 'Oh my gosh, but you're so great Riley! Of course you're not the stepsister. Your happy ending is totally coming!'" Riley throws on a mocking, tired effect as she apes her example. She takes a sip of her drink before returning her tone to normal. "You were just trying to convince me that that kind of thinking is a waste of people's time and energy. Don't insult me by turning around and telling me that you didn't mean it was a waste of time for me."

"I meant obsessing over it and spending your life waiting for the happy ending to come to you instead of living your life and going after what you want is waste of time." Lucas explains. "Not that there's no room for hope."

"I have plenty of hope, Lucas. Just not for that."

Lucas stops walking. He can't explain it. Why his chest aches to hear Riley admit that she doesn't have hope for herself in that way or why he wants to do everything in his power to fix things and change that. He's heard about all manner of unfulfilling lives and sad life stories from his client and he's never felt the need to do anything outside the scope of his job for them; that's just not who he is. But here, and now… with everything he's seen so far this week and Riley in front of him… Even after all the attempts he's made to remind himself of his role, all Lucas wants to do is sweep Riley away from this mess of a family and find a way to prove to her that she's so much more than what they've convinced her of.

"Riley-,"

"I'm really tired, Lucas." Riley spins on her heels, flashing him a sad (and ultimately false, he thinks) smile. "I'm just gonna go back to the room and get to bed."

Riley turns back once more and walks down the beach, leaving Lucas behind, wondering what on earth he can possibly do.

Try as he might, Lucas can't figure out how to start another conversation with Riley, least of all about anything of substance. At first this was because he had no approachable opportunity.

On his way to follow her back to their room, he had been sidetracked by Ava, asking myriad questions about what he would be wearing to the wedding, right down to the socks that he had brought (and Lucas had started drifting off partway through the conversation when Ava had started wondering whether or not his jacket used matte or shiny thread but he's almost positive he agreed to swap out the laces on his formal shoes to something more 'beach chic' appropriate, whatever that means, before the conversation finally came to a close). By the time he did manage to get back to the room, Riley was already in bed and if she wasn't asleep she was doing a very fine job pretending that she was, so Lucas had little choice but to go through his nightly routine and climb into bed beside her.

Then the morning came, and try as he might, Lucas just isn't a morning person. He hasn't been ever since leaving Texas and the ranch where mornings were more of a necessity than an option, so even though his body was awake bright and early as the alarm clock in the room dictated, his mind didn't really join him until after breakfast when they were engaged in a dance rehearsal at Ava's behest. At that point both he and Riley were too engaged in making sure that they were in the right position, doing the right step at the right moment to discuss anything else.

Now they're on a chartered schooner with the extended Matthews family (minus Maya, who claimed an unsteady stomach wouldn't do well out on the water and opted to stay on shore) for the entire afternoon. One last private activity for the family before the rest of the wedding guests start arriving. And although they're fairly isolated from everyone else, choosing to enjoy the view of the water from a padded bench on one side instead of eating at the 'set-up for a party' bow with the entire clan and watching several of the men engage in a clam shucking contest, they aren't exactly talking much.

At least, not about anything of substance.

Riley seems quite content to chatter on about any benign subject from explaining why the music choices for the opening dances at the reception are significant for the young couple, to giving him more detailed accounts as to how her aunt and uncles and other extended family met their spouses (although she noticeably stays away from Josh and Maya) to telling him about some of the more exciting days she's had since she started working in a busy emergency room.

Anything, Lucas thinks, to keep them from going back to the subject of the previous night or anything related to it, and he can't find a way to steer them back that direction as he so eagerly wants to do. How else can he figure out a way to help her?

Riley is in the middle of explaining how they handle Halloween in a pediatric ER, when the ship hits a particularly large and choppy wave, leaving her lurching sideways to fall across his lap. The ensuing blushing and giggling disentanglement of limbs is enough to halt the filler conversation, and to remind Lucas exactly what a dangerous line it is he's straddling; Riley is really creeping her way into his head and heart, becoming so much more engaging and interesting and attractive than any client before her has. All without any negligible effort on her part.

"Sorry." She apologizes as they both straighten. She sends him a demure, dimpled smile as she tucks a strand of hair that's blown out of her ponytail back behind her ear. "What was I talking about?"

Lucas doesn't want to answer. Partly because she didn't seem nearly so comfortable while running down her laundry list of distraction topics, and partly because this seems like as good of an opportunity as any to try and move the conversation where he wants to go. But, possibly sensing his intent to move them back towards a subject she'd rather avoid, Riley speaks again before he can find his path.

"Nevermind. I wanted to thank you, anyways."

"Thank me?"

"For actually listening to me last night and not...trying to fix me or whatever." Riley leans back in her seat, then looks over at him. "I know you don't agree with what I said last night and that you wanted to say something and try and change my mind, and it means a lot to me that when I asked you not to you respected that."

Oh.

Now Lucas just feels like a tool for wanting to broach the subject in the first place.

Riley thinks his silence on the issue was him respecting her wishes (and how low is the bar that that alone is enough to mean a lot to her? he wonders) when in reality he just didn't know how to do what he wanted. And now she's thanking him for it which means he absolutely cannot go back to that conversation without looking like the biggest asshole in the world and Lucas knows he can't do that. He doesn't want to hurt or disappoint Riley like that.

"You don't need to thank me for that, Riley." He settles on, hoping that his face doesn't give any of his surprise or uncertainty away. "My number one job here is to make sure that you're comfortable. We're not gonna talk about anything that you don't want to talk about." He means it this time too. He's not going to do anything that will jeopardize the trust that Riley has been building in him.

"Well, I really appreciate that."

A beat passes. Lucas hesitates for a brief moment, but ultimately reaches over and grabs her hand. "So... with that settled, what do you want to talk ab-," He doesn't get to finish the thought.

Another wave rocks the schooner, only this time instead of falling into each other's laps again, Lucas and Riley hear a shriek, followed quickly by someone crying out, "Oh god!", at the same time that there's a second, anguished scream.

"What happened?" Riley demands as they arrive at the bow of the ship and the root of the clamor and screaming. She's holding Lucas' hand as she pushes through the chaos of caterwauling family members buzzing around a small catering table, but drops it in the same moment she speaks: just as they spot the bright slicks of blood.

Her dad and Uncle Josh are both clutching at drenched, blood-soaked hands. Even at a distance Lucas can tell that Cory's wound is worse; he has a nasty looking knife jammed in the base of his hand. With a pale face and glassy eyes, he looks ready to drop at any moment.

Eric answers as Riley rushes towards them. "Their knives both slipped with that last wave."

"Someone get me the first aid kit!" Riley grabs her father by the forearms. "Let's sit down before we fall down, OK?" She starts to lower him to deck and kneels beside him. She glances back to Lucas. "Help Josh, please."

Lucas darts over to do as told. Josh is already starting to sit, but he helps him the rest of the way when he sees the man sway a little too much.

"Knife! There is a knife in my arm!" Cory's eyes are transfixed on his arm.

"Close your eyes and try not to think about it." Riley instructs. "I'm gonna look at it a little bit. You'll feel my hands near the wound. If anything I do hurts I need you to tell me." She grabs his injured hand and starts to inspect the wound. "Lucas, tell me about Josh. How does he look?" She doesn't turn away from her exam, just asks the question, while doing her work.

Eyes clenched shut, Cory groans. "Take it out. Take it out."

"That would be a bad idea." Riley answers.

Lucas pries the hand Josh is clenching to his injury off to take a look. He finds a jagged gash, flowing with dark blood. "Like he sliced his hand with a big knife."

"How deep? Can you see anything? Bone or fat?"

He tries to probe it, but just gets another spurt of red. "I can't see anything past the blood."

"Get a bottle of water and pour it over the wound to clean it."

Cory continues to moan about getting the knife out of his arm. Riley continues to ignore that and work. Eric tosses Lucas a bottle of water, which he unscrews the lid off of the moment he catches, tossing it aside.

"Are you sure you should be doing that Riley?" Topanga asks. "The hand has a lot of delicate nerves and blood vessels…"

"Take it out. Take it out. Take it out."

"I'm a nurse, I know what I'm doing." Riley huffs, blowing her loose hair away from her face. "I'm not going to take it out, Dad. I'm going to tape it in place. Where are we on that first aid kit?!"

"It's coming!" Someone shouts from the down the boat.

Riley glances over. "Lucas, how is that cut looking?"

Pouring the water over the wound and sending a runny flood of crimson down Josh's arm, Lucas can't see anything that doesn't look fleshy, angry, and red. He relays the message.

"You're only a pediatric nurse." Topanga interjects loudly.

"Here's the first aid kit." Linda arrives bag in hand and breathing heavily from her sprint.

Riley rolls her eyes, muttering. "Because the structures of the hand only magically spring into place when a patient turns eighteen?" She holds one hand out behind her. "Give me some gauze and the medical tape, then take the rest of the gauze over to Lucas." As Linda digs through the bag and provides the supplies, Riley gives her instructions. "Lucas, you'll need to pack the gauze tightly over the wound. Then you'll want to elevate the hand so it's resting above Josh's heart and continue to apply pressure. That'll control the bleeding until I can come take a look."

"Captain wants to know if he should turn back to the marina." Morgan announces.

"Absolutely."

"Riley, I just think that all of this would be better left to the real profess-,"

"There is a knife in my arm and it needs to come out now."

"Dad, no!"

Riley's protests come too late. By the time Lucas can look over to see what's happening, Cory has torn the knife out of his own hand and blood is arcing out, spraying across Riley's form. The crowd shrieks, moans, and otherwise panics while Riley dives across to clamp her hand around the now open and spurting wound.

"Lucas, I'm gonna need your help over here!"

Lucas hands Josh over to Eric and scrambles over to Riley. She has both hands holding some soaked gauze to her dad's wrist, and he can see more blood pushing up through. "What do you need?"

"The knife was in his radial artery. Is there a blood pressure cuff in the first aid kit? I need to temporarily cut off blood flow so I can bandage the wound properly."

"Like a tourniquet?"

"Hopefully for not nearly as long, but yeah."

Linda produces a blood pressure cuff and tosses it over. The Matthews' family falls into a thick silence. "What am I doing?"

"Wrap it just above his elbow and pump it up until I tell you to stop."

All Lucas can hear is the lapping of the waves and the air-filled ghostly puff of the blood-pressure cuff as he inflates it. Cory's mouth is flapping as he stares, white-faced, at the bloody mess Riley is trying to control, but no noise is coming out.

"Stop!" Riley orders. "Leave it there." She lifts the soaked matted mess of gauze away from her dad's hand and drops it to the deck beside her; the wound now trickles rather than bursts with fluid. "Perfect. Now I'm just going to pack the wound with as much sterile gauze as we have," she holds one hand back again for Linda to start supplying her, "and wrap it as tightly as I can with an ace bandage. Meanwhile, I need someone to keep time for Lucas."

"Time for what?" Morgan asks.

Riley doesn't stop working, barely pausing to wipe at her forehead with the back of her wrist. "Every twenty seconds, he needs to turn the release valve on the blood pressure cuff a quarter turn to let some of the blood flow back to dad's hand."

"Riley, he'll lose more blood that way!" Topanga protests.

"Turn it now," Riley instructs softly before addressing the complaint. "And if I leave him with the blood supply to his hand cut off we risk damaging the tissue or forming a blood clot that could cause him to have a stroke. I know what I'm doing."

"I've got the timer." Shawn steps up, pulling out his phone.

"But Riley-,"

"But nothing, mother!" Riley nearly shouts as she continues to pack the wound. "I am the medical professional here, you are merely the uneducated wife of the patient, and if you want this done correctly so your husband gets to keep his hand, you need to step back, shut up, and let me do my job!"

The thick silence of moments before has nothing on the air of stunned quiet that hits the group now. Lucas risks a peek at everyone's faces and finds them all staring at Riley, mouths agape. Topanga looks particularly floored and flummoxed.

Riley works on, breathing heavily but seemingly oblivious.

Shawn coughs once and Lucas could almost swear his voice breaks a little when he gives his instruction. "Turn."

"Quite a day, huh?" Lucas comments as Riley emerges from their bathroom, showered and changed from her earlier clothes to a more casual (and less bloodstained) outfit. After dealing with the immediate problem of stemming the blood flow from her father's injury, Riley had been able to properly evaluate Josh's cut and take care of both family members until the ship's captain returned them to the marina and she could transfer their care to the waiting paramedics. The work had left her a blood-covered mess, but it had also given him, and the entire family, a front row seat to a whole other side to Riley; gone was the nervous, subservient little girl… in the face of a real crisis Riley was confident, calm, and efficient. She knew what had to be done and didn't hesitate to make it happen.

It had been quite the scene to watch and be a part of.

"I know, right?" Riley is almost grinning as she answers. "A beautiful trip on a schooner, topped off with a clam shucking contest gone awry...who would have thought I'd get to practice my triage and treatment out on open water at my little brother's wedding?"

"It's...definitely not the story your coworkers will be expecting when you get back."

"And the day's not even done. We still have the big 'Welcome to the Cape' party at that restaurant in a couple hours."

The party Riley's referring to is Ava's way of greeting all of the wedding guests who have arrived throughout the day. According to the itinerary Lucas had been e-mailed not long after his confirmation as Riley's date for the week, the patio of a local restaurant has been rented for a night of dinner, drinks and 'one or two fun surprises'. By far not the worst activity to be saddled with, even after the craziness of their day. Lucas just can't believe it actually is still happening after their misadventure on the cruise; he would have thought that with her future father-in-law requiring outpatient surgery (and her witnessing the initial trauma on top of that) Ava would be holding court, giving dramatic retellings and frantically wondering how Cory's splint and Josh's stitches will affect the aesthetics of the wedding. Not to mention how the rest of the family felt, seeing Cory in what appeared to be dire straits. Lucas isn't particularly close with family, but he can definitely imagine the emotional journey he would go on if he were to see him involved in a gory accident like had happened today. He's certain the only reason Riley is as calm as she seems is because she's so used to dealing with similar scenarios at work that somehow, she had gone into nurse-mode and saw Cory as just another patient to deal with.

"Are they really up for hosting a party after such an... eventful day?"

Riley flops down onto the bed with a bounce. "I would have thought your bar for 'eventful' would have been set a little higher, Lucas. Aren't you the guy who helped a horse give birth all by yourself when you were eleven?" She turns onto her side so she's facing the side where he's sitting, resting her head on her hand.

"Oh, so you're saying a severed artery isn't an event? Or getting to save the day by bossing your family around? Or standing up for yourself and telling your mom to shut up?"

"You were doing a nice job making your point until you made up that last one." Riley rolls onto her back. "I'd never tell my mom to shut up."

Lucas side-eyes her. Does she really not remember telling off Topanga? "Well...you did."

"I couldn't have."

"Your exact words were 'step back, shut up, and let me do my job'." Lucas recites, watching as a look of panicked realization slides down across Riley's features.

"Oh god." She bolts upright and scrambles off the bed. "I yelled at my mother. I told my mother to shut up." She starts to pace at the foot of the bed. "I slipped right into work mode and didn't even think about what I was doing."

It would almost be comical, although Lucas knows Riley's worry is quite genuine; in a lot of ways he's still getting to know her, but from what he can tell, the part of her with confidence, who can assert herself and handle whatever gets thrown at her...doesn't exist around her family. Something in her still wants to please them, or gets incredibly intimidated by them, or something and she just becomes quiet and small. So for her to have stood up for herself, especially with her mother who Lucas can't recall her even making token attempts to defend herself during the conversations he had been a part of, and especially when she wasn't doing it entirely deliberately (if her lack of immediate recollection is any indication) has to legitimately be distressing for Riley.

He slides to the end of the bed to be closer to her. "I'm sure it's not that big of a deal. Everyone gets told to shut up once in a while."

"Not Topanga." Riley shakes her head. "She's always the one in charge. No one doubts her or tells her to shut up. It doesn't matter what the question or problem is. If they disagree with her, they shut up and deal with it. It's her way or no way at all."

OK, well that sounds a little over dramatic and a bit like Riley is letting her childhood impressions color her point-of-view now. Nobody is that intimidating or domineering. "Riley, she's an adult. Don't you think she can recognize that you were both in a high stress sit-,"

"You don't get it, Lucas. You've talked to her once or twice. You don't really know her. When I say nobody yells at her, I mean nobody. I've heard stories that Feeny got away with it once, but that's Feeny, anything involving him is a whole other ball game anyways."

"What's a Feeny?" From the way Riley stops her pacing to cross her arms over her chest and send him what can only be described as a burning glare, Lucas determines that this is the wrong question to ask. Time to inject a little rationality into the conversation. He hops to his feet and closes the distance between them, gently placing his hands on her elbows. "Riley, I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective."

"I don't see how you can know th-,"

"What I'm hearing you say," Lucas begins, guiding her to sit on the foot of the bed, "is that your mom is going to be very upset with you for standing up to her and telling her that she was wrong."

"Monumentally upset."

Lucas nods, giving Riley the perfunctory correction. "OK, she's going to be monumentally upset with you. I guess I just don't understand why that's such a big deal. I know I don't have the story as to why, but it's painfully obvious to me that she already doesn't think any of the choices that you make are the right ones. You already have a relationship that's so strained that you moved across the country to get away from it. If she's mad at you about this one little thing, on top of the problems that already exist between you, exactly what difference does it make?"

Riley's mouth opens to say something, but closes a half a moment later. She does this two more times in slow progression, her frenzied expression giving way to one of deep thought.

"Your mom strikes me as the kind of woman that doesn't forgive someone she thinks has wronged her unless they come crawling on their hands and knees, ready to jump through an obstacle course of flaming hoops and beg her to accept their apology." Lucas says, threading his fingers through Riley's. "And you strike me as the kind of woman who's strong enough, and smart enough to know deep down that doing that and sacrificing who you are will never be worth it. If you weren't, you would have done your penance with her a long time ago. So you're already at an impasse. It might not feel good, knowing that you've probably renewed her anger with you, but does it actually change anything?"

Riley still doesn't answer him, not right away. "How do you do that?" She asks, voice quiet.

There's something about the softness in her eyes when she looks at him, the sparkling mix of gentle awe and understanding that suddenly makes it hard for Lucas to focus. That's not how women usually look at him. "Do what?"

"Get me to calm down and make everything seem so simple." She replies, adding a tender smile. "You always seem to know exactly what to say. Are you this insightful with everyone you go out with?"

"I don't think I've understood any of them the way I understand you." The response just...slips out. No qualifiers, no exceptions, just the bare bones. I understand you. In that instant it feels like all of the air is sucked out of the room, and Lucas could almost swear that Riley's breath hitches but he doesn't dare entertain the thought or kid himself like that.

Especially when Riley looks away, closing her eyes.

How could he have gotten so relaxed? So stupid? This is a job, not a date. If he doesn't get better about seeing Riley as nothing more than a client he's going to be in for a world of hurt when they part ways at the end of the week.

"I know you probably say things like that to all of your clients," she says, eyes still closed, "but thank you for saying it to me. Even if you don't mean it, it's nice to not feel so weird and out there for the way I feel. At least for a few minutes."

"I don't." He answers, again before he can really think about it. "Say things like that to all of my clients." So much for distancing himself. "And I do mean it. I feel like even though we may not share the same experiences, our stories are the same."

Riley glances over at him, jaw slack. Barely a beat passes before she jumps to her feet, drawing her hand away from his. "I, um, I should call Auggie. See how dad's surgery went. And then I think I'm gonna walk on the beach for a little while."

She exits the room in a whirlwind. Lucas can't even acknowledge what she said or say goodbye, she moves so quickly. And he's left wondering exactly what just happened. How did they go from feeling so comfortable and connected to so stilted in such a short span of time?

The answer eventually comes to him as he falls back so he's lying down, staring up at the ceiling.

Feelings.

More specifically, his feelings.

He's so used to dealing with his clients forming crushes and thinking something exists where there's nothing but play-pretend romance-so used to letting them down gently and keeping things professional on the job-that he never even thought about what would happen if he was the one who started to develop affection for a client. About how awkward that would be for the poor person who's just trying to get through whatever awkward interaction they didn't want to face alone that led them to hiring him in the first place. He's so used to never even having to consider his feelings for a client because he's never seen them as anything more than a business transaction that he barely even realized how much more Riley had become to him, or that he had a problem he needed to control before he had already let them run loose and made an awkward mess of it.

No wonder Riley had bolted from the room.

Lucas reaches for his phone to call his business partner. The call the day before had been a standard check-in they do when he goes on extended trips with a client; now he'll ask for one piece of backup he never thought he'd have to ask for. The speech they'd written together about all the reasons it is a terrible idea to fall for a client.

Lucas quickly decides that he'll listen to that and get his head on straight, and then do everything he can to show Riley that everything can be just as normal as it was and nothing has changed. He can be professional. He has to be.

The last thing he wants is to lose the friendship they've started to form.

"'Cause I've had the time of my life,

And I've searched through every open door,"

"I can't believe Auggie and Ava brought a karaoke machine to their welcome party." Riley groans as the couple wraps up their duet. The party hasn't even really started yet-everyone thought the two had gone up on the small staging area to give the formal speech to kick things off but instead they had started singing what Riley had informed him was their absolute favorite duet, the ballad from Dirty Dancing. "This does not bode well."

"I'm sure they're just having a little bit of fun." Lucas answers, unable to keep from smiling as the couple dances on stage to the synthesized instruments as they play out the end of the song.

To his great relief, when Riley had returned to the room to get ready for the party, she had seemed just as eager to put their awkward moment of feelings behind them as he was. She'd given him what seemed to be a well-rehearsed speech about how emergency situations often amplified and distort feelings, that they were both probably feeling the effects of the adrenaline leaving their bodies after dealing with the clam shucking incident, and that they should move on as though that piece of the conversation had never happened.

Lucas had agreed, happy to latch on to a provided explanation that let him save face over something that was pretty much entirely his fault, and after a few small bumps in the road where he wasn't sure whether he should hold Riley's hand or have his arm around her shoulder as they walked into the party and similar moments of indecision, they're now back to the status quo of comfortable, easy interaction.

"Thank you everyone!" Ava waves and curtsies as the song ends while the crowd on that patio cheers. "And welcome to Cape Cod for our wedding extravaganza! We are so thrilled that you've all made the trip to share in my and Auggie's happiness, and that you've come a few days early to enjoy some of the beautiful sights the Cape has to offer and some fun activities."

Auggie takes over for her. "Now, one of the things Ava and I wanted to do for everyone over the course of the next few days is share the activities that we've spent our entire relationship enjoying together, with all of you. And the first of those, as you might have guessed by our little performance,"

"Our flawless performance," Ava corrects.

"Is karaoke." Auggie finishes, quite obviously, in Lucas' opinion, used to being interrupted in such a fashion.

"That's right everyone! This isn't just a Welcome to Cape Cod party, it's also a karaoke party!" Ava screams and claps, seemingly oblivious to the mixed reaction she's getting from the crowd. Most everyone is cheering, but it's a lot less enthusiastic than they were when they were just applauding the performance or the welcome message. "There's only one rule, and that's that nobody gets to leave the party without getting up on stage at least once."

The cheers lessen even more, but Lucas is fairly certain that the crowd will perk up again once they've had real chance to get a drink or two in them.

"In a moment, I'll bring around songbooks to each of the tables so you can all make your selections and sign up." Auggie explains. "And you'll want to be quick about it-no one wants to listen to a night full of repeat songs."

"No one wants to hear a night full of karaoke either but that doesn't appear to be stopping you." One table over, Maya makes a not-so-muttered comment, though Josh, hand freshly-stitched and bandaged, hushes her soon after.

"And while Auggie's doing that I'll get this party started with one of my personal favorites. So pick your songs, find partners if you need them and let's have some fun! Welcome to Cape Cod everyone!"

Another synth-heavy beat kicks up behind Ava, who starts to dance, while Auggie hops off stage, grabs a large stack of mini-binders and starts to distribute them to every table.

"Hey boy, don't you know I've got something going on? Yes I do.

All my friends are gonna come, gonna party all night long…."

"So…" Lucas can't help but smirk as he looks at the rest of the table. "How does everyone here feel about this little surprise?" He's barely a step above tone deaf, but he can't say he minds the night's new obligation; what does it matter if he embarrasses himself a little? It's not like he's ever going to see these people again once he goes back to LA.

He and Riley chat with their companions at the table, the always entertaining Eric and Linda, who both seem incredibly enthused by the prospect of getting up on the mini-stage and singing their hearts out. Riley is not nearly so thrilled, he decides based on her expression, but she's not panicking like Lucas might have expected. He has to wonder if that's because this is actually quite typical of Auggie and Ava or for some other reason.

After Auggie drops off the small black binders containing all of their song options, and it takes about a minute for Eric and Linda to rush off to get their choice in the lineup because they 'weren't going to risk anyone else getting to their song first', Riley glances over at him in between page flips. "See anything you want to do?"

"I see a few songs I know." Lucas shrugs, not sure that he cares too much. "Did you want to do something together or-,"

"Actually, I have an idea. If you don't mind. As part of your," she glances around to see if anyone's paying attention, leans in close and whispers the last word, "job."

"I'm all ears."

"Now it's nothing but my way.

My loneliness ain't killing me no more."

Lucas has to admit, watching Riley sing her song, going after every syllable in a take-no-prisoners performance, and looking every inch the self-assured woman that had taken charge on the deck of the schooner, that her idea is the perfect choice for them tonight.

Apparently, after their conversation when she was taking a walk, one of the other things she had come to understand was that once she got over the initial panic of realizing that she had stood up to her mom, it actually felt really good to have done it. And now she wants to take a few more baby steps towards letting her family know that she's happy with her life.

Things like rocking out to a Britney Spears power ballad on a karaoke stage.

And when she's done with that, having her 'dedicated and handsome' boyfriend dedicating a song to her and putting on a bit of a show for everyone.

Well...Lucas is more than happy to do that.

Especially after she more than nails the execution of her part of the plan. Riley finishes her song on a high note, to the applause and cheers of Auggie and Ava's friends and some uncomfortable looks shared between many of her present family members. She bounces off the stage, a broad smile on her face.

While Auggie and Ava do their duties as hosts and MCs for the night, spouting off commentary on Riley's performance and starting to build up his, Lucas hugs her quickly. "That was great! How did it feel?"

"Amazing! That was so much fun! Why have I never done that before?" She laughs broadly, stepping back and twirling.

"Stay close for part two, OK?"

"And now to sing a song for his sweetheart," Auggie says, using his best TV presenter voice, "Mr. Lucas Friar!"

Lucas hops up onto the stage, grabbing the microphone and starting his song. He only has eyes for Riley as he sings the first verse (as though that's hard), and by the time he hits the chorus, he strides off the stage to grab her hand and start dancing while he sings, causing Riley to laugh and blush while they sway, twirl and even dip.

"If you'll be my soft and sweet, I'll be your strong and steady,

You'll be my glass of wine, I'll be your shot of whiskey…"

At the second verse, he takes her back up onto the stage with him, continuing to serenade her and guiding her through a one-handed dance, until they get they reach the end of the song.

"If you'll be my sugar baby, I'll be your sweet iced tea,

You'll be my honeysuckle, and I'll be your honey bee."

As they dance out the end of the music, Lucas fumbles the microphone back into its stand so he can hold Riley with both hands. He twirls her out, and then in in rapid succession. She collides into his chest, and he can't help but notice the same sparkling, gentle awe in her eyes as they meet his.

The last chord plays and the crowd bursts into applause.

And with Riley's face barely inches from his, and feeling the joy and fun and the sparks that seem to be hovering in that small space, Lucas stops thinking completely.

His lips crash down onto hers.