"I hope you weren't hurt badly when that coat rack fell on you," Selina said to Elijah. "And I think it's so cute how nervous you were about meeting my father. But you really had nothing to worry about, did you?"

"No," Elijah shook his head. "Your father is a very nice man. And you and Katherine seemed to have gotten along well."

"Yeah, it's good that my big breakdown was at Gregory's cause I can't imagine it happening with my father in the house," Selina replied. "That would have been terrible. I mean, I didn't even drink last night. Did you notice? Well, not at dinner, anyway, when I knew Daddy would be watching me."

"You honestly think he would judge you for having a drink?" Elijah asked. "He doesn't seem like the controlling sort."

"I know," Selina replied. "But he's like you: he's good to me, so I want to make him proud, and that does not include getting really hammered."

"All right," Elijah said. "Good to know."

"It wasn't too upsetting for you that I invited Colin and Valerie, right?" Selina asked.

"Of course not!" Elijah replied. "In fact, it was nice. I think my relationship with him turned a corner."

"Well, good!" Selina said. "That's what I hoped would happen when I invited him," Selina said. "Now, what was it that you did with all the stuff you said you wanted to put in a garage sale? I don't see it around anymore."

"I took it to antique shops instead," Elijah replied. "Cause I thought a yard sale might lead to unwelcome curiosity about what we are. There's a reason why I chose a house to live in that was so far away from everything: the lack of pesky and inquisitive visitors."

"You know, you make a very good point," Selina replied. "What you did was probably for the best." She paused. "Can I ask why we needed to empty the house now? I told you when you came up with the idea that it was unnecessary cause we have ample room for all our crap."

"Be that as it may," Elijah said, "our family is still growing and for all you know, we could run out of space someday if we don't sort things now."

"Hey, before you start planning out what's gonna happen with our next ten kids or however many you think I'm gonna have, remember that you still have two years before I get pregnant with the next one," Selina reminded him. "I said we could start talking about it when Ethan hit eighteen and that's what I'm sticking with."

"Even if he gets out of the house before that?" Elijah asked.

"What do you mean 'before that'?" Selina asked. "Are you going to encourage him to move in with Jeffrey or something just so we'll have an empty house?"

"Well, of course not!" Elijah replied. "But you never know what will happen with kids, especially when they start looking for freedom a lot earlier than before."

"Okay," Selina nodded. "Sure. Whatever."

"Are you mad at me?" Elijah asked. "What did I say?"

"I'm not mad at you," Selina replied. "Everything is all right."

"Good," Elijah said. "And speaking of Ethan, he seems to have taken to his work quite well. Everyone is pleased to have him there."

"Well, that's good," Selina replied. "So you're happy and he's happy. How nice."

"Yeah," Elijah replied. "I know." He then noticed Ethan coming down the stairs. "Are you going to be ready to go to work after school today?" He asked.

"Oh, yes!" Ethan smiled. "I can't wait."

"Do you need one of us to drive you there, or can you handle it yourself?" Selina asked.

"I can handle it," Ethan replied. "Don't worry. Oh, and I won't be home for dinner because my boss said he wanted to go out."

"All right," Selina nodded. "I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for telling me."

"You're welcome," Ethan replied. Then, as he heard the roar of Jeffrey's motorcycle outside, he grabbed his coat and bag, kissed his mother, and headed outside.

While it was clear that his new job was working wonders for Ethan's relationship with his father, the same could not be said about its effect on his relationship with Jeffrey.

"You wanna go out to dinner tonight or something?" Jeffrey asked him as they pulled into school.

"Oh, I can't," Ethan replied apologetically as he got off the bike. "I have a work thing. Maybe some other time, though."

"Is it just me, or is this job of yours taking up way too much of your time?" Jeffrey asked. "And why does your old man have you working anyway? Doesn't he know that you're just a kid?"

"I asked him for the job, Jeffrey," Ethan said patiently. "It's to help pay for a car."

"A car?" Jeffrey repeated. "What do you need a car for when I can drive you around on the bike?"

"Don't get me wrong," Ethan said. "I appreciate when you give me rides. In fact I love it cause it's the only time I really get to be close to you all day. But sometimes, I'd like to drive you around instead of you just doing everything for me. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No," Jeffrey sighed. "I guess not. I'm sorry for getting so worked up. I just have this fear that your father is gonna try and separate us, and I don't want that."

"I don't want it either," Ethan replied. "And I don't think it's gonna happen." They gave each other a quick kiss before heading into school where they parted ways, with Jeffrey going to Auto Tech and Ethan meeting Lisa to go to English.

On the way home, Jeffrey was silent and kept his eyes straight ahead.

"Are you all right?" Ethan asked. "Come on, talk to me."

"I have to keep my eyes on the road!" Jeffrey snapped. "Not all of us are lucky enough to be indestructible like you."

"Well, all right," Ethan sighed. "You do what you need to, then." He was glad when Jeffrey finally dropped him off and he got the keys to his mother's car so he could drive to his work party in complete solitude, telling himself that he'd done nothing wrong accepting the job, and that Jeffrey was just gonna have to deal with being without him for a little while every so often cause he had nothing to feel guilty about, and no intention of quitting.

"And there we are," Charlie said as he got the last piece of furniture (the new kitchen table) in place. He then sat down and looked around at their Art Deco style designed house. They'd originally planned to let the person who'd owned the house first be the one to choose the decorating scheme (so Elizabeth would have more say over the decoration of her house, and Charlie would have say over the decoration of his house), but that just led to way too many fights, so they decided to compromise instead. "Look at this," he told Elizabeth. "We did it! We finally got our tastes to come together in a way that made us not want to kill each other! Doing your house later will be so much easier!"

"And that's quite an accomplishment for both of us," Elizabeth nodded, finally feeling like she lived in Charlie's house too and it wasn't just some bachelor pad. "Considering all the difficulties we had."

"No kidding," Charlie replied and took her in his lap. "It was a brilliant idea of yours to just have us get new furniture that we both agreed on for all the main rooms instead of just having continual standoffs over our old stuff."

"Yep," Elizabeth nodded. "And it was good thinking on your part to have us each take a room where we can put the things we don't want to part with, but that we know would drive each other nuts if we had to look at it."

"On that subject," Charlie told her, "I'm really sorry that I lost my temper and broke that vase of yours. That wasn't very nice of me."

"Apology accepted," Elizabeth replied and kissed him. "I'm sorry for throwing away your singing fish."

"I accept your apology too," Charlie smiled and picked her up.

"Where are we going?" Elizabeth asked.

"To try out our new bed!" Charlie told her. "I'm still a little nervous about it since you refused to test it out in the store."

"What sort of a nut has sex in bed in the middle of a furniture store?" Elizabeth cried as he plopped her down on the mattress. "It's indecent!"

Charlie chuckled. "You know, you sound like your dad. And when I said we should test it, I didn't mean that we should have sex in the middle of the store. Jumping up and down on the bed just to see if it would hold our weight would have been enough."

"That's not much better," Elizabeth replied. "I wouldn't have done that in public either!"

"Well, now that we're in private, what will you do?" Charlie asked, pulling her to him."

"Oh," Elizabeth removed her dress and unzipped Charlie's pants after leaning forward to kiss him. "Now that we're all alone, I can do all sorts of things."

"How about you show and don't tell?" Charlie smiled.

"How about you hush?" Elizabeth chuckled as she pushed him back on the mattress, and felt him slip into her as he pulled her against his warm, hard body.