“Cheers!” Luka was the first to join in, clinking his second bottle of pale ale against her cider. 

One by one, the others standing in Luka's kitchen did the same. Lana with her glass of red wine, Ash with his can of coke, and Jayne with her lemon lime bitters. The five friends were celebrating not only Lana and Elliot's upcoming nuptials, but also Ash’s recent promotion, Jayne purchasing a new home, and Luka… well, Luka celebrated every day like it was his last.

“So, when's the housewarming party?” Luka asked Jayne, who had only just arrived with Ash after the two finished playing indoor futsal earlier. 

Jayne pushed up the sleeves of her blue sports jacket. “Give me time to buy some furniture first. I'm sleeping with the mattress on the floor at the moment.” She rubbed her tired golden-hazel eyes, the discomfort of sleeping on the floor the last couple of nights showing on her face.

“Why not use Lana's old bed frame?” Ash asked, crossing his muscular arms over his dark red shirt and turning his lime-green eyes towards Lana. 

“I'm sorry, Jayne,” Lana started explaining with an apologetic tone. “I'm leaving my old bed here for Luka's new roommate.”

Jayne gave a dismissive wave, showing her best friend there was no need to apologise. “All good in the hood.”

“Besides,” Luka interjected. “It's too much of a bother to disassemble, transport, and reassemble the bed frame.”

“True that!” Elliot agreed with an enthusiastic chirp. “Do you know how long it took us to build our new bed? Two hours. Two whole hours!!”

Elliot held up two fingers on her left hand and ferociously waved them around for everyone to see, as if her friends had no idea how to quantify the number.

“The instructions were quite difficult to read,” Lana added, calmly taking a sip from her glass of wine. 

“Needless to say—” Elliot's pink lips curled into a cheeky smile. “—we put the bed to good use right after we built it, if you know what I mean.” With a wiggle of her eyebrows and a little nudge of her elbow, Elliot managed to make her fiancée’s face turn a darker shade than her drink.

“Elliot!” Lana whined, trying to hide her embarrassment with her hands. It didn’t work.

“Nice!” Luka offered the young blonde a high-five, which she happily accepted before lowering her own hand for him to slap down upon.

“Remember Lana, this is the woman you're choosing to marry next year,” Jayne reminded her with a smirk. 

“Damn right I am!” Elliot lovingly wrapped her freckled arms around her fiancée's slender tan body, resting her head on Lana's shoulder. “And it's the best decision Lana's ever made!”

“Oh, Elliot.” This time Lana whispered her lover's name sweetly, bringing her hand up and resting it over Elliot's. Their matching green and yellow garnet rings shimmered under the kitchen light. Even though Elliot was loud, rambunctious, and a little eccentric, Lana found her energetic, endearing, and downright adorable. 

“Is this what the rest of my life will be like from now on? Filled with innuendos and hugs?” Lana sighed. 

“So, nothing new?” Luka joked. 

“Nothing new,” Elliot affirmed. 

“And what about you, Ash?” Lana decided to change the topic. 

“Hm?” 

“When do you start your new job?” 

For the past four years, Ash had been the leader of Luka's communications team at the publishing company where they both worked. After being in the role for so long, Ash was ready to move on to the next stage of his career. With a bit of research and a lot of networking, a position as project manager opened up and Ash was practically offered the role on a silver platter. 

Although both men started at the company around the same time, Ash had been actively climbing the corporate ladder whilst Luka stayed exactly where he was seven years ago. Not that he had a problem with that. 

“I start next year,” Ash responded. “We're starting interviews for my replacement soon and then I'm supposed to train them for a while. Then I'm going on holiday for three weeks in December.”

“It’s about time you took a proper holiday,” Luka said. “This guy has nearly 30 days of leave banked up!”

“That's a lot!” Jayne exclaimed. 

“How nice it must be to have a job that accumulates leave,” Lana sighed. Being a self-employed business owner of a cozy little cafe meant that if she didn't work, she didn't get paid. Even so, she wouldn't give up her cafe for anything in the world. 

Well, almost anything.

“Yeah!” Elliot agreed.

“I still think Luka should have applied for my old job.” Ash gave his best friend a long side-eye.

Luka gave a casual shrug before finishing his beer. 

“Nah, I'm good,” he said. 

“Why didn't you apply?” Jayne asked. 

“Because he's, quote unquote, lazy.” Ash lifted his hands up and gestured two quotation marks with his fingers. 

“That checks out,” Elliot joked, reaching for her fiancée's drink and giving it a try before promptly scrunching her face and placing it back down. 

“Hey!” Luka began his defence. “I'm not lazy, I just don't want Ash’s boring old job of managing people.”

“People like yourself?” Ash added, smirking. 

“I can see why you wouldn't want that,” Jayne agreed. 

Unlike his friends, Luka didn't care about furthering his career, owning a home or finding that one true love to spend the rest of his life with. He was perfectly content with how things were. He had a well-paying job that he didn't hate, a roof over his head, no mortgage to pay off, and a handful of sex friends he could call up at any time. Why would he want to change any of that?

“Elliot, are you okay?” 

Everyone's attention shifted to the blond, her freckled skin flushed red and her golden eyes staring distantly at a spot on the kitchen counter. 

“I'm great!” she insisted, her body swaying side to side as she energetically lifted her arms up to prove her point. It did not prove her point. 

“Elliot, you're drunk,” Lana claimed, placing her perfectly manicured hand over her fiancée's blushing cheek—warm. “Have some water.”

Jayne had already gotten a glass out of the cupboard, filled it with water from the tap, and was handing it to Lana. 

“Feed it to me by mouth,” Elliot suggested with lustful glee.

“Not in front of our friends, Elliot,” Lana replied, holding the glass to her fiancée's face. 

“I don't mind,” Luka joked. 

“This isn't about whether or not you mind,” Ash reprimanded his best friend. 

Elliot downed the glass of water before placing it on the kitchen counter and letting out a loud sigh of relief, as if she just survived a week in the desert. She rubbed her tired amber eyes, struggling to keep them open. 

“Wanna take a nap?” Luka offered. 

Elliot nodded with an “Mm-hmm.”

“Oh! But we already washed and changed the sheets on my old bed, isn't your new roommate coming over tonight?” Lana recalled. 

“Elliot can just sleep in my bed if you're worried about her chucking up,” Luka suggested. 

“I'm not going to throw up!” Elliot declared, raising her fists in the air. 

“Sure, sure,” Luka said dismissively while guiding his friend to his bedroom. “You better sleep it off before you go back home, you drunkard.”

“That's rich coming from you.”

Elliot followed Luka into his bedroom. It wasn't the first time she'd been in there, but the blonde had never slept in Luka's bed before. Upon entering, she staggered over to the bed and crashed down like it were her own. Luka had always treated her like family—omitting their first encounter when he had attempted to hit on her before realising she was interested in Lana—and Elliot quickly felt right at home around him and the rest of Lana’s friends. 

Moving his desk bin closer, Luka positioned it beside Elliot's head. 

“If you need to vomit, aim for the bin, alright?” Luka recommended, providing gentle pats along Elliot's back. 

“Mmmm, okay,” she murmured. 

Luka stood up, getting ready to leave, but Elliot's feeble voice called for his attention. 

“Luka?”

He bent back down beside her. “Yeah?”

“I really really love Lana,” Elliot confessed quietly, as if it weren't already obvious. 

“You don't say,” Luka chuckled.

“She's just so amazing.” The ramblings of a drunken woman in love were amusing to Luka. “She’s so kind, and beautiful. God, you should see her in the morning. The way she smiles at me when we wake up next to each other. I could just melt from happiness overload.”

“Uh-huh.” Luka nodded, smiling at the compliments about his friend. 

“And she never gets mad at me,” she continued. “Like, yeah, she gets mad, but she's never really truly mad at me. You know?” 

“No, I don't know,” Luka lied, he knew exactly what Elliot meant, but figured the woman just wanted to brag about how amazing her fiancée was. “Why don't you tell me?”

“Like, I'm such a screw up, Luka.” Her words caught in her throat, her lips trembling. “I've never been good at anything, I'm just lucky. That’s how I get through life. But even when I mess up, Lana doesn't get mad at me. She doesn't belittle me or make me feel crap for being such a mess.”

“Mm-hmm.” Luka wanted to reassure Elliot that she wasn’t a mess, but there was no need for him to say it.

“She's so kind, and patient, and understanding,” Elliot carried on. “I feel like no matter how badly I fail, she'll always be there to pick me back up. She'll teach me how to fix my mistakes. So I don't have to be a screw up forever.”

Luka knew just how much Lana meant to Elliot. Because she meant the same to everyone in his group of friends. She was the mature one, the wise one, the glue that held them all together whenever they were on the verge of falling apart. 

And for Lana, Elliot was the one who would make sure she didn't fall apart. 

Whether Elliot knew that or not, Luka didn't know. But perhaps it was something he could include in his wedding speech. 

“I really love Lana,” Elliot repeated. 

“I know,” Luka reassured. “And I know Lana loves you too.”

Elliot smiled. 

“I hope you find someone you can really really love too, Luka.”