Life As It Is

The months following baby Amanda’s birth were a complete blur to Billie Joe and Ella. The blur mostly consisted of late night burping and feeding, along with planning Mike and Holly’s wedding in the process.

When the wedding finally approached on in early April, both Billie Joe and Ella were happy to see their two close friends finally get married as well as socialize more than they had in the past few months since their second daughter was born.

It was a sunny day with a bit of warmth, a perfect day for a spring wedding. Ella stepped out of her car and onto the soon to be wedded couple’s house. Her dress in one hand, and a bag with the necessary products that would be needed.

She knocked on the door, making sure to keep balance of the two things in her hands as she waited for Holly to answer the door.

When she finally did, her face was positively glowing with happiness as she let her best friend in.

“Aren’t we excited today?” Ella said with a smile as she watched the thirty-five year old woman retreat back to where she had been sitting in her upstairs bedroom.

“Definitely excited. Do you have everything I need today?” she asked, looking at her reflection in the mirror and then back at her maid of honor.

“Yep. Laura is on her way with the rest of the bridal party.”

“Great. Where are the girls?”

Ella smiled. In spite of all the craziness that was going to happen that morning, Holly still remembered and kept her best friend’s daughters in mind.

“They’re with Billie and your lovely son.”

Holly smiled, not being able to resist a huge grin on her face.

“Now that we have all that settled, let’s get me ready.”

Two hours later, everyone was set to take off to the Exploratorium of Fine Arts in San Francisco . The location where the wedding would take place located around the infamous Golden Gate Park as well.

The maid of honor and bridesmaids stepped into the limo wearing their strapless lilac dresses that were quite tasteful. The thirty-five year old bride proudly stepped out of her house as well, and into the limo awaiting.

* * *
Unlike most weddings, Mike and Holly’s wedding went out without a single catastrophe with either party.

As the bride was nearly ready to go down the aisle, Billie Joe appeared, ready to escort his wife down the aisle. Ella grinned at him as they both made their way to the front.

“We do this often don’t we?” she said, snickering with him as people watched them, anxiously waiting for the bride to make her entrance.

Without a doubt, she did and the rest of the wedding was filled with happy glances, romantic vows, and the sweet kiss after the couple was pronounced husband and wife.

The reception went on without a single catastrophe as well. It wasn’t perfect, but it was damn well close to it. As the reception went on, most of the wedding party seemed to have gotten a little tipsy during the Pritchard’s’ first dance together, the cutting of the cake, and Holly throwing the bouquet in the air while all the Green Day children were being taken care of by other loved ones.

Billie Joe slyly grinned at Ella as she refused to take in any alcohol for the sake of the breastfeeding she still had to do for her second daughter.

“Drop the zeroo and get with the hee-roo,” he slurred at her as she laughed and commented on his bad breath.

By that time, the bride and groom had already taken off for the honeymoon in Europe.

“Let’s get you home,” she said, laughing at her husband again.

The thirty-six year old woman helped Billie Joe up as they went to coat check together. When they were looking for both of their coats, they both noticed the whole rack was moving back and forth.

“Either that rack is shaking, or I’m pretty wasted,” Billie Joe murmured as Ella checked to see why all of that commotion was going on.

Her eyes widened as she noticed why the commotion was going on.

“Laura! Tre! What the hell?” she exclaimed as the two were clearly going at it, almost half naked.

Laura looked at Ella, her hair all messed up and her eyes clearly looking wasted as she giggled.

“Tre was helping me…look for my coat,” she said, looking at Tre with a grin.

“In your dress?” Billie Joe asked, starting to laugh.

Ella shook her head with a smile as she grabbed her coat along with Billie Joe’s, away from the sexually active couple.

Billie Joe drunkenly waddled around. As he waited for Ella to put on her coat and gather up all her belongings, he spotted Tre accompanying a very drunk Laura.

“You no drunky Tre?” he slurred at his band mate.

“No. Someone needs to drive home and it won’t be my almost passed out wife.”

“You’re a sweet guy. Very sweet guy,” Billie Joe rambled. “C’mere,” he said as he landed a drunken and sloppy kiss on Tre as Ella watched from afar, laughing and shaking her head.

“I guess you owe me for the last few kisses, man,” Tre said as he laughed as well. “’Night you guys.” And with that, he escorted his wife who was now clearly more awake than she was before.

Ella eventually caught up to her husband. She was now completely ready to leave the reception seeing that it was now dead empty.

“Billie,” she said, rummaging through her purse. “Do you have the car keys?”

“Mmmhmm,” he said with a sly grin on his face.

“Can I get them?”

“Sure. They’re in my pants.”

The thirty-six year old woman looked at him. “You’re kidding me.”

The drunken thirty-five year old man shook his head with a smirk.

Looking around to make sure none of the cleaning people saw her, Ella let out a sigh and put her hand down her husband’s tux pants in order to get the car keys.

Billie Joe giggled like a girl and pretended to make sexual sounds as his wife did so.

With a groan, Ella accompanied her husband out of the wedding reception. Once they got home, it didn’t take long before Billie Joe crashed out on the couch, too drunk to even try to make it to the bedroom.

His wife smirked at him, stroking his hair a little. She wasn’t mad at him for getting drunk at all. He had stayed sober throughout her whole pregnancy and those last few months with the new baby. She placed a kiss on his forehead and went upstairs.

* * *
A few weeks later, everything seemed back on track. Mike and Holly soon came back from their honeymoon in Europe, while Billie Joe and Ella were continuing to get used to the process of waking up in the middle of the night to their crying four month old daughter.

Ella opened her eyes after sleeping yet another restless but somewhat peaceful night and saw that on the other side of the bed, Billie Joe wasn’t there.

She sat up in bed for a second, remembering that Joey and Jakob had both arrived the night before and knew he was probably downstairs with them. She quickly got out of bed, did her daily morning routine and headed downstairs.

As she went into the living room, she immediately saw her husband and his sons playing with their PlayStation and the familiar sound of a video game filling the room.

“Hey you guys,” Ella said with a smile on her face and a happy voice filling the room now.

All three Armstrong heads looked over at her as Joey and Jakob said hello while Billie Joe had his usual stupid grin on his face.

The thirty-six year old woman walked over and sat on the couch, watching the boys play as her husband gave her a quick kiss on the lips before his sons could notice.

Joey turned around with the same grin he obviously inherited from his father. “I just beat Dad at Super Mario Go-Kart Racing,” he said proudly.

“I didn’t lose, I let you win,” Billie Joe said.

Ella snorted as she looked over at him and then Joey. “Great.”

She looked over at where all the games were stacked up in a pile on the coffee table. “Wow, I guess your dad doesn’t let you play games like Grand Theft Auto…” she said as she fingered through the covers.

“We do and every time we take it from Mom’s house, Dad takes Vice City and picks up all the hookers,” Jakob piped up.

“Jakob! Don’t ever say that word again, that’s a very bad word,” Billie Joe scolded at his young son as his wife stifled a laugh.

Joey shook his head at the two, amusing Ella a bit. “Do you want to play, Ella?” he asked.

She smiled back at him and nodded. After two years now the boys, especially Joey, had learned to warm up to her. She was grateful for that.

“I bet I could kick your dad’s a—butt at this,” she said, laughing as Joey handed her a controller.

“Pfft. I’m the master.”

“Yeah hun, that’s why you lost to a sixth grader.”

“I let him win!” he exclaimed. “Fine, okay. I’ll prove it to you. Jakob, give me your controller.”

Ella turned around to the boys, trying hard not to laugh at their father, who was determined to win.

After five minutes, Ella had successfully beaten her husband at the video game. He groaned as his sons laughed at him. His wife giggled and kissed him on the forehead before getting up.

“Where are you going?” he asked, getting up as she made her way out of the living room.

“Quick breakfast, then I’m headed off to Adrienne’s. She wants to talk about recruiting some more models for the Adeline Street site and all. After that, I have to go shopping for maternity clothes with Laura even though she’s not that far along but is convinced wearing thongs throughout her pregnancy will still arouse Tre and make her feel good,” she said, taking a breath.

Billie Joe chuckled at the last part and nodded. “I’ll look after the girls then.”

“Great, thank you. Come by Rudy’s this afternoon and drop them off at your mother’s or something…even though I think we keep dumping them there too much lately.”

“Nonsense, my love,” he said as he gave her a kiss on the lips again.

Pulling away from him, Ella grinned at her husband. “We’ll finish that later, I have to go.”

And with that, she said goodbye to the boys and was off.

* * *
A few hours later, the gang found themselves at Mike’s café. They all sat together in a big booth as Mike had just sat down with drinks for everyone.

“How does it feel to be pregnant?” Holly asked Laura.

“Terrible so far, I’ve been throwing up non-stop. The sex however, has been great as usual,” she said with a grin as she looked over at Tre.

“That’s uhh…great…”

“Adrienne said she’s coming in a few minutes,” Ella said. “She said she’s bringing someone along with her too…”

And on that note, the ‘speak of the devil’ saying came true. Adrienne had walked into the café with a man a few inches taller than her.

“Hey you guys,” she said, sitting down with him as everyone said hello. “This is Matthew, we’ve uhh, been seeing each other lately.”

Everyone looked over at the five foot eight man with short brown hair and brown eyes who politely shook everyone’s hand. Ella looked over at Billie Joe. He was of course surprised, but something in his eyes reassured her immediately. Over the course of two years, he and his ex-wife had constantly reassured the other that they had both moved on. Now it was very much set in stone and both she and Billie Joe were happy Adrienne had finally began to see someone else.

As everyone began to immediately pick up a conversation, Ella relaxed herself and slowly rested her head against Billie Joe’s shoulder as she was prone to doing at this point.

She was completely speechless at that moment. She had gone from a self-conscious seventeen year old that had no friends, to a thirty-six year old woman with two daughters, a husband, and the closest friends she’d ever have. All of this had happened because of one man. One guy who reluctantly came to her English class late and had given her a bit of attention.

After everything that had happened to her, Billie Joe, Adrienne, Mike, Tre, and Holly over the course of the last two years, each of the six people could safely think in their minds that everything was going to be just fine in their years to come.