It's Really Happening

The morning after our girls-night-turned-boys/girls-night, I found myself walking back to Eris' apartment with a selection of coffee, sans fiancé. San Francisco was cold at this point in the morning, enough to warrant a jacket and gloves to keep my hands warm.

The night before when Josh had suggested I spend the night with him, I hadn't expected an ulterior motive. Once we got back to his room, despite both of us being drunk, the topic of conversation turned serious.

"Abby, why'd you tell Eris and Tiffany I was a virgin?"

"I didn't mean to! They forced it out of me!" I collapsed back on the bed, unhappy with the way things had gone.

"I don't care if they know, I just want to know what you think."

"You know I respect it, Josh." He lay down beside me and I wrapped my arms around him. "I really do." He stayed silent for a moment before taking a deep breath and looking directly into my eyes.

"I know I never asked you before, and it's probably sort of late, but...are you?"

"Am I what?"

"You know..."

"Oh! Uh..." I bit my lip as I hesitated, not entirely sure what to say. "N-No, Josh. I'm not." Josh didn't say a word, he just nodded and I instantly felt my heart drop. For the first time in a while, I wondered if I had done the wrong thing by telling the truth.

"Okay," he said finally, after a few minutes of silence.

"Is it?" I asked softly, tentative of his reaction. There was a look in his eyes that made me question his words. Something told me that he was disappointed in my answer.

"Yeah. It's okay." He closed his eyes and pulled me close, but not even the biggest hug in the world could have changed how I felt just then.

When the hour of the day became normal for someone to be awake, I slipped out of Josh's hotel room and made my way for Eris' apartment. It was a considerable distance for one to walk, but I really needed the time to myself.

By the time I got to her apartment and checked the time, I figured it was a decent enough hour that I could buzz her apartment without really worrying about waking someone up.

"Hello?"

"Eris, it's Abby, let me up?"

"What's the password?" Jack's voice came through the receiver and I smiled.

"I come bearing coffee!"

The buzzer sounded and I wrenched open the door and headed up the stairs to the apartment. The door was open, so I stepped inside to see Eris and Jack sitting on the couch watching cartoons.

"Anything good?"

"Billy and Mandy," Eris answered as I set the coffee tray down on the table in front of them.

"Nice. No Rocko's Modern Life, but good nevertheless."

"Where's Josh?" she asked as she picked up a cup, handing one to Jack who was fixated on the TV.

"Still sleeping. I think," I added quietly. "What are you doing here?" I asked Jack.

"Rian kicked me out," he replied without taking his eyes off the TV. I looked at Eris and she looked back at me before we both turned towards Jack.

"And why did he do that?" she asked. Jack tore his eyes away from the TV and looked at both of us with a blank stare.

"Sex." Eris and I stared at each other and at exactly the same time, uttered,

"Couch." We both leapt up from where we were sitting and ran for the phone, Eris immediately dialing Tiffany's number.

"If you yell I'll kill you."

"And where might you be?" Eris asked coolly.

"In the bathroom."

"Smartass." Eris rolled her eyes and I snatched the phone from her.

"Tiffany, did you fuck Rian?!" I asked.

"What business of it is yours?!"

Eris cackled. "You did! I can't believe you!"

"Like you wouldn't have!" I laughed and gave the phone back to Eris before heading back to the couch to watch cartoons with Jack.

As I sat down next to him, he turned his head and smiled at me. I smiled back as I laid my head on his shoulder and sighed. He put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me tightly.

"Everything okay?" he asked softly.

"It will be," I answered. If I just kept that idea in mind, then maybe it would come true.

"Get up!" Eris commanded when she reentered the room. Both Jack and I turned around and looked at her in confusion.

"But...cartoons!" Jack protested.

"Not you, Abby!" I gave her an even more confused look and she rolled her eyes. "Come on! We have things to do!"

"Like what?" I asked as she pulled me up.

"First, we have to go pick up Couch."

"What about me?!" Jack whined. Eris looked at him and sighed.

"I thought you wanted to watch cartoons!"

"Not by myself..."

"Well, you have to stay here anyway and wait until Zack wakes up again." Jack pouted and Eris patted the top of his head.

"You guys suck," he muttered as he turned back to the TV.

"We'll be back in a while. Don't trash the place!" she called as she pulled me out the door.

"So...what are these things we have to do?" I asked as we drove to the same hotel I had left hours before. I hoped Josh hadn't woken up yet because I didn't want to face him right now.

"No idea," she answered with a grin. "I just thought you needed to get out."

"Thank you," I replied with a soft sigh. "Eris, can I ask you something?"

"You just did. Got another?"

"Do you think I should be getting married?" Eris stopped rather suddenly at a stop sign, lurching us both forward for a second before she replied.

"It doesn't matter what I think. Do you think you should be getting married?"

"I don't know," I sighed. "I want to, but..."

"Hold on," Eris interrupted me as she pulled into the hotel's parking lot. "Wait until I park so we can talk about this in detail."

"Okay." Once the car was off, Eris turned to me and looked me dead in the eye.

"All right. What's going on?"

"Josh asked me if I was a virgin."

"And?"

"And I told him the truth." Eris paused, seeming annoyed.

"And??"

"And I think he was disappointed! Like, I think he expected I was a virgin too!"

"I'm not sure if you should be offended by that or not..."

"Be serious!"

"Sorry!" Eris spent a moment in silence before speaking. "I...really don't know what to say, Abby. It makes sense for him to assume that you had never had sex before, but really, that's sort of a stupid thing to assume."

"What should I do?" I looked up at the hotel out of the window, wondering if he was awake and wondering where I was.

"Best I can say is...give it time. He'll come around. It'll be okay."

"Okay," I sighed. "Thanks."

"Anytime. Now let's go get Slutty McWhoreSkank."

Within ten minutes, Eris was banging on Rian's hotel room door, loud enough to probably wake the entire floor. After a few seconds, the door swung back and Eris nearly hit Rian himself in the face.

"Whoa! Sorry!"

"It's okay," Rian answered with a light chuckle.

"Tiffany here?" I asked with a knowing smirk. His cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink and Eris and I laughed.

"I'm here! Jesus!" Tiffany appeared behind Rian with a big grin on her face.

"Come on! We've got shit to do!" Eris repeated.

"All right, woman! Fuck!" Tiffany sighed and turned to Rian, who pulled her in for a kiss that lasted a bit longer than was typically polite for company. Eris cleared her throat and I tried not to laugh.

"While we're young," I mumbled. Eris cracked a smile as they finally parted. They both muttered something too soft for me to hear, but soon she stepped out into the hallway and Rian closed the door behind her.

"What's the big hurry?" Tiffany asked as she put her coat on.

"Well-"

"Abby?" I froze as I heard my name behind us, and all three of us turned around to see Josh standing in the hallway in a t-shirt and his boxers. Instead of saying anything, I looked for the nearest exit, which happened to be a stairwell directly to my left.

I grabbed Eris and pulled her through the door, Tiffany following even though she was completely confused as to what the hell was going on.

"What was that about?!" Tiffany gasped as we made it to the first floor, after running the whole way. Eris collapsed in a chair and looked at me.

"We'll explain it later," I answered as I exited the hotel towards the parking lot.

By the time I had explained everything to Tiffany, the three of us had decided to wander around the city for the day. I thought maybe it was best to keep my mind off of wedding plans for at least a day, and maybe then I would be able to put it all in perspective.

"I can see it from his point of view," Tiffany piped up as we walked along.

"Come again?" Eris asked.

"From Josh's, I mean. Like, it's probably easier for him to think about celibacy than it is for the rest of us."

"Because he's never had sex?"

"Yeah! Like he said, he wanted it to be with someone he really cared about and he wanted it to be special. What's more special than your newlywed?"

"That's the same crackpot bullshit they've been shoving down our throats since puberty," Eris remarked.

"But it's different when you really believe it."

"She's right," I added. "I really do respect him for waiting. It was definitely a comforting thought when he was on the road."

"I can imagine," Tiffany said. "We all know how fangirls can be."

"Welcome to the world of being 'the girlfriend'. It's destined to suck." Eris chuckled.

"You're so pessimistic!" Tiffany whined. "Enough of you!"

"What are we going to do?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I dunno," Eris answered as she looked at the stores we were passing by. "How about- oh hello.”

"What?" I looked at her, not realizing what sort of store she had stopped in front of: a bridal shop.

"Ooh!" Tiffany exclaimed. "Let's go in!"

"But-"

"You said you wanted to look at dresses, and here we are!" Eris smiled. "Come on!"

They dragged me into the shop and the shop's owner immediately approached us. Lucky for us, there was no one else in the store and that meant we had our pick of all the dresses in the store.

After an hour of perusing the dress racks, I had chosen five dresses to try on. While I was putting the first one on, the woman helping me was asking me all sorts of questions about my wedding plans.

"When is it?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Where are you having it?"

"Uhh...haven't really decided that either," I answered with a nervous laugh.

"Oh." She looked down at the dress as she fastened the back up. "The dress is the most important part anyway. The rest follows the dress."

"I'll take your word for it," I replied as I left the dressing room and went out to face Eris and Tiffany.

"You look like a Barbie covered in whipped cream."

"Thank you, Eris. That's really helpful."

"Sorry!"

"It does look a bit weird," Tiffany said as she stood up and walked around me. "Something about this skirt."

"I like the bodice," I said as I put my hand on my stomach, delicately touching the beaded embroidery. "But I don't know about this skirt." When I looked down, the skirt seemed bunched up in all the wrong places.

"Next!" Eris called out as she sipped some champagne.

"Where on Earth did you get that?" I asked.

"Some chick brought it out while you were gone," she responded as she took another sip. I rolled my eyes and went back into the dressing room.

The next dress I tried on turned out to be way more poufy than I had originally expected. The skirt puffed out at least a foot if not two from my torso.

"I feel like a cupcake," I remarked as I looked at myself in the mirror.

"And you look like one too!" Eris sang back. I rolled my eyes and headed back into the dressing room without another word.

The next time I came out, both Eris and Tiffany were silent.

"Ooh, that's a nice one." Tiffany smiled.

"I thought you were going for modest?" Eris asked.

"I know it's a bit more...extravagant than the others, but I just wanted to try it on." The dress I was wearing at that moment was beautifully embroidered on the bodice and on the bottom of the skirt. The train was a bit too much for me, though, so I trudged back to the dressing room.

"Next!" Tiffany called.

"This is ridiculous!" I called back.

"No it's not! You need a dress!"

"I need to pick a date, first," I replied as I poked my head around the corner.

"Details! Dresses are more fun!" Eris retorted.

The fourth dress I came out in was an off-the-shoulder satin gown that was a little more figure defining and had a lace-up back.

"That one is gorgeous." Tiffany nodded.

"Indeed it is," Eris agreed.

"I do like it," I said as I looked at myself. "I've always been a fan of off-the-shoulder dresses. I don't know why."

"Well, that's a maybe!" Tiffany asserted. "Don't you have one more?"

'Yeah," I replied. "Be right back."

While I was in the dressing room with the same woman, she stopped me just before I left the room and placed a small tiara on my head. When I looked at her with a confused expression, she patted my shoulder.

"This is the one, honey. I've been in this business long enough to know."

The moment I stepped out into the other room, it was sealed. Both Tiffany and Eris went slack-jawed the second they saw me and then I knew it too. This was the dress.

"That. Is. Awesome." Eris grinned.

"Buy it! Buy it! Buy it!" Tiffany chanted.

"Hold on! Let me look at myself!" I turned around to face the mirror, and even my jaw dropped. "Holy..."

"Exactly," Tiffany said as she came up on my left. "It's perfect."

"You know you want it." Eris appeared on my other side and I sighed.

"I do love this skirt," I mumbled. Just then, the door opened and we all turned around to see who came in, even though technically it was none of our business. But as soon as we saw the two individuals who came in, it became our business.

"What the hell are you doing here, Gaskarth?"

"Wedding dress shopping!" he replied brightly as he looped his arm around Jack's neck. "This pretty lady needs a gown!"

"Looks like you found one," Jack commented as he sized me up.

"Hold it right there," Alex said as he whipped out his phone and took a picture.

"Alex!" I shrieked. "Delete that!"

"Don't worry! I won't show Josh. Jeez."

"How on Earth do you keep showing up everywhere we go?" Eris asked as she sat back down on the couch and picked up her flute of champagne.

"Well, last time it was the roommate but she wasn't home," Jack answered.

"So we turned to Twitter." Alex grinned. Eris smacked herself in the forehead and groaned.

"You Twitter-stalked me?!"

"You Twittered about this?" Tiffany laughed. "You geek." At that moment I looked at Jack, who must have been on Twitter at that moment because he hid his phone from view and looked very sheepish.

"As long as you don't send that to Josh or wreck anything in here, I don't care." I sighed. "It's probably good to have a guy's opinion anyway."

"In that case," Alex said as he took off his jacket and waltzed over to me. "I think you look gorgeous." He took my hand and kissed the top of it with a smirk.

"Thank you, Alex. You're a real charmer." I retracted my hand and rolled my eyes.

"Now that we've seen the dress, let's see the honeymoon outfit!" Jack declared. Eris smacked him in the back of the head. Seeing that our group had grown, the shop owner came around and asked if there was anything she could do.

"We're going to take this one," Eris answered.

"Then you'll need some alterations, I assume!" She smiled. "Are you busy or shall we start now?" Eris looked at me and I shrugged.

"Start now! We've got all the time in the world," I replied. Tiffany gave me a flute of champagne before she sat down on the couch, peeking over Alex's shoulder as he played around with his phone.

"Oh my god you guys are so ridiculous," Eris said after a few minutes. She had her iPhone in her hand and I could only imagine she was on Twitter.

"What now?" I asked.

"'Jack All Time Low: wedding dress shopping!'" Eris read. "And then Alex replied, 'Wait, I thought I was wearing the dress!' Do you have nothing else to do with your time?"

"Well I could Twitter the picture of Abby in her dress..."

"NO!" we all chorused.

"Then no. Deal with my Twitter, bitch!"