It's Really Happening

The end of the tour was nearing, and as it came closer, so did the date of the wedding. Needless to say, I was starting to panic. I was constantly on my phone with assorted caterers, florists, and everything else that we had planned over the last few months seemed to have fallen to pieces.

My sister had taken it upon herself to make most of the finishing touches on the wedding venue, but every time a problem popped up she had to call me to ask my opinion. It all seemed so ridiculous, but I started to dread hearing my phone ring.

People on the tour started to avoid me when I was on the phone because more often than not, I was yelling. I hated yelling at anyone unless I absolutely had to, but it definitely didn't help that everyone I was dealing with was a complete idiot.

"No, just…ugh, just do what I've asked! Thank you!" I threw my phone onto the seat next to me and buried my head in my hands.

Luckily, I was all alone in the van because everyone else was currently inside the gas station we were parked in front of. I grabbed the closest pillow and screamed into it for a full two minutes before I threw open the van door and stepped outside.

"Everything okay?" I looked up to see Eris in front of me with a can of Coke. I took it from her and smiled as I slipped on a pair of sunglasses.

"I will be once I wring the necks of everyone I've yelled at over the last three days."

"That good, huh?" Eris chuckled.

"Yep. Total nightmare."

"It'll be okay." Eris put her arm around my neck and pressed her forehead to mine. "We'll fix it."

"If you say so," I replied. A moment later, the guys started walking towards the van but Eris kept her arm around my neck.

"Joshua, I'm abducting your fiancée."

"O-kay?"

"Good," Dave mumbled.

"Douche!" I retorted, punching him in the shoulder as he walked by.

"I'm tired of hearing you yell!" Dave whined. "It sucks!"

"Well sorry! It happens!"

"Anyway!" Eris interrupted. "Abduction! Later!"

As we stepped onto All Time Low's bus, Eris immediately pulled me past everyone and we went into the back lounge, shutting the door behind us. When Eris locked the door, I looked at her strangely.

"Okay, so, I know we're in love and all, but I'm not really in the mood for sex right now."

"Ha. Smartass." Eris rolled her eyes. "You and I have far more important things to do than have sex."

"Dammit!" Alex's voice carried through the door and Eris slammed her fist against it.

"Go away, nosy!" She then gestured for me to sit down on the couch, pulling out her computer once we both had. I laid my head on her shoulder as she began pulling up all of the ridiculous files we had saved about the wedding planning.

"Why didn't I just hire a wedding planner to do this all for us?"

"Because then you'd be no better than a rich snob who doesn't deserve to be getting married." I looked at Eris oddly and she simply shrugged. "Whatever, man. You know it's true."

"Still." I laid my head back down. "Would've helped with all the fucking stress."

"True. But this is what you have me for. Also." She pulled up an internet browser and began looking for flights back to San Francisco. "This needs to happen sooner rather than later."

"Tired of waiting for the tour to stop there?"

"Well, since it technically doesn't, there's no real point for us to stick around much longer, especially when we have much more pressing matters to attend to." I thought about it for a moment and then realized she was right; the tour was stopping in Orangevale, not San Francisco. Somehow I'd managed to block that tiny fact from my mind for the last few weeks.

"You're right." I sighed.

"I know." Eris put her arm around me and patted my hair for a few minutes. "It'll be okay."

All of the guys on tour were bummed to hear we were ditching early, but most of them understood. I made Eris tell the guys from ATL, mostly because I didn't want to talk to Jack. He had been making things more and more awkward lately and I just didn't want to be around him. It was sad, but there wasn't anything I could really do about it.

The next day, Eris and I flew up to San Francisco and met with my sister so we could make a list of all of the people we had to see to straighten things out with. Luckily, she had been able to fix most of the big problems that had surfaced, but there were still some minor details of the wedding that we hadn't even gotten around to.

"Honestly, I'm just glad the fucking invitations went out months ago."

"Really? I didn't get one!" Eris protested.

"Well, that might be because you've been gone for a month and a half." She blinked and snapped her fingers.

"You have a point."

"Anyway," my sister interrupted. "The last thing we have to do is pick a bakery for the cake."

"Cake? Oh, shit. I completely forgot about a cake." The two of them stared at me and I shrugged. "What? There have been more important things on my mind!"

"But…it's cake!" Eris shook her head. "This is the cake you will be smushing in Joshua's face mere hours after you two have finally gotten hitched! We have to find this cake!"

"All right! Jeez! Let's go find a cake!"

Finding a bakery to commission a cake proved to be much more pain than pleasure. There were literally hundreds of bakeries all across the city, and most of them were either too extravagant, too expensive, or just too damn weird for our taste.

"Seriously, who ever thought finding a wedding cake would be this hard?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure who ever came up with the idea was in cahoots with everything else that's been going wrong with this wedding."

"I'd believe that."

After two days of going from bakery to bakery, trying all sorts of different cakes, we finally found one that we could agree on. To tell the truth, I was relieved I didn't have to eat any more cake.

"What else did we have to fix?"

"I…don't think there was anything else." Eris sighed. "At least, nothing that's coming to mind."

"Oh good." I sighed heavily. "Let's take a nap." Dexter yipped happily as he jumped up onto the couch next to me and tried to lick my face. I groaned and tried to push him away but when he started whimpering I had to cuddle him.

Shortly thereafter, a knock came from Eris' front door. Dexter barked as we both turned to stare at the door, and only when the knock sounded again did we actually get up to answer it.

"Well there's something you don't see every day."

"What?" I asked once Eris stepped away from the peephole.

"There's a Shawn Harris on my doorstep."

"Really?" I peered through the hole and sure enough, there he was. I took a step back and Eris swung the door open and before Shawn could say anything, Eris spoke.

"How the hell does everyone in the music business know where I live?"

Shawn grinned and let out a chuckle before responding. "You forget, I've been here before."

"When?" Eris asked with a scoff as she stepped aside and let him inside. Dexter started growling softly at Shawn's shoes. Granted, they were large and pointy and unlike anything Dexter had seen on any of the other men in our lives.

"About a year ago, when you were a bit worse for the wear after a show and I gallantly offered to take you home." Shawn smiled as he hugged the both of us while explaining himself. He leaned down and scratched Dexter behind the ears, which immediately got him to stop growling.

"I have no memory of this." Eris blinked.

"You were probably trashed." I laughed.

"Oh, she was," Shawn whispered in my ear.

"Anyway!" Eris interrupted. "What are you doing here, Shawn?"

"Well, I came by to inquire about Abby's wedding." He put his arm around me and grinned. "You are still planning on having me DJ, correct?"

"Of course!" I agreed. "I couldn't think of a better person."

"Excellent! Now, had you given any thought to the music selections?"

The next few hours were, interesting, to say the least. Shawn had brought over a laptop with thousands and thousands of songs on the hard drive, and although he'd already begun to go through his library for a playlist for the wedding he insisted there was a lot more we had to go through.

He had the most incredible assortment of music, and a very keen ear for deciding on the order of songs within a playlist. It was nice to listen to a variety of artists from genres other than the ones Eris and I had been spending so much time with as of late. That's not to say that I was getting sick of pop punk, but it did have a tendency of getting a bit repetitive.

"This is fabulous, Shawn." Eris and I applauded softly as he began to pack up his laptop. Dexter was now cuddled up with Shawn's shoes and sleeping, occasionally making the most adorable sounds in his sleep.

"Well thank you very much, Abby." Shawn paused in his packing and looked up at the pair of us with a very familiar smirk. "Actually, if you two don't have any alternate plans for the night, what would you say to a pre-wedding show?"

"What are you talking about?" Eris asked.

"Well, I have a DJ gig tonight in the city. It might be good to have Abby see me DJ prior to her wedding day."

"Excellent!" Eris clapped her hands, causing Dexter to wake up and start yipping.

"Sounds great!" I smiled. "Just tell us when and where, and we'll be there." I leaned down and scooped Dexter up in my arms, nuzzling my face in his fur.

"I'll be there with bells on." Shawn smiled and scratched Dexter behind the ears once more before making his exit.

"Do me a favor," Eris began as she closed the door behind Shawn.

"Yes?" I asked.

"If I get drunk again, don't let me tell any musicians where I live."

Shawn's DJ gig was at a small club I don't think either of us had ever been to. And after having been there for an hour, I highly doubted that either of us would go back in a hurry. Tiny, sweaty, people-filled clubs were not my favorite of locations, but after a few drinks it wasn't so bad.

The night could've turned out to be relatively normal, considering the last few months we'd had. Eris and I were just two people at a club, having drinks and enjoying the music that was playing. The fact that Shawn Harris was the DJ and also the fact that we got extremely hammered with him after his set, well, that was back to abnormal.

"We have extremely strange lives, yes?" Eris commented as we were leaving the club. I snickered, rather loudly, and nodded.

"Indeed we do." I continued to laugh, trying to speak regardless. "I-I still can't believe- ha! That I'm getting married."

"Neither can I, love." Eris chuckled as we put our arms around each other for support, physical and moral. "You know what's really weird?"

"The fact that there are two of you?" I asked when I looked at her. I blinked a few times and Eris came into focus. "Or…not."

"No, you silly drunkard. The fact that our lives are so ridiculously strange and twisted, that now weird has become our norm?"

"Yeah well…no?" We stumbled slightly and I cursed. "I'm confused."

"Well, when you were 14 did you think that you'd be marrying a musician?"

"Dude, when I was 14 I was in love with S Club 7. Of course I thought I'd marry a musician. Just, not one that played their own music." I began to laugh hysterically and Eris joined in, the two of us laughing hysterically until we managed to get a cab.

Twenty minutes later, we had stumbled into Eris' apartment and were making far too much noise. We only knew this because Mandy came out of her room (for once) and politely told us to shut the fuck up.

Trying to be nice, we retired into Eris' room with Dexter and closed the door behind us. I immediately collapsed on her bed and sighed loudly.

"I miss Josh." Eris laid down next to me and chuckled.

"And I miss Al-Zack." She coughed nonchalantly and repeated, "Zack."

"…What?"

"Nothing, go to sleep."