Best Man

How do you measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee? In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?

In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?



While dusk began to settle around the Bay area, the world was generally a quiet place. The birds stopped chirping, the sky became a little darker, although painted with hues of reds and oranges from the setting sun, and street lamps came to life along nearly barren roads.

Everything appeared to be calm and still. Silent, even.

Well, except for inside Mike Dirnt's household.

There were no lights on downstairs; no sign of life at all on the lower level. However, the noises that made the house sound like a rowdy sports bar echoed and wafted from upstairs.

Giggles, wood hitting plaster with a hard thud, something glass falling to the floor and shattering, several groans and then...silence.

Inside Mike's bedroom, the blue-eyed bassist sank back onto his mattress, his head of brown hair, highlighted with some blonde, resting against his pillow as he grinned happily up at his girlfriend of one year, Caroline Woods, as she bit her bottom lip and fell back beside him, curling into his side.

"Mmm," she sighed, running her fingers about his bare chest.

Mike turned his head and smiled at her as he watched how she stared at his skin; some strands of her dark hair falling in her face. "I'll second that."

"Have I wished you a happy birthday yet?" Caroline asked, lifting her head to meet his gaze.

"Yes. And in more ways than one, if I recall."

The two of them shared a mutual smirk and soft laugh.

"Sorry about the lamp," she apologized; her smirk not fading one iota.

Mike looked to his left at where his bedside lamp used to sit, but was now shattered and broken on the floor below. "Eh," he shrugged. "I didn't really like it that much anyway. And, actually, it was my fault."

"True," she agreed. "You did kinda throw me up against the wall and my leg did kinda go phloosh."

"Phloosh?"

"Mmhmm."

Letting out a satiated sigh, Mike sat up a little, pulling her up with them. As the couple sat side by side, Caroline continued to curl into his side, snaking an arm around his narrow waist and resting her head on his shoulder. Neither of them bothered to pull the bed sheet up to cover their upper bodies.

"You know, every time with you just seems to get better and better. You're not taking some sort of female Viagra are you?"

Caroline laughed. "No. You just gets me all sorts of excited," she replied, biting her bottom lip again to subdue her grin. Moving her arm off of his chest, she moved her body and climbed up into Mike's lap and just sat there, looking him in the eyes while dipping her chin to her chest just slightly.

"So, what's it like to be thirty-six?" she wondered.

"Better than I could've ever imagined."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

Placing his hands on the curve of her hips he leaned forward and pressed the tip of his nose to the tip of hers, nuzzling it rather softly. "'Cause I have you in my life."

Placing their foreheads together, Caroline moved her lips over his and kissed him. "Do you think that makes you lucky?" she spoke against his slightly parted lips.

He nodded.

"Well, you're not," she insisted, confusing him a little. But, then she added, "I'm the lucky one." Sliding her hand over his heart she leaned down and kissed the left side of his chest. "I'm lucky because you let me be the glue that fixed your heart that I broke, which I'm still sorry for."

Mike brought a hand up to her lips and shook his head. "Care, don't. My heart attack was bound to happen eventually. I just let the stress get to me."

She stared into his eyes and her serious expression gradually lightened up as she began to smile softly. "No more stress now, right?"

"None whatsoever."

"Good."

Mike focused his attention on her face and taking in every contour; the shape of her eyes, the curve of her nose, the arch in her eyebrows, the way her hair laid against her face. And every time he looked upon her, he fell in love all over again.

"What?" she inquired, her smile still present.

Moving a bit, he flashed her his own smile, albeit impishly. "I wanna give you something."

"Ooh, presents?" she squealed. "But why am I getting presents on your birthday?"

"You're the reason I live, babe, therefore the reason I have any birthdays at all. So, as far as I'm concerned, for every gift I get on May 4th, of every year, you get one too."

"I think I like how you think."

Mike blinked and then turned his upper body so that he could leaned over the edge of the bed without causing her to fall off his lap. Reaching his arm out, he pulled open the draw of his nightstand, grabbed something and covered it with his hand so that Caroline couldn't see.

"What is it?" she pestered.

Mike sat back up and hid the gift behind his back. "A surprise."

"Which I also like..."

Smirking, Mike licked his upper lip and let his face slowly become serious. "Caroline...you know I've loved you since I laid eyes on you two and half years ago in that recording studio..." he began to say as she nodded in response. "And I never stopped. Even when you were with..."

Cutting him off, she pressed her fingers against his lips to hush him up. "You don't have to say it..."

"I know," he replied. After a long pause, he continued. "But you came to me and you brightened my world. You made everything worthwhile and I can't stop smiling over how you chose me when it came down to it. And...I want you to choose me over and over for the rest of our lives. Because I already chose you."

As his hands began to run up and down her arms and their chest slowly pressed up against each other, Caroline tilted her head and gave him a questioning look.

"I'm not sure I know where you're going with all this..."

Without answering, Mike pulled one hand away and put it behind his back to retrieve the gift he'd hidden there. He lifted it up and held it between their faces, causing Caroline to lean backward to see it better.

Smiling, she noticed that the gift was a small black box, and her hazel eyes widened as she placed a hand over her mouth.

"Are you serious?"

He nodded.

As she opened the box, she was staring at an engagement ring with a larger diamond, between two smaller ones, set in a gold band.

"Oh God..." she whispered. "Oh wow..."

Mike just laughed. "I want you to marry me, Caroline. I want you to be in my life, for the rest of my life...and then some." She looked at him and he held her gaze. "That cool with you?"

Letting out an amused giggle, she nodded as she snatched the ring from out of the box and put it on her finger. Throwing her arms around Mike's shoulders, she sighed. "That's very cool."



Tre Cool sat quite stoically on his bed, in his bedroom, with the door slightly ajar as he looked down at a picture frame in his hands.

His eyes seemed a little glazed over as if reminiscing about the picture within the frame and, for what seemed like a long time, his heart ached as he dipped his head down a little further to blink back the thoughts stirring in his head.

"Frank," came a female voice that was all too familiar.

Looking up, Tre found himself staring at his ex-wife, Claudia, who was poking her head into his room and holding the door with one hand.

"Hey," he muttered.

"When are you going to stop pining for her?" she asked. "It's been a year for Christ's sake. You had a falling out and she moved on. You need to do the same."

"Easier said than done," he said in a low voice.

"And just why is that, huh?"

Tre looked down for again but then looked back up. "I wanted to marry her," he replied, shaking the picture frame slightly and then dropping it onto the mattress beside him. "I thought she was the one...and...and I still think she is..."

"Well, your time has come and gone. It wasn't meant to be."

"How do you know that for sure? I mean, if Mike can get her from me just like that, who's to say I can't get her back?"

Claudia just stared at her ex-husband and shook her head. "Are you trying to tell me that you'd risk the friendship you've spent the last year rebuilding to steal back to girlfriend you lost and he got?"

Tre didn't respond right away. He simply shrugged. "I've thought about it."

"Frank..." she muttered in a chastising tone.

"I know, I know...but I can't help it. I loved her so much, Claude. And I...I still do. Caroline was an addiction. And I still want her. Every time I see them together...it just makes me think about what I should still have."

"It's not about what you should have. Frank, honey, from what I remember, your relationship with Caroline wasn't always rainbows and butterflies...even before their was a chance she was thinking of Mike."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You got kinda jealous at the smallest thing, is what that means. Like, you were so worried about the relationship falling apart that you lost sight of just being thankful you had one with her."

"Yeah, right."

"I'm serious," Claudia insisted.

Staring his ex-wife in the eye, she glared. "Leave me alone."

"Frank---"

"Leave. Me. Alone."

Leaning back, slightly stung by the venom in his words, Claudia simply sighed and shook her head as she disappeared from his doorway, leaving Tre alone as he picked the picture frame back up again.

"We'll see who the better man really is," he said to himself.