Best Man

Late November rolled around just as the winter air for those States that experienced all four seasons.

In Buffalo, New York the leaves had already turned colors and fallen from the branches they'd been in bloom on during the warmer months. The crisp wind chilled the bone and the overcast sky gave the impression that snow wasn't all that far off.

And walking with her arm linked through Mike's, Caroline leaned against him as she leaned her chin downward to cut back on the cold breeze biting at her face as they strolled along a sidewalk downtown.

It was early afternoon and they'd left their rental car parked beside a parking meter, heading toward the crosswalk in the heart of the city's party district: the corners of Chippewa and Delaware.

But, at the moment, it was just a quiet afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving.

As they walked across Chippewa, they headed into the city's most popular coffeehouse chain, SPoT Coffee, listening to the ding of the double doors' bell as they approached the far end of the counter to check the menu of different caffeinated beverages and to look at the display case of desserts.

"What're you getting?" Mike asked, oblivious to the looks several of Spot's employees were giving the both of them.

"The Mint Spotsicle and a piece of cheesecake," she replied, casually. "I get it every time I come here."

"Which isn't very often."

"Well, yeah. We don't live here. But when I come back..." Caroline trailed as the lunch crowd line moved. "What're you gonna get?"

"Uh..." Slowly scouring the huge menu on the wall while, at the same time, looking over the head of the person behind them in line, Mike twisted his lips in thought.

"Don't say just coffee or I'll cut off your balls and feed them to you."

Snapping his head in her direction, Mike frowned. "Damn, woman. Harsh much?"

"You always get just coffee, no matter where we go. Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Tim Horton's...at home. Need I go on?"

"I'm not knocking your minty spot-a-majig."

Caroline's hazel eyes simply locked with Mike's blue ones and held his gaze. "I get this drink once a year, if I'm lucky. You have coffee once or more a day, every day, 365 days a year."

A defeated expression developing on his face, Mike's shoulders slumped. "You have a point," he answered. "Fine. Let's see..." Returning his gaze to the menu once more, he lifted his left hand and gestured to something he thought was worthy enough for his taste buds. "I guess I'll try the Caramel Macciato expresso thing and...a bowl of chili."

"Ooh, chili. I'll get that, too."

"With your cheesecake?"

"Yeah, why not?"

Mike smirked and shook his head as he placed a kiss at her temple. "You can get whatever you want."

"If I said out loud what I wanted, we'd be kicked out and then arrested for disorderly conduct or something like that."

Letting out a laugh, Mike smiled as they ended up next in line; placing their orders with the cashier and moving around the horseshoe-shaped counter to wait for their orders to be ready. With his hand on the small of her back, as if trying to be protective, yet not, the slim bassist's eyes scanned above Caroline's head at the minimal lunch crowd picking seats at the tables beside the windows. And as his eyes wandered to her profile, his ears perked at the quietly uttered words from behind them.

"I think it's really them."

His hand began to move across the width of her back to hook around her waist and pull her closer, causing her to turn her face up toward him to smile.

"I love you," she whispered.

Locking eyes with her, Mike smiled and kissed the opposite temple from earlier. "I love you more."

"Impossible."

"Ain't nothing impossible when it's me loving you, babe."

"Excuse me," came a foreign voice. And, foreign in the sense that it was unfamiliar, not that it belonged to someone from Afghanistan.

Turning around, both Mike and Caroline looked upon two young men whose shifty eyes suddenly made the bassist feel a bit uncomfortable, not just for himself, but for Caroline.

"Yeah?" Mike spoke questioningly and politely.

"A friend was picking up his girlfriend from the airport and said she was on the same flight as you from San Francisco and then we saw you here, and...uh...could you sign this?"

The guy who'd been silent began to chuckle as he turned his face away from the famous couple while his more talkative friend pulled a DVD case out of the satchel he'd had slung over one shoulder, then handing it to Mike.

"What's this?" Mike asked, his eyes slowly widening in a mix of anger and panic; without needing either young man to reply. Snapping his head away from the DVD case and up at the guy he handed it to him, Mike glared and shoved it back. "What the fuck's this?" he seethed quietly.

"Grande Mint Spotsicle, Grande Caramel Macciato, two bowls of chili and slice of cheesecake?" a SPoT employee called out to Mike and Caroline.

Caroline turned and nodded but then gave Mike a confused look. "What is it?"

"I wanna know where you got something like this?" Mike demanded.

"Online, dude. Don't you have personal assistants or whatever to check on this type of shit? That is, unless you put it out there on purpose."

Watching her fiance seethe, Caroline became more confused as she looked between Mike and the two unknown guys behind them. Mike looked so angry and so horrified at the same time that it was starting to really worry her. So, without waiting for a further answer from him, she grabbed the DVD case away to look at it and her heart stopped.

It was called Having A Green Day and the cover photo had Mike and her locked in a compromising embrace with only a black bar to cover to exposed areas of their bodies.

"Omigod," she breathed; her face red with embarrassment.

"What website did you get this from?" Mike egged on.

"Mike...it's...it's us..." Caroline spoke in disbelief. "How...who got a hold...how?"

Mike took a step closer to the talkative guy and grabbed the DVD case back from Caroline and held it in front of both guys. Without another word, he opened the case up, pulled the DVD out, through the case to the ground and snapped the DVD in half with both hands.

"Hey! I paid for that!" exclaimed Talkative Guy.

"Then ask for your fucking money back, you fucking pervert."

"Mike..."

"C'mon," he said, placing his hand on the small of her back. "Grab your drink, leave the food." Taking his Caramel Macciato in his free hand, he added, "Let's get out of here."

Doing as she was told, and half in shock, Caroline walked with Mike out of SPoT Coffee and outside where they were met with the crisp wind hitting them in the face.

"I can't believe...how did it get out? It was in the house. We never took it anywhere! And we don't have any strange people coming into the house like maids and shit. It's just us and our friends and they'd never take our video from us!"

Caroline was at wits end as they walked across Chippewa once again and headed down the opposite sidewalk for their rental car.

"I dunno, babe," Mike replied, just as dumbstruck. "I can't even begin to think of how it got out of our possession."

As soon as they were inside the car, Mike pulled the car out into traffic and made a U-turn on Delaware. They headed down the road, turning right into the roundabout in front of City Hall and turning right again on the other end of Delaware which brought them to Church Street where they ended up stuck at the red light.

"Mike, what are we gonna do? I mean...I feel like we just walked away from a murder scene that we're the prime suspects in and we're trying to figure out a plan to get away with it."

Sinking back into the passenger seat as if the pedestrians on the side of the road knew what they did, Caroline began to feel nauseous. Hunching forward she turned her head to the side to look at Mike with furrowed eyebrows as they turned right onto Church Street and headed for the skyway that would eventually take them to the exit they needed to get to in order to get back to the suburb her grandmother still lived in.

"I don't know," he repeated over and over. "It doesn't make sense. We made it three weeks ago and it's already online for purchase? Without consent?"

"As if we'd give consent," Caroline added. Then, "Oh god, people other than us are gonna be watching us having sex. People we don't know. Creepy fat people sitting home alone at their computers and void of any sort of relationship with either sex are searching the World Wide Web for porn and buying our video to add to their collection of celebrity sex tapes. Right there with Pam and Tommy, Paris Hilton, Vince Neil, and not to mention Dustin Diamond."

Mike was starting to feel sick now as he changed lanes and checked the rearview mirror; going over in his head the possibilities of how the video got out.

"When we get back to your grandma's we'll call the guys, Rob and try and get some Warner execs on the phone. See what the fuck's going on. Then we'll get a hold of whatever company is supplying copies of the video and sue their asses for everything they're worth...and then some." Bringing a hand to the right side of his face, Mike itched a scratch at the corner of his mouth and then patted that hand atop Caroline's left one. "It's gonna be okay."

After a few moments of silence, Caroline turned to look out her window and sighed. "So much for a nice day out together in my hometown."

Mike glanced at her profile and frowned. "Maybe we should wait to make any calls until tonight when Estelle's asleep," he suggested. "I don't want to come back to your grandma's and start going off about our unauthorized sex tape in front of my eleven-year-old daughter. Especially with tomorrow being the holiday."

"Neither do I."

"But we also shouldn't put it off until after the holiday because God knows what might happen between now and then if we don't do at least something about this problem."

"Definitely."

Turning onto the right exit ramp, Mike took them into South Buffalo which lead into the suburb of West Seneca; winding around the main and the side streets until reaching Caroline's grandma's.

When they'd pulled into the driveway, Mike turned off the ignition and turned to Caroline; leaning over to her and placing his right hand on the back of her neck as he kissed her earlobe while whispering, "I love you so much, Caroline. We'll get through this."

"We can get through anything, right?" she amended a little ruefully.

He smiled. "Damn straight."

Kissing each other on the lips for what almost felt like forever, the couple parted ways and hopped out of their respective sides of the car; with Caroline walking around the front to Mike so that she could walk toward the back door to the house with him.

As soon as they were inside -- their SPoT drinks in hand -- Estelle came bouncing into the kitchen from the front of the house, biting her bottom lip and grinning like her father as her dark hair swished back and forth behind her.

"You're back sooner," she deduced. "Can we go to that Louie's restaurant for dinner? Grandma said if we did that she wants us to bring back some of the sauce they sell 'cause she likes to freeze it so she has it for whenever she wants. And she was gonna let me help her make some pies tonight for tomorrow and wanted to know if I like apple and I said yes and she's making that and cherry and some other ones I forgot."

Estelle had rambled so much in such a short time that when she stopped she took a few breaths and looked between her father and his fiancee, but landing finally on Caroline.

"Uh, yeah...we can go to Louie's tonight. I haven't had their Slimers in a long time."

"Slimers?" Estelle questioned.

"Yeah, it's what we used to call their hot dogs with their sauce back when I was little. Of course, the owners aren't big on people calling them that."

"Oh." Then, without missing a beat, "Can you do my hair tomorrow? I wanna look nice when I meet my new cousins."

Despite the problem eating at the engaged couple, Estelle talking so amiably to Caroline like she was already her stepmother, made her heart swell.

"Of course, honey," Caroline nodded with a smile as she watched her grandma lean forward in her chair from the living room and send her old smile her way.

As Estelle scampered off toward the living room once again to watch television, Caroline turned to Mike and wrapped her arms around his waist; resting her chin on his chest to look up at him.

"She called my grandma 'Grandma' and my cousins her 'new cousins.'"

"That's 'cause she loves ya like a second mom and knows you make me happy. Not to mention she adores you."

"I adore her, too. She's a great girl." Then she added, "I can't wait to be her stepmother."

Brushing some windblown strands of hair from her face, Mike smiled at her, trying to ignore their currently private problem. "I can't wait until you're the mother of our children."

Sharing a gaze for a few moments, Caroline sighed and licked her lips. "I still need to wrestle my demons first."

"I know," Mike assured. "And I'm gonna be right here, at your side, holding the shotgun pointed at them."

Grinning, Caroline stood on tiptoe and kissed Mike. "We'll tackle my demons after we tackle our 'video' demons."

Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he gathered her closer against his body and just held her there; his hands snaking up into her hair as he pressed his lips to her forehead.

"Whatever we do, we won't let them get the best of us. Okay?"

"Mmkay."