Best Man

The atmosphere in the dining room of Caroline's grandma's house was that of contentment as all the adults sat around the table, leaning back and chatting amiably over cups of coffee and slices of pie. The meal had been over for the most part and the kids were in the living room watching some Thanksgiving-themed movie on the Disney channel.

Leaning to her right and resting her head on Mike's shoulder, Caroline picked at what was left of her slice of cherry pie while he held a cup of coffee in his hands and leaned his own head against hers; both of their bellies full from the meal and both of their minds full of suppressed worries and utter chaos.

It was almost hard to enjoy the time for the most part, despite the smiles they were faking. They just couldn't help it. Their minds were elsewhere. So much so it was a miracle they had any appetite at all.

It didn't take long for the duo to excuse themselves from the table and move to the living room where Mike sat on the couch with one leg stretched out across the cushions and the other hanging over the edge with his foot planted firmly on the carpet below. Turning her head from where she sat on the floor in front of the television, Estelle looked at her father and smiled; bringing herself up to her feet and walking over to the couch to climb up beside him and snuggle against his side.

"Wanna come sit with us, Caroline?" Estelle asked her future stepmother who was sitting on the loveseat next to her seventeen-year-old cousin.

Caroline smiled. "Sure."

Locking eyes with Mike for a moment, the 28-year-old sauntered over to the couch and sank down on the opposite side of Estelle who laid down so that her head rested on Caroline's lap and her legs draped across her father's lap.

Stroking a hand across the young girl's long hair, Caroline leaned to her side to rest her head once again on Mike's shoulder as he picked up the remote and began flicking, despite the mild protests from the kids who were watching some repeat episode of That's So Raven on the Disney channel.

"What time's it?" he inquired, craning to see the time on the small clock above the entertainment center.

"6:20," Caroline replied, nonchalantly glancing at the hour and minute hands.

"There a six o'clock news?"

"Yeah. Put channel 4 on. Their news anchors have always been less annoying than the others."

"'Kay." Pressing the '4' button on the remote, Mike smiled when he realized he changed the channel in time to see the weather for the next couple of days, but as the end of the broadcast rolled around, both he and Caroline took a more straight posture as their hearts began to pound in their chests.

"We'll have more on our top stories tonight at 11, including President Elect, Barack Obama's appearance at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning as well as a local celebrity's recent sex tape scandal."

"What?" Caroline questioned, looking to Mike as his eyes widened at the television screen; his face dropping.

When his eyes met hers, it looked to him as if she was going to start hyperventilating when she had Estelle sit up so she could stand up and walk out of the living room.

"What's wrong, Dad?" the little girl asked her father as he stood up as well.

"It's nothing, Stella," he assured lamely, handing the remote off to her. "Go back to watching that Raven show."

"But it's over now, Dad. You turned the channel before it was done."

"Well, then...watch whatever comes on next," he replied a bit irritated.

Pouting, Estelle sat up but sank in the cushions as she flipped the channels begrudgingly while her father followed after his fiancee.

Walking through the dining room and ignoring the concerned mutterings from her grandmother, aunts and uncles, Caroline moved into kitchen and turned the corner to head upstairs to the attic which also had one bedroom toward the front of the house. With Mike in tow, he reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her as she turned to face him, but not look up at him.

"It's us they're talking about and now everyone's gonna know for sure. We haven't even made a move to fix this problem. I mean, maybe we should've done something yesterday anyway instead of trying to put it off until after the holiday 'cause the longer we wait, the worse it's gonna get and we haven't even discussed what this could do to Estelle and how she'll have to deal with this when she goes back to school next week because the kids might say something to her...and you know how cruel kids can be..."

"Caroline," Mike muttered, covering her mouth with his free hand. "Take a breath."

As she stopped her nervous rambling, Mike frowned and cupped her face with both hands and pulled her to him and then snaked his arms around her upper body.

"We should've acted on it right away, yes, but we can't go back in time and stop certain things from happening."

"That's a cop out, Mike."

"Maybe."

"We need to make some calls," she spoke into his shoulder. "As in now." Pulling away from Mike she headed into the front bedroom and to her purse where she began to dig for her cell phone. "You get yours too and start calling...anyone."

Simply nodding, Mike sat down beside her on the bed after picking his own cell phone off of the dresser. And while Caroline dialed whatever number she dialed, Mike punched in Billie Joe's.



"Get the fuck off the couch, you monkey!" Billie Joe shouted at his youngest son, Jakob, as he hurried to catch the phone ringing in the kitchen. "Adie, where's the phone? I hear it but I don't see it on the wall mount!"

"Follow the sound," she replied with a chastising tone in her voice; as if he were stupid. "And stop swearing at the boys."

"It's meant outta love, babe. Meant out of love," he insisted, spinning around and crouching down. "Where the fuck is the fuckin' phone?" he questioned quietly to himself with a confused look upon his face.

Then, suddenly, the sound moved and green-eyed punk rocker spun around once again to crane his head in the direction it was coming from.

"Marco," he said.

Nothing.

"Marco," Billie Joe said a little louder.

"Polo," came a small squeak of a reply.

Grinning, Billie Joe jumped into the archway that lead into the dining room and spotted Joey, his teenage son, running away and laughing as maniacally as his father could.

"Gimme that goddamn phone!" Billie Joe growled. "It could be someone important. Grandma Ollie could've fallen down and broken her hip or something and needs us to go pick her up!"

As the ever youthful guitarist chased after his oldest, he stopped suddenly as Joey tossed the phone over his shoulder; just in time for his father to catch it before it fell to the tiled floor of the front hall.

"Little fucker," Billie Joe muttered, shaking his head as he caught his breath and clicked the talk button. "Hello?"

Silence.

"Shit," he bit out. "Joseph Marciano Armstrong, I'm so sending you to military school!" Billie Joe shouted. "Whoever called hung up and we don't have the answering machine on! Military school, you here me?"

"Yeah, sure!" Joey called, sarcastically, from the living room, where the sounds of Adrienne trying to coax her youngest off the couch wafted through the air.

Frowning, Billie Joe clicked the talk button once more and staggered back into the kitchen and placed the phone back on the wall mount. And right as he was about to pick at the turkey Adrienne had pulled out of the oven about twenty minutes earlier, he felt a quick little vibration in his pocket and the ringtone for the Black Eyed Peas' 'Lady Lumps' going off.

Withdrawing his cell phone, he check the number and pressed the talk button.

"Hey, lover," he smirked. "Was that you that just called the house? 'Cause the oldest of my devil spawn was trying to run away with the phone on me and by the time I got it back, whoever called had hung up."

"Yeah, it was me." It was Mike.

"Ah, okay. So...how's Thanksgiving for ya in Buff-alo? Ten feet of snow yet?"

"You honestly haven't watched any news or anything? I mean, how can you not know what's going on, Bill?"

Growing serious now, Billie Joe walked over to the kitchen table and sat down on the tabletop, hunching forward and sticking a finger in his opposite ear that was phoneless to mute the sounds of his sons carrying on like a herd of elephants.

"What happened?" Slowly, as Billie Joe listened to his best friend go through telling him everything that had happened, he felt his own heart stop and his stomach do flip flops. "Holy shit, man. And you're positive you have no idea how the video got out of the house?"

"Dead positive."

"Shit. Well, uh...I'm not sure I know what to do about this."

"It's not your problem to deal with. I just thought maybe you'd have some idea as to how it happened."

"Well, all I can say is seriously go over and over in your head the last time you remember seeing the video and around that time what events happened around your house that it could've gone missing."

"The last time I saw it was two days after we made it. Tre was over to pick up a DVD Giselle rented from Blockbuster and---" Mike cut himself off as he growled a few obscenities on the other end of the phone. In the background, Billie Joe could hear Caroline asking him what was wrong. "That fucker! That dumbass fuckjob!" Mike growled.

"What? What, Mike?"

"Tre took the fucking video, that stupid shit, and I bet he did it on purpose. Thought he'd take it for his own purposes, I bet...and if I recall he looked nervous when I came home that day. He was probably watching it and whacking off, that faggot..."

"Whoa! Hey, hey, hey...don't jump to conclusions, Mike..."

"I'm not jumping to anything, Bill. It all fucking makes sense and now, because of his fucking lack of sense or whatever, we gotta be nationally, if not internationally, embarrassed! I mean...Estelle, my daughter, will most likely get wind of this and be teased about it in school!"

The sound of something crashing in the background caused Billie Joe to jump and he wasn't even there on the other end, but the sound of Caroline's panicked voice worried him to his own panic mode.

"Mike?" he spoke. After no answer, he repeated, "Mike? You there?"

"Billie?" came Caroline's nervous voice.

"Care? Where's Mike? Is everything okay?"

A hiccup escaped Caroline's lips. "Billie..."

"What, Care? What's going on?"

The older Green Day member was getting freaked out now as he slid off the tabletop and just as Adrienne walked into the kitchen with a curious expression on his face. She was about to open her mouth to ask what was wrong, when he held his hand up to cut her off.

"Care! Answer me, damnit!"

"I...I-I think he's having another heart attack..." came Caroline's deafening words.

And letting his cell phone slip from his hands to the floor, Billie Joe's world began to fall out of focus.

"Oh god..." he whispered.