Best Man

This was it.

The first day of the rest of their lives.

What everything had been building up to.

The wedding of Michael Pritchard and Caroline Woods.



Waking up to an alarm clock, all alone in Mike's and her king-sized, canopy bed, Caroline stretched her arms out at her sides and shimmied her body about as she yawned quite loudly.

A smile played upon her lips.

Today, I marry the love of my life, she thought happily.

Rolling over to her right, she grabbed the two pillows from his side of the bed and inhaled the leftover smell of his shampoo and his own natural scent that made her just about quiver.

Biting her bottom lip and peering over he curve of the pillows to the window a few feet away, she watched how the sunlight flickered from the breeze blowing about the branches of the palm tree outside so that the shadows danced with the light on the bedroom floor.

Sitting up, adrenaline kicked in because she was still a bit tired from the night before, even though she'd gone to bed early.

She'd simply been tossing and turning all night from anticipation.

Throwing her feet over the side of her bed, she padded across the floor and out of the room, into the hallway, as she began to pound her balled up fists on the walls.

"If you aren't awake already, you are now! Rise and shine! I'm getting married today!" she announced in her concert voice.

Adrienne and Claudia both piled out of one room, clearly having been awake for a while now as they greeted the bride with identical smiles. Estelle grumpily stumbled out of her bedroom which she'd shared with Timmy, who mirrored the twelve-year-old's sentiment.

"I don't do mornings so bare with me," Timmy commented.

Giselle and Julie, along with Myla and Lauren all walked out of the remaining two rooms to join Caroline in the hallway.

"Nice to see everyone," Caroline smiled. "I'm gonna go take a shower now, and everyone should try and do the same because the stylists are coming to do our hair in an hour along with our make-up."

"Do I get make-up?" Estelle wondered, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Maybe a little."

That simple answer was good enough for the preteen as she scrambled to claim her bathroom and get into the shower first, locking Timmy out.

"Aw, fucknuts," the nearly 23-year-old complained. "Don't take too long, okay, Estelle?"

With a nod of her head, Caroline went to her own shower and then threw on a simple pair of sweat pants and a button-up shirt as she dried her hair and waited for the stylists.

And sure enough, they were at the Pritchard residence at eight in the morning, exactly.

There was a team of them. One for every woman there.

They were all getting pampered and beautified; going all out to be just as beautiful as the bride who watched everyone with silently contented eyes.



Meanwhile, a block away at the Armstrong residence, all the guys were just waking up and fighting over the bathrooms as fanatically as the women had been doing, except for Mike who'd been given access to the master bath, first.

Getting dressed in his black suit, Mike frowned as he held his white tie in his hands when he heard a knock at the door. His hands were shaking as he looked at his reflection; muttering a quick 'come in' to whoever it was, and thankful that it was Billie Joe.

"How you doin' in here?" the green-eyed man asked with a smile.

"I...I c-can't get this. I can never figure it out for the fucking life of me," Mike bit out angrily.

"Whoa, dude. Chill. It's just a necktie."

"But I can never do it right. I've worn ties all my life but I always have someone putting it on for me. And no matter how many times someone tries to show me how to do it, I can't grasp it, as if it's some form of fucking rocket science."

Billie Joe tilted his head and frowned. "Mike," he began softly, taking the tie from his taller friend's grasp. "Take it easy. Okay?" Then reasked, "How you doin'? I mean, really."

"I'm scared."

"About what? What's there to be scared about?"

"Caroline doesn't deserve me. I keep almost dying. She needs a man who's stronger and can promise her marriage that'll last the next fifty years or more..."

"Caroline loves you, Mike. Don't lose sight of that," Billie Joe spoke, putting the tie around his own neck and loosening it so that he could take it back off to put around Mike's neck. "The two of you are so meant for each other it makes me sick."

Mike snickered as his shorter friend reached out and placed the tie around his head and then tightened it for him.

"I just don't know...I look back at my marriages with Ana and Sarah and they didn't last. And I don't wanna go through with a marriage if it's not going to last."

"You're gonna be fine, Mike. You've just got a case of cold feet, which is weird considering you're the one who's wanted to marry Care since the first time you probably saw her, am I right?"

"Basically."

"See? Like I said; you'll be fine. Just take a few deep breaths and remind yourself that Caroline is at your house with a gaggle of women, getting all pretty, and waiting to become your wife."

Mike sighed and nodded. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

Billie Joe grinned and patted Mike on the arm. "Good," he muttered. "'Cause our limo's here."



Guests were filing into the church one, two and three at a time while Mike stood in the basement of the church in one of the Sunday school rooms where Billie Joe and the other ushers were waiting, when Shawn came into the room from wherever he'd disappeared to not a few moments before, in order to announce that the girls had all arrived in the second limo and were being lead to the mother's room that was off the side of the narthex.

Caroline was feeling flustered as she stood there in her wedding gown, pacing back and forth; doing her best to see clearly through her veil which had been lowered in front of her face.

"Honey, you look so beautiful," Joanne cooed at her daughter.

Caroline simply frowned, but thanked her mother as Giselle trailed behind her to make sure that the dress was fine and nothing was snagged.

And suddenly Caroline stopped pacing when a new presence was added to the room.

Tre.

"Oh, good," Joanne sighed. "For a moment I thought you were Mike."

"What's up?" Paul asked the one-time candidate for his future son-in-law.

"I wanted to know if I could talk to Caroline alone for a few minutes."

"But the wedding starts soon," Joanne began to protest, as Giselle pulled at her mother's arm, trying her best to avoid eye contact with Tre; her boyfriend who she hadn't truly made amends with since their fight a month before.

"It's okay, mom. The wedding can't start without the bride. When Caroline's ready, we'll be ready."

Caving in when she saw Caroline's nod, Joanne began to shoo everyone from the mother's room and into the narthex to give Tre alone time with the bride.

"So, it's your big day," he began lamely.

"Yep."

An awkward moment passed between them.

"I'm sorry, Caroline," he finally said; the words escaping his lips surprising her to the core.

"Go on..."

"I'm sorry for the tension I caused because of what I thought I still felt for you. I'm sorry for what I did that night in your house back in Buffalo; for kissing you like that. I shouldn't have. I had no right."

"No, you didn't," she agreed.

Bowing his head, he reached out and took her hands in his. "I've been such an ass to believe there would ever be another moment for us. But that moment died two years ago and I've finally accepted it."

"What brought about your epiphany?"

"Giselle," he replied. "We haven't really spoken in a month. And I miss talking with her. I told her to leave me alone until she could come to terms with her own past, like you did, because I was sick of her picking apart my life and my problems, but that's what I need. I need her to analyze me, because it showed me that she's been the only one in my life to really understand me and I want her so much, Care. I love her. I love Giselle."

Caroline's heart broke for Tre as he rambled; tears in his eyes.

"Oh, Frank," she tsked, feeling for him. And in a gentle gesture, she took one of her hands back and cupped the back of his neck with it; pulling his close to her in a hug as she kissed his cheek. "I'm so happy for you."

"What do I do? How do I say I'm sorry to her?"

"By telling her what you told me," Caroline replied. "That's all you can do."

Leaning into her kiss, Tre closed his eyes and reached out both arms to hug her close.

"Can we ever be just friends?" he murmured in an airy tone.

"That's all I've been waiting for."

The pair stood their in an embrace that was long expected and Caroline felt for the first time that things would get better.

This was to be the best time of her life.

She was gonna marry the man she loved and share the rest of her days with him.

And it didn't matter what anyone thought about anything anymore as long as Mike was at her side.

Pulling back abruptly, Caroline looked Tre in the eye. "Where's Mike?"

"Downstairs in a Sunday school room with the other guys. Why?"

"Take me to him."

"Uh...isn't that bad luck?"

"I don't believe in superstition. I believe in Mike and me."

Tre hesitated, then shrugged. "If that's what you want."

"It is," she assured.

"Okay. C'mon." Taking Caroline by the hand, he opened the door and they stepped out into the narthex to be greeted by all the bride's maids and Caroline's parents.

"Where are you going?" Joanne queried, slightly confused.

"I'm, uh, taking her to see Mike."

"Wha--what? No. Caroline, honey, you can't see Mike before the wedding. It's bad luck."

"Mom," Caroline began, touching her hands to Joanne's shoulders. "I wanna see Mike."

And that was all she said.

With naught but a smile on her face, she allowed Tre to lead her out of the narthex and down the stairwell into the basement where their footsteps clicked across the social hall's wooden floor and echoed off the walls.

Reaching the Sunday school room in question, Tre knocked on the door and then opened it up, revealing Mike standing amongst Billie Joe and the ushers.

"Wha--Care? What are you doing?" Mike asked, stepping forward as she walked into the room; lifting up the bottom of her skirt so it didn't drag on the dirty floor.

"I wanted to see you; traditional superstitions be damned," she said. "Oh, Michael, I needed to see you."

Without missing a beat, Caroline let her skirt go and ran up to him; throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her cheek against his chest as he wasted no time wrapping his arms around her hourglass shape.

And it was like they melted into one another as they just stood there in a sweet embrace, while the others looked on.

"Uh, guys, how about we leave the two of them alone for a few minutes," Tre announced, gesturing for the other ushers and Billie Joe, the best man, to follow him out of the room.

Once the door was closed, Mike still held onto Caroline for dear life. "You still wanna marry me, right?" he asked, whispering nervously into her ear.

"More than ever."

"Good." Then, after a few moments more, the 5'11" bassist pulled his 5'3" fiancée away from him and held her out at an arms' length to take her appearance in. "You look amazing. Can't even tell you're almost five months pregnant," he added with a shy laugh.

"You don't look half bad, yourself, stud." Sticking the tip of her tongue out and biting down on it as she smirked, she retracted it and let out a sigh. "I was thinking that I'd relieve my dad of aisle-walking duties and that we should totally throw the entire procession off by having you walk down with me instead? Whaddaya say? I don't wanna walk that aisle with you only once. I wanna go both ways with you. We've promised to be by each other's side no matter what, and who says we can't do that today? Who says my dad has to walk me down? I mean, Alex is my dad, too, right? And he's playing the guitar for us. He should be there with my dad, saying he gives me away, too. You know?" Caroline rambled, looking up at Mike to see if he understood what she all said.

He nodded, but was now biting his lip like she always seemed to do.

"What? You don't think it's a good idea?" she wondered; her face falling slightly.

"No, nothing like that. Well, I've just been having some second thoughts..."

"What? About what? About me? About marrying me?"

"No," Mike shook his head with a smile. "About this wedding in particular. The...grandeur of it. I keep thinking that what if I'd agreed to your desire for a small ceremony last summer when we started to talk about ideas? I've seen how stressed you'd been lately about making sure every detail of this wedding was just right. And I know you did it for me, because my previous two weddings were so small. And I love you for doing this for me. I love you so much. But now I'm feeling the stress and pressure for it all. I'm not a showy person. I like the simple things. But I think I was in the thrall of the idea of having a big wedding without realizing it really wasn't what I wanted."

"So, you don't want to get married today?" she deduced.

"Of course I do. I just...I wanna keep it simple. Just me, you...a few witnesses. Some cheesy wedding music and a good party afterward."

"Now you say so," she rolled her eyes teasingly. Giving his shoulder a playful nudge with her right hand she sighed and slumped her shoulders as she smacked her arms at her sides. "So what do we do now?"

Mike looked Caroline in the eye and twisted his lips in thought, as an idea sparkled in both of his blue orbs.