Vegas Wedding

He was frustrated. It had been almost forty eight hours since he’d met the pretty brunette at Lou’s bar, but he had failed at getting her off his mind. It was driving him crazy. He kept telling himself that she was getting married, that she was in love, that she wasn’t crazy for him, so he should just forget her.

“Forget her.” He muttered under his breath as he rolled his eyes. As if forgetting her would be that easy. She was beautiful, with bright green eyes and such a perfect, pretty smile. Yeah, forgetting her was going to be difficult.

“Yo man, where you going?” His bandmate asked as he grabbed his coat and slid it on. Brendon felt like he couldn’t pretend to be watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall anymore.

“A walk.” He shrugged and waved to the rest of the guys on his couch before closing the door and heading for the streets.

A late night walk down the strip should do him some good, maybe even clear his head, and maybe it would have if he hadn’t seen her sitting on a bench. He recognized her from behind, probably because of how much he’d traced her features in his mind over and over.

“Manda?” He watched as her head turned toward him, his heart jumping because it was her, and then falling again as he took in the tear tracks down her cheeks. “Oh no.” He was by her side in less than seconds, his arms reaching for her, begging for her tiny frame to be against his.

“Bren,” was all she got out before the sobs broke through her lips again and she leaned into him for support. He let her soak his shirt with her salty tears while constantly whispering soothing words into her ear and rubbing her back. He was also trying to guess what had her in this position, but he waited until she’d calmed down to approach the subject with words.

“Manda, what’s wrong, baby?” He wanted to eat his words as soon as they came out when he felt her freeze in his arms. She tensed up and all sounds, including her sniffling, stopped. He figured she just wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, but she was stricken by his last word. “I’m sorry, you, you don’t have to tell me. It’s alright, you’re okay.” He started to hug her closer to him, but she was pushing away and breaking him inside at the same time.

“H-h-h-he ch-cheated on m-m-me.” She stuttered as tears filled her eyes again. She shook her head as she tried to get the image she’d found mere hours ago out of her mind. He pulled her in again, this time with his left hand on her back and his right behind her head, holding her as she snuggled into him. He could feel the rush of anger as he held her, the girl he’d dreamed of the night he met her, knowing that bastard of a fiancé hurt her. “The day before we’re supposed to get married and he goes and fucks some girl that works in the hotel.” He felt her whole body shake, partly from the sobs and partly from the bitter laughter coming from her as well. “I’m so stupid.” She mumbled and that’s when he couldn’t take it. He pulled her away from his body, with quite an effort, so that he could cup her face in his hands and stare her in her beautiful green eyes.

“I’ve known you for two days and I can see that you are far from stupid. You’re amazing and gorgeous, and he’s a douche bag I’m going to beat up.” She laughed at that, giggled really, making him smile.

“As much as I love the offer, he’d kick your ass.” She rolled her eyes and her voice took on a sad tone. She quickly noticed his hurt expression and tried correcting herself. “Not that you’re a weakling, or anything, but Neil is kind of brutal.”

“He can’t be that bad.” Brendon tilted his head as he watched her head fall back and listened to her gentle and genuine laughter. It was nice to see her looking a bit happier than before.

“Okay, one summer, I took Neil to Warped Tour with Steph and I. He wasn’t so into it, but I dragged him with me cause I figured it’d be ball with the three of us. The three of us always had a ball just hanging so Warped Tour would be a blast. Anyway, we went, and, uh, it was in between sets when I went to get a water and this guy came up and started hitting on me while I was standing in line. I didn’t know at the time, but apparently Steph and Neil were watching me from where they were standing, and Neil came up and wrapped his arms around me and kissed me and all that and then turned to the guy and asked if he needed anything.” She stopped at this point to look at him. She’d gotten so into the memory, her eyes glazed over and he’d noticed. She suddenly wasn’t so happy to be telling this story. “The guy was really cocky and muttered something about fucking me apparently, and that really set Neil off and next thing you know, the guy’s on the ground and Neil’s on top of him, bloody mud all over both of them. You couldn’t tell who was bleeding until security came and tore Neil off the poor boy. Then you could tell that Neil was fine as he was escorted outside the gates by officers, and the boy was escorted to the hospital by the EMT’s on a gurney.”

“Ouch.” Brendon faked a hurt face and she giggled at it, shaking her head again.

“Yeah, we found out later that his name was David, and that Neil broke his nose, and one rib, and knocked a few teeth out, not to mention the hair that got pulled out.” She watched as he made another face. “He was very protective, and very brutal.” She added and looked out in front of them.

“I’ll still kick his ass because he hurt you.” His hand went up and his fingers brushed her cheek. “You deserve so much better.” Her lips pulled up on one side as she turned to glance at him.

“This isn’t even the first time he’s cheated on me, you know.” Her words came out a bit above a whisper, but not much more. His eyebrows scrunched together as he waited for her to continue. “We’d been together for one week when I left on a family vacation, went up north and I remember the day I left, I saw him for two, maybe three hours, and then he left to go visit some friend of his. I didn’t get to see him before we left after that. I was gone for a whole week, and when I got back I still didn’t see him or hear from him for another five days. And then he just showed up, on my doorstep, soaking wet with this cute little smirk and sweet words like ‘I missed you’ and ‘I’m so glad your back’ while he kissed me over and over.” She shook her head and smiled, but he saw that it wasn’t a happy smile. “I knew straight away he’d done something. I could feel it, and the way he was acting, I could see right through it. Bullshit. It’s what he was best at, and even then I knew it was all bullshit but, it didn’t really matter. So, a few days later I run into Maddy, a friend of Steph’s and Neil’s, and she didn’t know about Neil and I just yet so she had no problem going on about how great Neil was in bed.” She laughed again, like at the bar, the cold and distant, and mostly bitter laugh that didn’t fit her.

“Why didn’t you leave him?” Brendon felt the question was reasonable, but he also noticed as she sighed, not knowing exactly what she meant from it.

“It didn’t matter.” She shrugged. “We’d been together for a week. I knew about his risqué reputation when I got into the relationship, but it didn’t matter. It was a summer fling kind of thing, we were only supposed to last those two sunny months and have fun on those steamy nights. He was a distraction and that was it.” She repeated the words she’d told her sister, and Steph, and everyone else who’d asked that damned question. “But then August came around, and then September, and we were still together. Still just fooling around on the nights and sometimes mornings where neither of us was working or in school. It just fit for us.”

“So it’s like the proposal.” He interjected but she wasn’t quite sure what he meant. “You said yes because he asked you, not because you really wanted to marry him, and that’s why you stayed with him, because he stayed with you. It’s like a passive agreement.”

“Sorta.” She agreed. “But, after so long, you fall in love.” Her gaze went down to her feet and stayed there. He didn’t know what to say to that, after all, the only time he’d fallen in love was in junior high, maybe high school, but not much love fallin’ since his career had gone big. “You know, I was the only person at the hospital after his car accident. I mean, Steph probably would have been there if he hadn’t been out of town for the week, but not even his own dad came down. He called, to check that Neil’s heart was still beating, but didn’t bother to come down and actually see him. But there I was, worried sick, literally. I had to take several breaks to puke my guts out while he slept from all the narcotics.” She was shaking her head again, slowly this time. “There were so many gashes and scratches on him; I didn’t think he was going to make it. He’d lost so much blood.”

“But he did make it.” Brendon was still a bit confused at how to take this conversation. Everything kept coming back to this man, the man that had hurt her so much, he didn’t think she’d want to talk about him, but here she was going on about how he’d almost lost his life. It sickened him to see her so hurt, yet still in love.

“Lucky douche.” She muttered. “He recovered, and then went on like nothing happened, like he hadn’t almost lost his life and like no one had even cared about him except me.”

“You know, I was in love once.” He took a deep breath in and spread his arms so that his left one casually rested around her shoulders, making her giggle, just like he wanted.

“Really?” She tilted her head back against his arm and stared up at his big brown eyes that seemed to glitter.

“Mmhmm. I was in love with Casey Wilkinson in ninth grade.” He was really starting to adore the way she would roll her eyes with a classy smirk on her bright pink lips. He was still wondering how she made a smirk look classy, but she did it. “We had every class together expect seventh hour, or in my case, economics. She was pretty, popular, and everything I thought I wanted in a girl.” Until I met you, he thought.

“What happened?” She was starting to feel the late hour and the mass amount of alcohol she’d drank earlier take their full effects on her so she leaned her head to the side, her cheek on his shoulder, and her eyes half dropping.

“Well, I asked her out, she said yes, we went on a date, and then I realized she was the exact opposite of what I wanted in a girl.” He glanced down at her and smiled at her peaceful face. She looked so cute with her eyes closed and her nose snuggled into his arm as she giggled and smiled at his words.

“I thought she was perfect.” The one side of lips turned up again. He thought of how sexy she looked, and how badly he wanted to kiss her, already, and then he thought of why he was telling jokes and funny stories, to try and keep her mind off of the idiot who had hurt her.

“Like I said, we went on a date and she opened her mouth and I found out she was an airhead, and a slut, and a prissy Brittany Spears wannabe, oh, and she liked half the football team.” He already had her giggling, almost uncontrollably. “And she smoked. That was pure awful, kissing a smoker.” He stuck his tongue out and closed his eyes since he noticed she’d opened hers just a bit to look at him.

“Neil’s a smoker. My folks hated that most about him, everybody hated that about him. I always loved the way he smelled though.” Her tone was back to sad and depressed and he felt like smashing his head against a wall. He should have seen that one coming.

“You liked that he always smelt like cigarettes?” He didn’t quite understand her, but that seemed to be what attracted him most to her. She was unexplainable and absolutely odd to him, pretty odd.

“I loved it.” She giggled and then sighed. “But the days of cuddling with that amazing smell are officially over.”

“Don’t dwell on it honey. He wasn’t worth it to begin with.” He took her in his arms and held her. Just held her in the peace and quiet, well, mostly peace and quiet. The Vegas strip noises in the background as she clung to his shirt and he clung to her. She pulled her head back to look up at him as he looked down at her.

“Will you come drinking with me?” She sounded so innocent and cute, he didn’t have a chance of turning her down.

“Alright, but my limit is at Jagger bombs.” He warned her. He had plenty of experience with Jagger to know that if he really wanted her to stick around, he would have to stay away from it to stay away from humiliating himself in front of her.

“Aw, but Jagger bombs are so yummy and they keep you going through the night.” She sat up and then smirked at him, a certain twinkle in her eye. “I’ll bargain for one Jagger bomb for whatever you want.” She quirked an eyebrow as a smirk fell on his lips, wondering what on earth he could be thinking.

“Alright, one Jagger bomb for what I want, which I don’t know yet what exactly it is I want. That work for you?” He was praying she said yes. If she did, he’d have his kiss by the end of the night, and maybe a bit more, or maybe he’d drink the Jagger and end up sucking face with some whore on the side of the road. He shuddered at that thought.

“Works perfect!” She grinned and jumped up from the bench. “Now let’s find a kick ass bar to get our first Jagger bomb.” She started to wipe at her eyes, trying to clean up the makeup she was sure was smudged all over her face. He thought she looked cute.

“First and only.” He added and she just shrugged before grabbing his hand and pulling him off the bench along with her.

“We’ll see about that.” She squeezed his hand and he felt his heart throb. Tonight was going to be a long one, and Brendon was hoping for a very good and long one. She was just hoping to forget about her fiancé and cleanse herself of her awful Vegas trip.