A Night to Last a Lifetime

The day seemed to drag on forever. The press release was really rough on everyone, especially Jeff. Being in the public’s eye, everybody watches everything he says and does. For something like this to happen to someone who is generally seen as a child is crazy. He was going to take a lot of shit for what happened, which didn’t really seem fair seeing how he did just lose his child. When Gabe said that they were going to go out for the night it was completely understandable and I needed some time with Tori, anyway.

We hung out most of the night looking at wedding magazines and different web sites. Tori thought that we should have my wedding this summer. I had planned on waiting until next year but once I thought about it, it made complete sense. It wasn’t like we were going to change our minds or that we needed to save our money for a year to pull this off – this was happening and the sooner the better I thought.

We continued being total girls and freaking out over the cutest little things. I was so excited to marry the love of my life. We still hadn’t told his family, but the way they treated me when I was in Sweden showed me that they would be as happy as my family was.

When I got the phone call from Gabe, I instantly began to panic. It was very unlike him to call me when he was out drinking – he would usually just sneak in late and crawl in bed. Scenarios began to run through my head – what if they got into a bar fight? Someone could have easily called Jeff out on his situation. What if there was an accident? I was so relieved to hear Gabriel’s voice on the other end, but I could also hear the level of seriousness in it.

When Tori grabbed her bag to leave I double-checked with her, making sure she didn’t want me to come with her. She confessed that she wanted me there more than anything in the world but it was something that she needed to face alone. I accepted her request; I went up into my room and pulled on some pajamas and climbed into bed. I went on Facebook and noticed that Grace had updated her relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’. The second I saw that I reached for my phone and dialed her number.

“Hi,” was the only answer I got.

“Oh my God! Grace are you okay?”

“Yes!” she said playfully. “Matt just did that as a joke. I’m changing it back right now – I’ve already gotten 6 phone calls and a shit ton of e-mails of people saying they were here for me.”

I breathed a sigh of relief – if she wasn’t dating Matt I couldn’t see myself going to any of Gabe’s games. “Jesus Christ, I was panicking!”

“No everything is fine I promise. How’s life with you?”

“Oh, alright. I assume you heard about Tori and Jeff…”

“Yes, that’s so sad! I started bawling as soon as I saw Jeff on TSN.”

“Yeah, well they’re going through a rough time. Gabe and I on the other hand are fucking great! I have some news for you Grace.”

It was silence on the other end. Eventually she managed to spit out, “No. Fucking. Way.”
“That’s right girl. I’M GETTING MARRIED!” I practically screamed in the phone.

“OH MY GOD!” We had our girl freak out for a little while, Matt asked what all the screaming was about and Grace quickly told him.

“We need to keep this on the down low! Gabe’s parents don’t know yet.” Just then Gabe walked through the door.

“Yeah, of course! Won’t tell a soul.”

“You’re the best Grace!” I said before Gabe interrupted me.

“Is Matt with Grace? Let me talk to him.”

“Yeah, here you go! Bye Grace,” I quickly said as I handed Gabe the phone.

“Hey Matty. What’s new? Yeah, he’s hurting, obviously. They’ll get through it though. They’re sticking together through it. You holding down the city all right without me? Fuck you. Yeah I’m sure – you couldn’t do anything for him here anyway. Bye shithead.”

He hung up the phone and tossed it on the nightstand because by this time I was already undressing him, kissing every possible inch of his body. Making my way down to his pants, I yanked them off him. He was obviously drunk and wouldn’t perform up to my standards, so I figured this was my night to entertain him.

When I was finished with him, we laid in bed cuddling. He kept sneaking a few kisses to my neck trying to get more, but I just pretended like nothing was happening. I was glad I cleared his mind for a few minutes but it wasn’t long before he brought up the topic that I was trying so hard to avoid.

“Soph, I feel really bad for Jeff. He’s my best friend and he’s so sad. I wish I could do something for him.”

“Gabe, that’s really sweet.” Gabriel had always been someone who would go out of their way to help somebody else or make them feel better but what was happening with Jeff was really affecting him. “They both just need time. This is something that will be with them the rest of their lives. Over time it will get easier, but for right now they will just need to deal with the pain. Obviously, Jeff took to the liquor to help numb his feelings and it clearly didn’t help. I just hope he doesn’t turn to that anymore. Tori needs him as much as he needs her and I really don’t want him to let her down. You know, he’ll eventually open up to you too. He probably just doesn’t have the right words right now. We can’t imagine what they’re going through.”

“You’re completely right, like always. Soph, I love you so much. I can’t wait to marry you.” Gabe was obviously drunk but I knew he meant everything that he was saying.

“Babe, we need to tell your parents. I get that we need to go back to Sweden to get all our stuff we left, but I think we should tell them over Skype or the phone like, tomorrow.”

“That sounds perfect!” He was now on top of me kissing me. I playfully pushed him off and we resumed our cuddle positions. “Goodnight, cutie,” I said as he went in for one final kiss to the neck.

“Goodnight, future Mrs. Landeskog.” When he said that I got butterflies in my stomach. I was so excited to marry him. If it wouldn’t upset my family I would fly to Las Vegas the next day and elope. I knew that couldn’t happen though – everybody was really excited and this wedding was something my family needed.

We woke up fairly early the next morning, got ready and headed downstairs for a bowl of Cheerios. Gabe’s phone went off, he looked at me and said, “Bea just texted me.”

“Well, what did she say?” I asked.

“Hey bro. We know a lot is going on with your friend but the famjam was just wondering if you guys were coming back to Sweden anytime soon?”

He began to type and he read it out loud as he did, “We will be back over hopefully in a week or two. Is there any way the whole family could go on Skype right now?”

We continued to eat our cereal but it wasn’t long before his phone beeped again. “Yes, we are all here, 5 minutes.”

“It’s show time,” he said as he walked up stairs to grab my laptop.

We sat down on the couch and explained our whole situation out to them, including every little detail that happened with Tori and Jeff and finally we started to describe our last evening in Sweden.

All of a sudden Beatrice interrupted us, “I don’t want to hear about you guys having sex on the beach.”

Everybody laughed and we continued on with our story and explained everything out to them. They were beyond thrilled. Everybody said they would make plans to fly in whenever we had the wedding. I was so happy that they were so accepting of me.

We hung up and both were so pleased how the conversation went.

“I can’t believe I ever got somebody as beautiful as you,” he said as he went in for a kiss.

“Ditto,” was all I could bring myself to say as we continued on with our passionate kiss. I broke away a few minutes later and looked at him. “We need to talk about the wedding and set a date and stuff. Now that everyone knows, there’s nothing stopping us.”

“I’ll get married whenever you want,” he replied. “I’ll walk to city hall with you right now and do it.”

“How romantic,” I said, laughing. “Tori and I talked about it and we think end of August would be fine! It gives us lots of time to plan and get your family’s arrangements all made. And, I kind of want to do it here in Kitchener. Is that okay?”

“Of course!” he replied. “That makes the most sense. We’ve got a lot of history here,” he smiled down at me. “Besides, it’s only going to be small, right? And your whole family is already here.”

“That’s what I was thinking too,” I leaned up to kiss him. “I love how easily we get along together! It’s such a relief I’m not going to have to be a bridezilla.”

“You better not be,” he said with a smirk. “Now let’s get back to this…” he whispered, leaning down to kiss me again.