“I’m sorry, remind me who you are again? Your face looks familiar.”

“Yeah yeah, Turner.”

Drake opened out his arms and Reese stepped into them willingly, snuggling in. The thing about Drake being so wide set was that he felt very solid and all-enveloping when he hugged her. He was just the right height, taller than her but not too much, so her head hit the right spot against him. The lingering smell of engine oil wasn’t so great but after a good shower it’d be gone.

“You just got back so late yesterday and I had an early one so I couldn’t wait up, sorry. Didn’t want to wake you to say good morning.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” She shrugged. Drake pecked her lightly on the lips and she gave him a doleful smile.

“Can’t believe you’re giving me that face after you spent two days in a spa. You don’t look very rested.”

“Gee, thanks baby,” Reese joked. Guilt was jabbing her in the solar plexus.

“Nah, I know how you feel; I can’t shut my brain off either with all these arrangements. I don’t care whether they put sugared almonds or mints in the damn favour bags,” he groaned.

That assumption was incorrect but far less hazardous than the truth. She liked it, she wouldn’t discourage it. “I actually forgot about my last dress fitting yesterday. That’s how over the arrangements I am at this point.”

“I keep revisiting that whole elopement idea, if you’re up for it.”

“Tempting, but they’d kill us. Think we’re doomed to do this thing.”

“Well hey, so long as you’re Mrs Turner at the end of it I guess it works out.” He removed one hand from her waist to brush a stray hair away from her forehead. He planted a kiss where his fingers had been. “Seriously though, did you at least have some fun?”

“A little.” That wasn’t a lie. Sunday evening had been enjoyable. When your ex was being bratty to you it was easy to forget there had ever been any good times; Sunday was a reminder that she used to have fun hanging out with the guy. “But actually some stuff came up that’s kind of stressed me out a little, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“Wow. Snap.” He grimaced.

“Really?”

“Really. I need to shower first but I was thinking maybe we could go walk up the trail and talk through it? I’m out with the guys for the bachelor not-a-party tonight but I don’t wanna sit on this until tomorrow.”

“Umm… sure, that works.”

Drake left one last peck on her lips before disengaging and heading off towards the bathroom. Reese watched his retreating back with an appraising gaze. Going out for some fresh air and a heart to heart wasn’t a suggestion she’d expected from him. Typically they did their best chatting over meals or over drinks, whether at home or in a bar or a restaurant. He wasn’t the type to propose a romantic walk, or even any kind of walk. That wasn’t to say she minded (meandering outside with some fresh air and decent scenery shook the mental cobwebs out) but she was a little taken aback.

She had no time to dwell on that, however, as if they were going walking she needed her sneakers. She had no idea where they were.

**

Trace yanked open the door of the bar and was immediately hit with a blast of warm air. It was busy, a lot of bodies were milling around, and even walking in there made him feel too hot. Stripping off his jacket, he craned his head and scanned the room. The booths were so high backed that he couldn’t see much. After eliminating almost every other table in the place he found his by default. Stalking to the back of the room, he tossed his jacket onto the vinyl seat and then slid into it himself. The forcefulness with which he did so expressed everything for him, but still he peered disdainfully at the man opposite. Folding his arms across his chest, he waited.

“Well hi to you too.”

“Dude,” he said. The tone articulated more than mere words could. The look could have withered plant life.

“Beer?” His companion gestured to the pitcher next to him and the empty glass waiting. His own glass was already half drained.

“Dude,” he repeated.

Justin’s face twisted in a dark smirk. “This really how you’re gon’ be?”

“Is this really how you’re gon’ be?” Trace riposted. “They giving out frequent flyer miles with that jet now?”

“Actually I flew commercial this time. Cheaper.”

And far more high profile, Trace mentally noted. There was next to zero chance that somebody somewhere hadn’t documented his movements. If it wasn’t paparazzi at the airport it’d be some excited passenger on Twitter. Given the gossip around him at the moment it was a foolish move.

“JT, man, what are you doing?” He cut the repartee. “I thought you decided you should stay away? Hell, I thought you actually had some shit to do?”

“You spoken to the peanut since she got back?”

“We are not talking about her right now.”

“It’s relevant to the question.”

If there was one thing he found annoying about his best friend (there were many, but should he be forced to narrow it down) it was the way he became so inscrutable at times like this. They’d be talking, Trace would be trying to get down to brass tacks, but Justin would become aloof and obtuse. It was exasperating. He didn’t know if it was some attempt to control the conversation or just to add some kind of gravitas to his words, but as far as he was concerned it was bullshit. It would be nice to be spared the performance.

“I asked how her interview went. She said fine. We’re meeting for lunch tomorrow. I am not inviting you, before you ask.”

“Wasn’t gonna.”

“Tick tock, still waiting to hear why that was so crucial to know.”

Justin’s fingers played with the bottom of his glass, rolling it against the table top. The condensation was dripping over them. “I just needed to know whether she told you that we had a fight, discovered that she didn’t marry me because she thought I was going to turn her into a brood mare and she confessed she’s still got feelings for me. Guess she didn’t so I’ll have to fill you in.”

For a moment Trace didn’t respond; compulsively he nodded his head in shallow little jerks. Sucking air in through his nose with a loud huff, he grabbed the pitcher and glass and hastily poured himself a drink. It took two or three long gulps to soothe his nerves back down.

“Fuckin’ A, I got some taste in friends. Nothin’ but fuckin’ drama.”

The hostility caught Justin off guard. He’d anticipated misgivings and warnings, but not the sheer power of resentment that seemed to be rolling off of his best pal.

“When did this become about you?”

“It’s never about me, is it? World revolves around you,” he said, tossing back another swig and scowling even through swallowing. “You two have your little saga going on and I’m stuck in the middle, it totally fucks up shit between all three of us and yet somehow y’all both seem to forget that I’m here too. I just got her back, bro, only lost her because you fouled up in the first place, and I am not here for you showing back up to wreak havoc and scare her away again.”

That one felt like taking a hammer to the skull – or maybe a cannonball. It was the first time that Trace had ever made any kind of sentiment known about the chasm the break up created in the middle of their little triangle. He’d had no idea that he was harbouring so much bad feeling over it.

“I guess that’s… harsh but deserved,” Justin said slowly, eyes trained on the beer mat rather than meeting Trace’s hard gaze.

That was all he needed to hear. Knowing his complaints were acknowledged as righteous was enough to puncture his anger. All the energy fizzled out of it. Seeing his friend looking so shamefaced on his account made him feel instantly better disposed. Slumping forward slightly, he reached out and clapped him awkwardly on the arm.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a hard ass, but I just think you’re torturing yourself coming back here.”

Justin twisted his head around, scanning the nearby area for anyone who looked like they might eavesdrop. He’d purposely picked the place because it was highly unlikely anybody in here would give two hoots about his presence, but years of dealing with tabloids had taught him paranoia.

“So I’ll bite,” Trace said, “why did you?”

“Long story short, we were getting on really well until after her interview. She had this meltdown over the fact that she lied about it, it turned into us fighting, and all this shit just started coming out about us.”

“Like what?”

“Turns out she was avoiding our wedding because she wrongly thought I wanted her to start shootin’ out babies the second she got the ring on. She wants to come back to LA, and she strongly suggested that if I’d physically run after her when she dumped me things would have been different. I mean, the way she was talking, T…” He shook his head. “Everything that never made sense to us about her running home? She was just making opposite choices hoping it’d work out better. Only now she’s catching up to the rest of us on how wrong it is for her, and it can’t be long before she works out he’s wrong for her too on the same basis.”

“You so sure on that? Drake’s a good guy, JT.” Trace sat back and folded his arms, scrutinising his friend. Maybe if he stared long enough he’d be able to decipher how rational (or not) this assessment was.

“He seems like it.” His lips grudgingly formed the words as if that was audacity on Drake’s part. “But he’s not a match for Reese. Her and me… the dumb thing is that we were actually alright the whole time. The whole damn bust up was just miscommunication, pretty much, underneath it we were solid. She still loves me, I’m sure of it after that conversation. Which means that if I make the same mistake and don’t run after her then I’m an even bigger dumb ass for that than for being a dick to her.”

“Look, I wasn’t there, so I can’t know if you’re right or you just heard what you wanted to hear. But either way - she came back here and she’s still getting married, far as I know.”

“I asked her to consider and she said she’d think about it, but she hasn’t contacted me since,” Justin said. “I mean, I’m not planning to do anything melodramatic or to crash the ceremony or anything like that. I just need to be here and let her know that I came after her this time. She needs to see that I did. After that all I can do is let Reese choose and deal with it if it doesn’t go my way.”

“What, because flying back here for like the third time in a week hoping to talk her out of her wedding isn’t melodramatic?” Trace scoffed.

“I was going more for romantic.”

“Alright, alright.” He sighed deeply. “You got to do what you got to do, no point living with the what if, but I got to make it clear right now that you leave me out of it. I’m not putting in words for you, I’m not passing messages or any kind of shit, and if there is a wedding on Friday I will be there.” 

“Fair enough.” Justin nodded.

“I mean it. I know what you’re like, you’ll wheedle me into doing your dirty work.”

“Scout’s honour.”

“I don’t remember you being a Scout. Or were you just working for your boy band badge the whole time?”

The evil edge to that comment told him that maybe Trace wasn’t completely calmed down yet. It seemed like changing the subject would be a smart move.

**

“Jesus Christ, could you at least attempt to look enthused?” Dean muttered.

Oliver replied to that comment with the same sharp elbow in the ribs he’d received. “Don’t pretend like you’re any more interested than I am. Nobody likes these dumb ass speeches.”

“Seriously, you need to start being nicer to the guy,” Sam butted in. “We’re about to be related.”

“Don’t remind me.”

They were sitting in a bar, a short distance away from the other attendees of Drake’s bachelor ‘not-a-party’ – Reese was spending the evening with Jenna and the kids while the guys were out. After a lot of aborted plans Drake decided he didn’t want the usual trappings, so it had been food and a few quiet beers (or a lot of them). Dean had even caught sight of the best man hastily making phone calls after Drake warned the group that any stripper who turned up was being sent immediately away again. Somehow he doubted the deposit would be refundable. It felt unfriendly, sitting away from the rest of the group and not being so involved, but Oliver was being somewhat bratty about the whole thing. He begrudged being forced to attend and was childishly not making much effort to hide it, so they’d thought it was best to pull him back slightly. No need to let him dampen everybody else’s mood.

“What’s your problem with him?” Dean asked. “He’s a decent guy, he treats Reese nice…”

“And he fixed the transmission on your broke ass truck for free. So easily bought.”

“You shut your mouth about my…”

“Yes, yes, we know, you love your damn truck.” Sam breathed a grumpy sigh. “He’s still got a point, Ollie. What gives?”

“What gives is that this is clearly headed for disaster and I seem to be the only one in the family who’s noticed.”

“If you forgot, you’ve been riding around on a ship for the past eighteen months. We’ve actually had a chance to get to know the guy.”

“Which makes it all the dumber that I’m the only one who noticed,” Oliver said. “Y’all must be blind or something.”

“Enlighten us, o wise all seeing one,” Dean replied with gruff incredulity. “What’s wrong with him?”

“It’s not him, it’s her. Our sister, she who can’t do anything unless it’s written in an appointment book several months in advance, having some rush engagement to a stranger two minutes after she’s broken up with the wonder kid? This really didn’t strike any of the rest of you as the rebound it so obviously is?”

Sam shrugged, reaching into the bowl of nuts and grabbing the last few. “Sometimes people are unpredictable, doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing. Reese is a tough cookie, knows her own mind.”

“Sure she does, but she’s not always as together as people think she is,” Ollie insisted. He knew he’d probably been closest to her growing up, but he shouldn’t be the only one who knew her well enough to get that. He found it irksome that nobody else was cottoning on. If he could see this after only a few days why couldn’t they?

“She’s smarter than to take a rebound this far. Don’t you think that if she’s even thinking about getting married she’s over it?” Dean pointed out.

“No I don’t. She’s had boyfriends like him before and they never lasted. And as nauseating as I found the way she and Timberlake were always so cutesy, compare that to her and this guy.” He pointed the neck of his Corona bottle at his prospective brother in law. “Sometimes she barely notices he’s still in the room.”

“Even if you’re right – and I definitely ain’t sayin’ you are - Reese is a big girl who can make her own mistakes,” Dean said firmly. He’d pull out the ‘I’m the oldest’ tone if he had to. “You got a problem with it talk to her but in the meantime, there’s no reason to be an ass to the guy. So play nice.”

Oliver was about to make a retort but was interrupted by the arrival of Trace Ayala and Justin Timberlake. Quickly he rearranged his expression into something more congenial.

“Hey y’all,” Trace said. “Didn’t expect to see you guys out tonight.”

“Hey,” Justin nodded at the three of them. To Oliver’s eagle eye, both looked a little intoxicated. They weren’t sloppy, but Trace’s drawl was slower than usual and Justin was a little unsteady on his feet.

“Yeah, you too,” Sam gave them a friendly smile. “Good to see you.”

“You want to pull up a chair, have a drink?”

Dean’s foot met Oliver’s shin with a mighty kick. Inviting Reese’s ex to join her fiancé’s bachelor party was not in his definition of playing nice.

“Nah, we were just out the door, best get going.” Whether Trace had caught on or just had his own reasons for thinking it was a bad plan they weren’t sure, but both Dean and Sam were mentally thanking him.

Then they were both mentally cursing as Drake arrived at the table, flanked by one of his groomsmen. There was no subtle way to give Oliver a ‘don’t even think about it’ signal, but neither of them trusted him not to keep stirring. As much as they loved their brother, he was a master at it – could probably start an argument with the Dalai Lama if he was determined enough. Most of the time that evil little talent was restricted to family squabbles and inter-sibling teasing, but given the irrational dislike he’d taken to Drake there was no telling what sly digs he could make.

“Hey y’all, we were thinking we’d move onto Joe’s, get a few games of pool going.”

“Sure, sounds good.” Dean spoke for the three of them, and he didn’t care what Oliver thought about that. He would frogmarch him there by force if he had to.

Drake turned to Justin and Trace, trying not to let his uneasiness show. He wouldn’t have blinked twice at it if he’d been expecting them, but he was taken off guard. Since his first meeting Trace he’d now gathered that the two of them had grown up in some kind of Three Musketeers set up with his fiancée. Somehow with that knowledge it was hard to look at Trace and not see him as Justin’s friend rather than Reese’s. It was like he’d discovered he was conversing with the enemy. That was stupid and he knew it, but it didn’t stop him feeling it.

“How about you guys? Always room for Reese’s friends.”

It was a gentlemanly gesture, and it was not lost on anyone present. Justin was trying not to let the guilt show on his face – little did Drake know the man he was offering drinks to was only here in order to try and win away his girlfriend. Trace was holding his breath without realising it. Oliver was giving a wolfish smirk at everybody’s discomfort and Sam was glancing at Dean with a sinking feeling of looming disaster.

“Thanks, man, but we were just saying to these three that we got to head out. Have a good one though, yeah?”

Justin held out his hand and Drake shook it. “Thanks, y’all too. Safe trip.”

Relieved smiles were passing over everybody’s faces (except Oliver’s). Neither Drake nor Justin was the type to be needlessly aggressive, they’d never needed to worry, but the situation was precarious enough to make them do so.

Trace and Justin had waved goodnight and were walking away when the comment came from behind them, clear as a bell. “Don’t know why you even asked. Like he was gonna stay to hang with the guy who took over the pussy.”

The reasons for that comment being foolish could have filled the Doomsday Book. It was offensive. It was insulting. Even if it was better phrased the general sentiment was still ungracious. The idiot was too drunk to regulate his volume properly and had misjudged how loud he was saying it – he had intended it as a silly joke to Drake, not for Justin to hear. What Justin particularly took umbrage to was the person most precious to him first being reduced to her genitals and then talked about as if she was some piece of property that Drake had taken possession of. Both he and Trace turned back around with matching expressions of outrage.

The fatally imprudent thing, however, the icing on the cake, was that it had been uttered while standing right next to the Bennington brothers. Dean had immediately scraped back his chair and was towering over the perpetrator with an ugly and wrathful glare – he’d narrowly beaten Ollie to it.

“You want to say that again, you little piece of shit?”

“Jesus Christ, Shane…” Drake pressed his hands to their chests and separated them, pushing them back away from each other. “Sorry, Dean, he didn’t actually mean it that way.”

“Really? ‘Cause he sure as hell said it that way,” Oliver replied. Venomous menace was radiating from him.

“What’s the big deal, I didn’t say anything!”

That was a very poor answer and Dean’s reaction was to start advancing again. It took all Drake’s considerable upper body strength to restrain him from doing so.

“When he has a few too many he says the wildest things, it’s like he has drunk Tourette’s,” Drake pleaded. “He has no idea right now but I promise you, when he’s sober he’ll be embarrassed and falling over himself to apologise.”

“You’re actually defending him?” Given his line of work Justin was capable of putting some real decibels on his voice. The unfortunate side effect of this was gaining the attention of onlookers. “He opens his mouth to talk about Reese like that and not only are you not punching his fucking lights out you’re acting like it’s no big deal?!”

“Good question!” Dean said. He was especially aggrieved because he had so shortly before been fighting Drake’s corner for him with Ollie. Now was not a great time to prove his faith misplaced.

Drake was breathing deeply, trying not to rise to that. His own temper was trying to fire up within him but he should not let that happen. He needed to defuse this, not get stuck in himself. The problem was that while he was a long time friend of Shane’s and knew this kind of talk was merely an alcohol induced failure of the brain-mouth filter, other people weren’t. They could only take him at his word. Drake knew that in Shane’s beer-fogged head he was simply making a joke. Being drunk beyond a certain level robbed him of the ability to see the line between being off colour but funny and being plain offensive.

This wasn’t the first time it got them in trouble, but it was the last occasion on which he’d needed him to have one of these turns. His day had been trying enough as it was and these were not the people he wanted pissed off. Normally Shane limited his intake precisely because he’d learned it got him in hot water, but clearly he’d relaxed too much tonight. Hopefully Drake could save him from the consequences; though truth told, he was sick of having to do so.

“He doesn’t mean it, he’s drunk, stay out of this.”

“Fine,” Sam interjected.  “He can apologise for my sister then. Now.” This was both an attempt to dial things back down – hoping an apology would soothe ruffled feathers – but also his way of making his own displeasure known. He might not get physical the way Dean or Ollie would, but that didn’t mean he’d let this kind of thing go either.

“Sure, sure,” Shane said, holding his hands up in surrender. “No offence intended. I’m sure she’s got a great…”

He hadn’t been about to repeat his previous turn of phrase, but Dean and Oliver wrongly anticipated it and weren’t going to allow him the opportunity. Both of them charged at him. Drake was still standing between them so took the full force of their bodies slamming together. In order to try and extract himself he had little choice but to try and push Dean away, but Oliver took this as an attack on his brother and so started going for him as well. Sam dived in to try and pull his brothers back off, but was only succeeding in putting his own face in the way of the flying fists.

Justin had been about to march in himself, seething more at Drake for defending it than even the guy for saying it, but was yanked backwards by his jacket collar.

“Hell no,” Trace told him, dragging him towards the door. “We’re getting out of here.”

“But you heard what he said!”

“Yes I did, but what do you think Reese’ll say? Or the damn tabloids?”

Even in the midst of his fury Justin took the point. He was here for Reese, and getting into a fist fight with her fiancé would be detrimental to his cause even if it was to defend her honour. She wasn’t likely to thank her brothers for this and he did not need to join them in the doghouse. He needed to see camera phone footage of himself in a bar fight flying across the internet even less.

Instead, it just made him doubly determined that he was going to talk her out of this stupid wedding.