‘This is today’s reminder that I’m here.’

With a frown Reese read the message. She distinctly remembered Justin claiming that he wasn’t going to hound her. All the same, it was hard not to appreciate it. It was nice to hear from somebody she wasn’t mad at. She’d had a long and sleepless night at her parents’ house. The reappearance of three sheepish looking siblings in the early hours didn’t help. At least some people had the sense to keep out of that ludicrous fight (even if prompted by Trace).

She was hiding in the back room, pretending to finish the last of the table decorations. There was nothing left to do but it kept her out of her brothers’ way. Dean had gone back to his own home but Oliver of course was staying there and Sam had crashed on the couch. She was also ignoring calls from Drake. He’d gone home to find her not there and realised why, but she wasn’t ready to speak to him yet. She’d got his version from voicemail and text messages instead.

‘You know what we should resurrect?’ She tapped out. ‘The dumb lyrics texts.’

Once upon a time, in a less complicated life, she and Justin used to text each other stupid lyrics they’d heard. It could be lines that were outright ridiculous, or a pun read into something otherwise innocent. His almost always topped hers due to some of the demos passed to him. The messages frequently made her laugh and it would be fun to revive them, but that wasn’t the true motive. She wanted to know what he’d say when she so blatantly ignored his sentiment.

‘Sounds good - how come, did you hear a candidate?’

Oh – so he wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Maybe he’d meant it after all and a single text would be it (or he could simply take a hint). With an evil grin she took the opportunity to tease him.

‘Yes - even though I’m a professional I like to do my work at home.’

The response came at speed. ‘What’s wrong with my lyrics?!’

‘The song’s about sex. You know who has sex professionally JT? Hookers and porn stars.’

‘You’re seriously over thinking it peanut, though I’m glad I’m back on the stereo.’

As a matter of fact Reese hadn’t purposefully played the song. It happened to come up on shuffle; it wasn’t welcome that morning. After such a heavy conversation last night her dreams were full of memories. There was a bizarre portion in which she simultaneously relived both marriage proposals at the same time, as if somebody had mashed them up in a script out of order. Hearing her ex’s singing wasn’t what she needed at this juncture any more than reminders that he wanted her back.

Justin’s proposal was fairly straightforward (at least by his standards). They’d been on vacation in Italy; he jazzed up their Sunday morning ritual by ordering a room service breakfast and sneaking some champagne and the ring onto her tray.  She’d already been on tenterhooks for it so it didn’t come as much of a surprise, lovely as it was. As it turned out she’d got off lightly – apparently there was some elaborate plan involving an ice hotel until he realised that having to sleep in Arctic weather gear would be a passion killer. Drake’s was much more of a bolt from the blue. They’d gone into Memphis to see his friend play and as they danced he whispered ‘I think I want to marry you’ into her ear. She thought he was flirting until he produced the diamond. Both had been equally happy, in different ways, but she didn’t appreciate having them chopped up and blended in her subconscious. That made for a very strange scene.

She appreciated it even less when the dream morphed into a reimagining of the bar fight. Justin and Drake went for each other while her brothers took sides.

There was a knock on the door before it gently opened. A face with close cropped hair and too much stubble appeared. “Is it safe to come in?”

“Depends. Are you the jackass who gave my fiancé a black eye two days before our wedding pictures get taken?”

“I’m really not convinced it was my punch that did his eye.”

“You think you should be trying to joke about that with me right now?”

“Reese, sweetheart, you don’t know what happened,” Oliver pleaded.

“Trace filled me in. Some drunk moron makes one dumb comment and you all decide to go on an alpha male rampage.”

“Trace is a wuss,” Oliver snorted. “At least Justin stuck up for you.”

“Trace is the only damn one of you with a lick of sense!” Reese snapped. “Nobody other than him stopped to think how this would affect me, the person you were supposedly doing this for! How I’d feel about my family beating the crap out of the guy I’m about to marry. You pounded on my boyfriend over nothing, like what some random says about me matters!”

“It matters, sis!” Oliver said, walking over and putting his hands on her shoulders. He rubbed them gently, pleadingly. “You are worth so much more than that and I will stand up against any idiot who insults you any day of the week.”

Reese was not mollified. “How does it matter? He’s some guy who doesn’t know me and is irrelevant in my life.”

“That idiot thought he could say anything about you right to the faces of the people who love you and that it was okay. Worst thing is that in your fiancé’s case he was right!”

“I already had that argument with Justin and I am not having it with you. Y’all didn’t do this for me you did it for your egos, so unless you want to apologise to Drake I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say to me.”

“But Reese…”

“But nothing!”

“Look, even if we took it too far, can’t you see we were looking out for you?”

“If you’d been thinking about me and what was best for me for even a second you would have walked out right along with Trace - this was about your macho pride. Apologise then we’ll talk but in the meantime, Clark is my only brother.”

Oliver’s lips had a slight quiver to them; he was on the verge of bursting into a tirade. What he wanted to do was let loose every objection he had to the guy. It was bad enough that he was a clearly mismatched rebound, but as it turned out he didn’t have a small qualm about hearing her demeaned. He really did not understand why his sister was okay with that. She’d never let anyone else slide over that kind of thing. So why was she so determined to ignore every red flag screaming that the mechanic was a bad idea?

“I will never apologise for demanding that people show my sister some respect, so don’t hold your breath.”

Reese took a sharp breath in, ready to cuss him out, but Oliver quickly turned on his heel and stomped out of the room. Yanking the half opened door out of his way he slammed it into the wall. She was about to get up and go slam it shut after him (her mother’s ire be damned) but a lanky frame stepped into it and blocked her. Sam was still in last night’s clothes, his hands folded in front of him and a forlorn look of contrition on his face. His long hair was lank and matted. It looked like maybe somebody had dumped a beer on his head.

She glared up at him, taking in his split lip. “What, you’ve come to bitch me out too?”

The words cracked like a whip and he winced. “I heard yelling and wanted to make sure you’re okay. Obviously not, I guess.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“I’m sorry, Reese, I tried to stop them but I think I made it worse. I’m sorry. Is Drake okay?”

It took all the wind out of her sails. She dropped back down in her chair with a weary huff. “Black eye. He’ll live. Guess I get to have the same argument with him later, which is just what I want us to be doing two days before our wedding. Thanks y’all for that.”

“I really am sorry. They were out of line, and I should have known better than to get involved.”

“Well… at least you were trying to stop it, I guess, even if you failed miserably.”

“Forgive me?”

Sam crouched down to give her a hug and she let him. The smell confirmed her beer theory; he stank of it. “I’ll forgive you if you go home and shower.”

“Deal. So you have two brothers, at least?”

Despite herself she gave a chuckle. There was a mild dash of hysteria to it; stress-laden energy was crackling around her like static. He must have heard her crack about Clark. “One and a half. You still need to apologise to Drake.”

“I will, promise. And now I’m going to get the hell out of your way before you change your mind.”

Well that was more wisdom than he’d shown last night, so at least there was hope for one of them. “Shower!” she called after him.

Her phone beeped again and she picked it up thinking it would be Justin. He did that sometimes, if she didn’t reply when he expected her to he’d send another prompt. It wasn’t him though.

‘So I hear you had some drama last night. Need somebody to bitch with? It’s a traditional MOH duty x’

She’d been avoiding Nadine since she got back, after that strange phone call in the middle of the street. That however was an offer too tempting to pass up.

‘I need to pick up some stuff from my house, meet you there at eleven.’

**

“Men.”

That was Nadine’s summation of the whole sorry affair. Reese had recounted it in a fifteen minute long expletive filled whine. She preferred brevity.

“Tell me about it.” Sometimes, Reese really wished she’d had sisters. “You wouldn’t have punched the guy; you’d have said something really funny that cut him down to size. Which makes me wish you’d been there now.”

“True, would need to be something good though. Something that’d haunt him every time he tried to lie with a woman.”

Reese believed she’d succeed, too. She was fully capable. Trace had accused Nadine of possessing ‘weird voodoo bitch powers’ the last time he found himself on the wrong end of her sharp tongue. It was a fair description. She jokingly blamed it on the red hair, said it made her fiery, but she was just a witty and self-possessed woman. There was no way she’d have ever stood for it but she wouldn’t need to so much as raise her voice. It was her combination of fierce intelligence and thick skin. Reese both feared and admired it - having a friend so brutally blunt was all very well unless you became the target.

Nadine was helping her go through her things and what she’d need for Friday. She’d always planned to stay with her parents from tonight onwards, but last night had been unexpected. What she needed was to pack for the honeymoon, find clothes for tomorrow, and make sure she had all jewellery and make up and any other items she needed for the big day. It was more time efficient to complain while attending to the packing.

“Drake still wants him at the wedding so you’ll get your chance.”

She eventually picked up the phone to Drake shortly after Nadine texted. The conversation was abrupt and unpleasant. Though she defended him to everyone else, she was still angry at him both for failing to defend her and also for getting into any fight. As far as she was concerned he equally needed to apologise. Drake saw himself as equal to Sam in the situation, somebody who’d just tried to stop it, but that didn’t match her siblings’ stories. Maybe it started that way but at some stage he got in it as much as them. That seriously displeased her, for the same reason that she was mad with Oliver. And in Drake’s case it wasn’t even nominally on her account – it was for his foul-mouthed friend.

“Drake considers that wise, when Ollie is still raging?”

“To hell with Oliver,” Reese said with a dark scowl. “But yeah, I wasn’t impressed. It’ll just create an atmosphere with them all. Still, with the move I majorly owe him one so…”

“Yeah, about that.”

“What?” Reese glanced up from the t-shirts she was folding.

“If I ask you a question will you answer honestly?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t think you were at a spa Monday. I think you were in LA about a job. Am I right?”

Reese ran a hand over her forehead, pushing hair back over her face. “How did you work it out?”

Nadine ticked the reasons off on her fingers. “You missed the fitting, so I knew whatever it was had to be huge. You sounded so freaked out when I called, and like I said I could hear all that traffic. I knew something was up, and it seemed way too much of a coincidence that you had this chat with your old bosses and decided that you wanted to go back so quick. I figured there had to have been more to it… then I remembered that my least favourite person just so happened to have flown home on Sunday, same day you disappeared and voila! It all fell into place.”

Even the oblique mention of Justin made Reese tense up. She was waiting for the diatribe about how terrible he was and how she should have nothing to do with him.

“Why didn’t you tell anybody?”

“Didn’t want to hear the objections. Besides, this close to the wedding I didn’t want to start drama over nothing if I decided I wasn’t interested. I didn’t mean to miss the fitting though, I just screwed up the planning.”

“But you are interested, and you’re going.” Nadine matched pairs of clean socks as she talked, stuffing them into the bottom of the case.

“Yep.”

“How’d Drake take it?”

“Like I said – I owe him big.”

“How’d Timberlake take it?”

Her voice was laced with sly nonchalance but Reese knew her game. There was a hook beneath that bait. “Justin’s happy for me, thinks it’s the right move.”

“Is that all he’s thinking?” Nadine arched an eyebrow.

“Nade…”

“What’s he doing back here?”

She fought not to roll her eyes. She’d known this would start, which was why she’d avoided her to begin with. “We had a pretty difficult talk before I left and he still had some stuff he didn’t want to say on the phone. It’s all fine. I’ll be hanging out with him and Trace once I’m back in the city.”

“I bet Drake’ll love that.”

“Drake doesn’t get to pick my friends. Neither do you,” she said with a pointed glance.

“I just don’t understand how you’ve gone from hating his guts to being his friend again so quick,” she said with a confused blink. “After what he did to you?”

“I didn’t really hate him; I was hurt. You’ll never understand, Nade, because you do genuinely hate his guts,” she replied. “Can you please just accept that I got an apology and an explanation that made sense to me and that I felt was forgivable?”

“If I must. Still think he’s an asshole and you’re better off without him.”

“So you keep telling me. Can you go grab my earrings out of the dresser? It’s the blue box in the top drawer.”

Nadine obliged, unsatisfied but knowing better than to push the topic. There would never be a good time but now would be one of the poorer choices. From the moment she’d arrived the woman’s features were moulded into a steady frown. It only left her face to make way for scowling. You’d have to be an idiot to pick this as the moment to argue a thorny issue.

Nadine pulled open the drawer – a large piece of paper was obscuring the contents so she picked it up to begin rummaging. The blue box was immediately obvious. She grabbed it and was about to put the paper back when a sentence caught her attention. As she started reading, her eyes widened.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, nothing.” She put it back in the drawer and shut it behind her.

“You’re a bad liar. What is it?”

“Alright, alright - Drake’s vows, which is why you shouldn’t see it.”

Reese hadn’t even thought about writing her vows. They’d plumped for the traditional ones and were only going to add a short few lines themselves. She’d probably do it off the cuff; it would only be a quick ‘I love you’ and the usual about beginning their lives together. Curiosity got the better of her, but she rationalised it as needing to know how long to make hers to match. She marched over to the dresser, stuck her tongue out at Nadine and opened the drawer. Drake’s spiky letters had been crossed out and scribbled over several times, so it took some concentration to read.

“What?” Nadine studied her face, surprised to see it dropping.

“I don’t know, it just… wow.”

“You don’t like them? I mean I didn’t read it all but what I saw I thought was sweet.”

“It is sweet. Think I just had some weird preconception or something - I don’t know what I expected but it’s strange to actually see them.” Reese waved a dismissive hand and put the paper back where she’d found it. Clearly her mother was right when she said snoops always found things they didn’t want to see. “I’ll be too busy checking him out in the tux to notice much of what he’s saying anyway,” she joked.

“Shallow, but true. A man who looks good in a tux can be forgiven a lot of things.”

“Including nearly breaking my brother’s wrist,” she said. That was why they were so late coming back; Dean needed a trip to x-ray. Luckily it was a bad sprain not a break. “Though Drake swears that wasn’t him. Funny enough Ollie also swears it wasn’t him who clocked Drake in the eye - it’s amazing how none of these injuries seem to have an actual culprit, and yet there they all are with their busted faces. It’s like magic.”

“I repeat – men.” Nadine snorted.

“Men.”