Could We Pull It Off?

I've received a challenge.  Loyal reader and commenter Mum challenged me to write a post from Ken's perspective.  I like it and I'm giving it a shot.  You can expect that one up whenever I manage to get it done--hopefully by next Friday.  As for this post, it's short.  You can expect an extra short (as in, an additional post that is short, not a post that is extra short in length) post sometime this weekend!  

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When my alarm went off on Monday morning, I groaned and rolled over, grabbing clumsily for my phone to make it stop.  Instead, I whacked it and it flew off the nightstand and skittered across the floor.  "Goddamn it!" I snapped in irritation.  I heard Brody chuckle next to me and I looked over, surprised.  In the last couple weeks, I had gotten so used to him being out of bed already by the time my alarm went off.  I stumbled out of bed and grabbed for my phone but in the process I accidentally kicked it, sending it further out of reach.  "Fuck!"

Now Brody was full on laughing, and I shot a glare over my shoulder before I bent down to retrieve my phone and finally succeeded in silencing it.  I climbed back into bed and pulled the blankets over my head.  "Why are you even still here?" I grumbled as I disappeared into my cocoon of blankets.

"You're extra cranky this morning," he commented mildly, not at all fazed by my grumpy comment.

"I didn't sleep well," I replied, my words muffled by the blankets.

Brody peeled the blankets away from my face and cuddled next to me, wrapping an arm around me.  "I know," he said wryly.  "You were tossing and turning all night."

"Sorry," I apologized sheepishly.  I wiggled free of my blankets and turned over to face him, burrowing into his chest and locking my arms around his back.  "Let's just stay home today.  We can go back to sleep and then when we wake up we can stay in bed and be lazy all day."

"You know I'd do it in a second if I could," he replied, rubbing my back.

I sighed.  "I know.  I can't either, but it sounds nice right now."  Brody offered me the shower first but I let him have it so I could lay in bed just a little longer.  I rolled onto my stomach and shut my eyes, even though I knew that wouldn't help me wake up. I might have dozed off, because it seemed like just seconds before Brody was out of the shower.  I kept laying in bed, knowing I was pushing my limits of actually getting out the door in time without seriously rushing.

A half-dressed Brody lightly smacked my ass and said, "If you want to eat your breakfast while it's hot, you might want to get moving."

"Mmmm, breakfast," I said, rolling over and stretching.  I definitely missed breakfast being made for me on the days that Brody was gone by the time I got up.  That was enough to finally get me out of bed and into the shower.

By the time I got downstairs, breakfast was done and was sitting on a plate for me.  "You're my favorite," I said, pausing to kiss Brody before grabbing a fork and sitting down.

"How about if I drive us both today so you can drink with Lauren tonight?" he asked in response, taking a sip of coffee and leaning against the counter.

"You can't be more than my favorite," I teased.  "Favorite is already the best there is.  What's in it for you?"  It wasn't unusual for him to drive us both into town or make breakfast, but he seemed like he was being extra nice this morning.

"The knowledge that someday I'll need a favor and you'll be forced into doing it because of all the nice things I've done for you."  I snorted, knowing that keeping score was the furthest thing from his mind.  "I'm glad you find it funny," he said, smirking.  "Honestly, I'm worried that today's going to be a pain in the ass for you, so I wanted to at least make sure that parts of it were good."

"Why would today be any more of a pain in the ass than any other day?" I asked, looking at him in confusion.

He nodded towards my left hand as he said, "Josh."  I frowned.  I hadn't thought about him.  I wasn't close to anyone at work...everyone at this job pretty much came to work, did their job, and left.  So it wasn't like I'd be announcing my engagement to anyone.  Maybe he wouldn't notice?

Of course, that was too much to hope for.  Around lunchtime, Josh came into my office.  I set my jaw and slid my hand down to my side where he couldn't see it, feeling silly for trying to hide my ring.  Turned out that he had a legitimate question on a form for a client.  Without thinking, I grabbed a copy out of my filing cabinet and handed it to him, revealing my left hand in the process.

"Well, holy shit," Josh said, ignoring the paper I was holding out to him and grabbing my left hand.  I pulled back, but he tightened his grip and pulled my hand towards him.  He whistled softly and then looked up at me.  "I guess congratulations are in order?"

"I guess," I replied.

"You don't sound very excited," he observed.

I briefly considered saying it was hard to sound excited when you were talking to someone who'd been nothing but insulting about the relationship, but decided the path of least resistance was the best choice.  "I'm very excited," I replied.  "But confirming that someone should congratulate me is weird, so saying 'yes' didn't seem right.  Can I have my hand back, please?"  He looked down, as if he'd forgotten his grip on me, then dropped my hand quickly.

"Well," he said, after an awkward several second pause.  "I guess I'll take that."  He motioned to the form that was still in my right hand.  I gave it to him and he thanked me and left.  I spun my chair back around to face my desk, but I was completely baffled by that.  It hadn't gone at all like I'd expected.  I'd expected him to be a dick, to make a bunch of snide remarks, and to leave in a huff after I finally snapped.   I wasn't sad that hadn't happened, but I was confused.

I shrugged it off and got back to work.  I didn't see Josh again for the rest of the day, and I wasn't sad about.  Lauren picked me up from work on her way home, and we decided to go out to eat instead of hanging out at her house (I still felt weird calling it her house).

As soon as we were seated, she looked at me.  "Are you happy?" she asked.

"What?"

She sighed.  "Happy.  Are you happy?  With that," she motioned to my left hand, "and with being engaged."

"Yes, of course I am," I replied, puzzled.

"Good!" Lauren said, with a broad smile.  "I was just making sure."

"Okay, weirdo," I replied, laughing.

"So I know you guys have been engaged for about 5 minutes, but what are you thinking?  What do you want?"  I had never seen Lauren so excited for wedding/marriage talk.  It was weird.

"Well, we had talked about fall, and a short engagement," I started.

Lauren's eyes widened.  "This fall?" she squeaked.

I shrugged.  "We were talking generally," I explained.  "Fall in general.  Short engagement in general."

"Well, this fall certainly would be a short engagement," she pointed out.  "And next fall would not."

"That's true," I agreed.  "But fall isn't a requirement."

"You couldn't even order a dress and have it altered in time for a wedding this fall," Lauren mused.

I frowned.  "We don't want a huge wedding.  I don't even think I want a traditional wedding dress, actually.  I think if we really wanted to, we could plan a wedding for this fall."

"Wait, really?  But you'd need a place, and a dress--some dress, even if it's not a traditional wedding dress.  It's already almost the end of June.  You'd need invitations to go out in like...two months."

"Lauren!" I exclaimed, cutting her off.  "First of all, how do you know so much about when to send invitations out?"

"Remember when my mom worked for that stationery place?"

"Oh, right." I nodded.  "Either way, we haven't even talked about any of this.  I mean, not since we actually got engaged.  Everything we had talked about was hypothetical."

"But if you both really do want a wedding in the fall and a short engagement, you might want to have that conversation sooner rather than later," Lauren pointed out.

I realized that she was right.  And as unimportant as it might be, I really did want to get married in the fall, and I didn't want to be engaged for over a year, waiting for next fall.  The idea of being engaged for over a year made me want to give the ring and tell him to propose again next spring.  I don't know why, but when we didn't want a big wedding it seemed pointless to be engaged for a long time.  Could we pull it off?  I wasn't sure, but I knew that we needed to at least figure out what we wanted to do if we wanted to try.