Oneshots | Ryden

What We Do Is Love

When he and Spencer are alone, Ryan curves his palms around the arms of his chair and smiles warmly. “Spencer,” he says. “Have we ever slept together?”

“Pardon me?”

It’s an important question, really; the awkwardness that ensues when one of the happy couple realizes that they have, at some point in their past, fucked the wedding planner? It’s not a pretty sight. It happened to Ryan just two years ago, the dawning realization that he and the groom had had a one-night stand during the groom’s experimental college years. The bonus check at the end had been more than enough to ensure his silence, but the tenseness had given him three gray hairs. Three. He took a six week series of scalp massage from two very skilled Moroccan ex-harem girls, and he’s pretty sure they’ve moved on from that nightmare, but it never hurts to be careful.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’d be memorable, Spencer,” he says kindly, “but my younger years were a whirlwind of bright lights and pretty boys, so. If you could just put my mind at ease, we can move on to talking about things like themes and centerpieces.”

Spencer smiles sweetly back at him and speaks with a wryly bitchy tone that warms Ryan’s heart. “It’s safe to say I haven’t had the pleasure, Ryan.”

Questioning Jon yields a similar result, only with pink-tipped ears and adorable head ducking and Spencer and Jon are officially Ryan’s favorite couple yet. And Ryan did the wedding of Miss Georgia and her darling Junior Senator fiancé, so that’s saying a lot. Oh, the crinoline. He’ll just have to do a beauty queen wedding after this one, to make up for the shameful lack of a gown.

“So,” he says brightly when he’s got them both seated across from him again. They’re holding hands, Jon’s thumb sweeping steadily across Spencer’s knuckles. The whole house smells like the cinnamonny perfection Jon seems to have slipped into the oven while Ryan was questioning Spencer and Pete’s claimed a spot with his rump in Spencer’s lap and his head on Jon’s thigh. “So,” he repeats, “I’ve never done a gay wedding before. Which one of you is the bride?”

Jon and Spencer exchange an intimate glance that makes Ryan’s toes curl from all the way across the (sublime, tufted, chocolate velvet) ottoman. Spencer strokes skritching fingers down Pete’s back and does that lip quirking thing that Ryan is learning to associate with oncoming bitchery. “We’re both men,” he drawls. “We thought you understood…”

Spencer is Ryan’s favorite person ever. He wonders if Jon would notice if Ryan gave Brendon better hair (Spencer’s hair) and switched them out.

“So it’s obviously you, then. The grooms never talk back like that.” What he really wants to say is ‘where have you been all my life, Spencer Smith, and how familiar are you with organic cuisine?’

*** 

Ryan calls the office on his way back to give Brendon the good news. Also, to make sure Brendon knows to pick up his dry-cleaning, check the supply of dog poo bags, and to pull the venue list and have it waiting on his desk, but he opens with their acceptance of the Walker-Smith wedding. It’s enough to make Brendon seem really happy about plastic baggies that will inevitably contain dog shit though, and that might even make Ryan – safe in the privacy of his car – crack a smile.

When he makes it back and steps into the cool, empty lobby, the phone is off the hook and Brendon is nowhere to be seen, though there are cheerful shuffling noises coming from the supply closet. It used to be way worse than this, Brendon used to do his victory dance in the middle of the lobby. Once (the last time it ever happened), he’d bopped right into someone’s grandmother’s lap. In her wheelchair. From that moment on, Ryan had banished Brendon’s interpretive and/or celebratory dance numbers to confined spaces. Like the supply closet. Or the bathroom. Or, best of all, Brendon’s own house.