Lexi, the Mediator
"We can't get married." I woke up to Blake's face hovering over mine, telling me those words.
I rubbed my tired eyes, thoroughly confused. "What?"
"I'm sorry Pumpkin, I take it back. I can't marry you anymore."
I groaned, closing my eyes to welcome back sleep. "It's way too early for you to pull that kind of shit."
"We could elope, that might work," he continued saying, "but if we did, we'd have to leave right now to do it."
I huffed in annoyance and opened my eyes again. "What are you even talking about?"
"I hadn't thought about it!" Blake exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air.
I sat up in our bed. Yeah, I wasn't going back to sleep. "Thought about what? Blake, you're seriously not making sense!"
"My best man! I hadn't thought about picking a best man," he answered, pulling at his hair.
I rolled my eyes. Blake had proposed to me two weeks ago, We hadn't even decided a date yet and he was already worrying about his best man. Why was he even worried, anyway? "Isn't Josh going to be your best man?" I asked, pointing out the obvious.
"Well, I kind of thought that at first but then your brother started to say that he's the one who did all the work to get us together in the beginning, that without him we never would have ended up together and so now he wants to be the best man. And Alex started to say that if he hadn't come out we might have never worked out our issues in the beginning and you would have just kept on misunderstanding what had, well hadn't happened with Kendall and so he wants to be my best man too."
These were the disadvantages of being too likable. I knew that was going to be a pain for him at one point. He was too amazing for his own good. "So, who do you want for a best man now?"
"I don't know," he answered in a panicked voice, "I have no idea, but now they're all ganging up against me and threatening to me and some very sensitive parts of me if I don't pick them."
"Call them over," I groaned.
"What?"
"Call all of these bastards over so they can properly ruin our Sunday morning."
So that's how we ended up with four grown man sitting on our couch while Blake sat in a chair beside me as we faced them.
Wait, what was up with four?
"Why is Nik here?" I asked, frowning. I loved the guy, but Blake hadn't mentioned him in the best man war before and he wouldn't have been my pick for a best man if I were Blake. If it was Tyler's wedding, that would have been a different thing though.
"That's right, you're not one of the contestants at this Bachelor's edition," Josh told him smugly, making a face.
Children. Forget about grown men. I was entertaining children.
Nik frowned, rubbing his temple, "You know what Blake, I didn't want to talk about this at first, I kind of wanted to keep it a secret from everyone else, but I just woke up with this major headache and I think—"
Blake cut him off, "It's fine, he can stay, he's in the pool too."
Everyone in the room except those two said, "What?"
"He stays."
Nik was grinning victoriously.
I was way past understanding what the hell was going on. The best I could do for now was to sort this whole thing out. "What are you guys even thinking? Why are all of you threatening him? Shouldn't you be bribing him?"
"Well, we all offered our sexual services, but apparently they don't have as much appeal as yours," Josh informed me.
"Yeah, and that sucks! I'm a Grayson too!" my brother added.
"And I have sex with men. Well one man, but whatever. I know what men want," my best friend generously informed us.
Josh glared at him. "We all know what men want, we all have dicks. And I'm a hundred percent positive that anything I would do to Blake would blow his freaking mind I would rock his world. Lexi who? Pfff."
I stared at the ceiling, sighing heavily. Morons, complete and utter morons, the lot of them. "Are you guys even hearing yourselves? How about buying him something he wants or taking him on a trip or something, instead of threatening him."
Blake wasn't saying anything, he was just sitting there behind me. It looked like he could hide behind me at any moment actually.
"He's already got everything he wants, really the only thing he would need someone for is sex. And apparently none of us is cut out for it," Tyler explained.
Alex nodded and added, "So really, the only thing we can do now is threaten his manhood."
"You guys are unbelievable. Why can't you all be Blake's best men?" I asked.
"Best man. Do you even study basic grammar rules? A best man implies there is only one. One better than all the others," Josh told me.
Ugh. "Men with a fracking e, I swear to god," I pointed at his face, "keep that attitude and I'm uninviting you to the wedding so forget about being a best man."
"I fell like I'm back home with my grandpa and my uncles. This is fun," Nik said gleefully.
I glared at him. "Shut up Nik, you're not helping."
And then things just sort of escaladed and everyone was shouting at each other explaining why they were better than the other while Blake actually hid behind me. Nik actually went into the kitchen to make pop corn and he came back, sat down beside me and just giggled at the three idiots, offering Blake and me some.
Maybe Blake was on to something and Nik should actually be the best man.
I let the arguing go on for way too long, trying to see who actually made sense.
I thought about maybe doing a competition or a quiz of some sort but that was just way too much work.
Bottom line was though, even if I loved my brother and my best friend, there was only one best man that truly made sense in my mind. "Everyone shut up!" Silence. Finally. "Here's the truth," I started to tell the boys, "Jayden should have been Blake's best man but that's not possible. The only person who knew Jayden is Josh. So Josh should be the best man."
Josh automatically started to do laps around our living room singing we are the champions.
"This decision is not final," I added, because Blake hadn't said anything and who knew, maybe Josh would finally say something just inappropriate enough to get him locked up in prison. "Blake can always change his mind. But for now, you guys better leave him alone. The only person allowed to stress Blake on his wedding day is me. Got it?"
The boys nodded in understanding. "Good, now all of you, get out of our apartment."
And for once they all listened and got up, heading for the front door.
"See, this is why Daph and I eloped, so we wouldn't have to deal with this best man nonsense," Josh said, on his way out.
"You don't have enough friends to have people competing for your love," I pointed out.
Josh grinned, unaffected. "I beg to differ, I'm quite popular."
Blake rolled his eyes. "In your imagination doesn't count. Your imaginary friends can't be your best man."
Nik was grinning, "This was entertaining, we should do this more often," he said.
"There goes my only hope of ever being a best man," Tyler mumbled, walking behind him.
Nik gasped, like he was offended. "What about at my wedding?"
Tyler stopped walking, and looked like he was trying to remember something, "I don't know, is gay marriage legal in this state yet?"
"Yes it is," Alex answered for him.
Nik threw his head back annoyed, "Oh my god, how may times? I'm not gay," he whined.
Everyone said at the exact same time, in the exact same tone, "Yeah, right."
"I hate you guys," he mumbled and walked out without a goodbye.
The three other guys followed him out, laughing all the way.
Finally, I closed the door behind them and turned around, smiling at Blake. "See, all good now. Not that you were of any help."
Blake shrugged, and gave me a quick peck on the lips. "It was just practice for when we get married. I don't think husbands should be allowed to make any kind of decisions. Women know what's going on. They should lead this small dictatorship."
"Marriage is a democracy, not a dictatorship Blake," I pointed out, rolling my eyes.
Blake made a face, "We're an even number, how do you suggest we ever come to a decision if the votes always end up in a draw?"
I waved the matter away. "Whatever, at least for now, we got one crisis adverted," I told him heading back to bed. I was totally up for a morning nap.
"I really don't know how you can take this so casually, like it's not going to affect you too," Blake said, following behind me.
I stopped, and turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"
"Well, who's going to be your maid of honour?"
"Well, that's easy, it's going to be...."
Blake cupped his ear with his hand, "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that?"
I stared at him, panic settling in. "Frack."