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If you were here, I could deceive you
And if you were here, you would believe…
Jimmy Jr. groans, the sound muffled by the pillow under his face. He reaches blindly for his phone; it skitters across his nightstand with every new vibration, and he almost swipes it to the floor in his attempts to silence it.
His best friend, who up until this point had been passed out on the carpet near the foot of the bed, stirs with an exaggerated protest of his own. A moment later, Jimmy Jr. feels a throw pillow collide with the back of his head.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m working on it.” He mutters, mostly to himself - Zeke has already begun snoring again, apparently not as bothered as his feather-filled weaponry would lead one to believe.
The concept of rolling over and climbing out of bed feels Herculean, especially after a quick glance at the clock shows that it’s nearly three in the morning. When he sees his fiancée's name flashing across the screen, though, he knows that he has no other option.
He accepts the call before tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear, tip-toeing around Zeke as he slips into the darkened living room. His brothers are fast asleep on the couch, a tangle of pale, freckled limbs and strawberry blond hair, so he continues on until he reaches the front door.
The chilly night air feels good against his skin, and he’s already starting to feel slightly more awake as he breathes it in.
On the other end of the line, he can hear Tina’s breathing - heavy and quick, he almost starts to wonder if this is supposed to be some sort of late night booty call situation. While they were no strangers to phone sex, Jimmy Jr. isn’t quite sure if the early morning hours of their wedding day, surrounded by his sleeping groomsmen, is the right time for such a thing.
“Tina?”
“Oh!” Tina gasps, “Hi, Jimmy Jr. What are you doing up?”
“I wasn’t. At least, not until you called.” He yawns, leaning against the wall as he lets his eyes close. “Which is fine, by the way, but I might fall asleep during the wedding, now.”
Tina starts to groan, a familiar, nervous sound that he’s well-acquainted with. Jimmy Jr. frowns - he’d only been aiming to tease her, but maybe he’d come across too serious?
“Hey, I was just kidding,” He assures, “And if I do fall asleep, I’ll tell Zeke to ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ me until the ceremony is over.”
“Uh-huh.” The groaning continues, followed by the faint squeak of bed springs and shuffling feet, as if she’s pacing around her tiny childhood bedroom.
“Are you worried that you’re going to fall asleep?” Jimmy Jr. asks. “Because I don’t think you will, but if you did, I’m sure Louise would ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ you, too. I mean, she’d probably be up for doing that even if you were awake.”
“Um, I wasn’t. Should I be? Oh, God, what if I fall asleep and Louise has to ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ me?”
Her breath comes out in short little gasps again, just like when he’d first picked up the phone.
So…not that kind of phone call. Got it.
“I really don’t think that’s something you have to worry about, T.” He tries to make his voice as soothing as possible, even though he has to raise it to hear himself over her panting. “You’re not going to fall asleep. I’m not going to fall asleep. Nobody is falling asleep at our wedding, I promise. Well, your mom might after a few bottles of wine, but no one else.”
“But what about everything else that could go wrong???”
Jimmy Jr. flinches at her outburst, tugging the phone away from his ear when she lets out a strangled, frustrated yell. His groomsmen should consider themselves lucky, he thinks, that he’d had the forethought to excuse himself outside before taking her call - he assumes that his future in-laws and soon-to-be-sister in the next rooms over from Tina aren’t.
“Tina. T-...Tina! Hey, listen to me. What do you think is going to go wrong?” Jimmy Jr. asks hesitantly, crossing his fingers in hopes that he doesn’t accidentally set her off again.
“I don’t know. Anything. Everything?” Tina says. “W-what if I trip and fall while walking down the aisle? Or call you by the wrong name?” Jimmy Jr. grits his teeth at the suggestion, while Tina continues on. “What if I completely mess up our first dance, and all of that practice was for nothing? Oh, God, or what if I do something completely Bridezilla-y without even realizing it, and then everyone judges me and I look like a terrible person?”
She starts to hyperventilate again, and Jimmy Jr. feels stuck in place as he tries to make sense of her list of worries. He’s heard that pre-wedding jitters are common, but that doesn’t mean that he has any idea of how to deal with them.
His own feelings surrounding the wedding have mostly stayed in the range of happy and excited, and how could he not be? He was about to experience something as monumental as the first day of the rest of his life, and there was going to be a big party because of it. He’d thought that Tina was on the same wavelength, and finding out that she apparently wasn’t made his stomach twist with nerves.
Jimmy Jr.’s silence only seemed to be increasing Tina’s anxiety levels - he hears a thunk on her end, followed by a string of muffled curses, and wonders what she’d just bumped into while pacing.
A question weighs heavily on his tongue, and before he can stop himself, he asks, “Tina…you’re not having doubts about marrying me, are you?”
“What? Of course not,” She says immediately, her voice laced with surprise. “I’ve been dreaming about marrying you forever.”
"Oh. Okay. That’s good. So have I.” Jimmy Jr.’s shoulders, which he’d been tensing without realizing, slump in relief. Now that he knows for certain that he isn’t the cause of all of her worries, he can think more clearly about addressing them. “So…if that’s not the issue…is there something else going on?”
She exhales as if she’s about to speak, but another thought occurs to him, and he finds himself saying, “Is this because we weren’t able to get the horses? I know you really wanted that, but they just don’t let you rent horses to wait tables during wedding receptions. And believe me, I called around.”
“It’s not about the horses!” Tina says. “It’s just…weddings kind of…involve a lot of people looking at you.”
“Well, yeah,” Jimmy Jr. replies, confused and a little annoyed - he really thought he’d hit the nail on the head with the horse thing. “You’re the bride. They’re supposed to look at you. And me. Both of us. But mostly you.”
“I know! And that’s a lot of pressure! This is supposed to be the biggest, most important day of our lives, and I’m going to ruin it!”
“You’re noooooooot.” Jimmy Jr. groans.
“I will! How am I supposed to say my vows or kiss you or do our first dance in front of all of those people? Maybe this was a bad idea. Is it too late to elope?”
“The vows will be fine, you can just look at me the entire time. And we’ve kissed in front of way more people than this, like a lot,” He reminds her, thinking of some of their earlier exploits - neither of them were particularly bothered by PDA, at least until now. “And, no offense, but I think most people are going to be focused on me during our first dance, so you don’t need to worry about that, either.”
“But-”
Sensing another nonsensical list brewing, Jimmy Jr. knows that he needs to get the situation under control. Otherwise, he’s not entirely sure that Tina’s even going to show up to their wedding. He needs to do something to calm her down, but his arsenal feels limited by the blocks between them.
There has to be something he can do from a distance…
“Hey, wait,” He says, struck with an idea. “Why don’t we try going to our happy places, huh? Our Zen zones? Our imagination vacation stations?”
“I get it.” Tina replies glumly. “But I really don’t think that’s necessary.”
Jimmy Jr. huffs and rolls his eyes at her lack of enthusiasm for his amazing idea. “It is, and that’s why we’re doing it.”
She sighs but doesn’t protest further, and Jimmy Jr. smiles.
“Okay, I want you to close your eyes.”
“They’re closed.” Tina says.
“Good,” Jimmy Jr. praises, closing his own eyes again. “Okay, are you picturing it? The most special place you can think of?”
“Mmm, trying to.”
“Okay, cool. Just…keep doing that.”
Rather than going to his own most special place, he instead tries to conjure up an image of Tina visiting hers. He imagines her laying back on her bed, eyes closed, with a small, tranquil smile on her face.
“Uuuughhhhhhhh.” Tina vocalizes, instantly blowing the illusion in Jimmy Jr.’s mind to smithereens.
“What’s wrong?” He asks.
“This isn’t working. I need you here.”
“W-what do you mean? Why?”
“I just think this would be so much easier if I could, I don’t know…squeeze your butt or something. Please?”
“But…I thought I wasn’t supposed to see you until tomorrow.” Jimmy Jr. says, biting his lip. “Isn’t it, like, bad luck?”
“I don’t care about that right now.” Tina replies matter-of-factly.
Jimmy Jr. peeks over his shoulder at the closed door to their apartment, tempted by the prospect. It would likely be midday before anyone else woke up, and he could probably sneak back in without them noticing…
“Well? Are you coming?”
There’s an intensity in her voice that hadn’t been there before, and Jimmy Jr. resists the urge to roll his eyes again. Still, he can’t ignore the thrill that shoots through him at her tone - he’s always loved it when she was mean to him.
“Okay, okay, yes. Geez.” Pulling himself up from his slumped position on the wall, he reaches for the door handle. “Just let me get my keys.”
This is familiar.
It had been a long time since Jimmy Jr. had found himself on his hands and knees in the alleyway behind Tina’s childhood home, feeling across the pavement for suitably sized pebbles in the darkness. The rocks feel cool against his clammy palms, and he rubs one like a worry stone before tossing it up, just as he’d done a hundred times before.
He hears the soft clink as it collides with the glass, and only has to throw two more before the window slides open, sticking a little after years of disuse. Tina’s face appears, and he finds himself pleased that the mushy, fluttery feeling of seeing her from this angle has never faded away.
“You could’ve come through the front, you know.” She hisses, her anxiety beating out her love of a romantic gesture. Still, she ducks back inside, and her old rope ladder tumbles down a moment later.
It’s not as easy to shimmy up the ladder as it had been when he was seventeen, and Tina has to help tug him in fully once he reaches the top. As soon as his feet touch the ground, she throws herself at him, her arms flying around his neck as she buries her face in his chest.
“Hey, T.” Jimmy Jr. greets, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as his arms fall into place around her waist.
“Hi.” She says, the sound muffled by the fabric of his shirt. “I’m glad you’re here.”
She pulls one of her arms free, snaking it around him until she reaches his butt, and he gasps when she makes good on her promise from before.
“There. Now I can go to my imagination Zen station, which is totally something that I believe in. Uh-huh.”
“Come on,” Jimmy Jr. says, grabbing both of her arms before leading her over to the bed. “Lay down with me.”
Tina obliges, and he lets the back of his knees hit the bed before falling backwards, pulling on her until she does the same. Once they’re both staring up at the ceiling, Jimmy Jr. takes her hand, threading their fingers.
“Okay, ready?”
Tina hums in agreement, and Jimmy Jr. peeks to make sure that she’s actually closing her eyes before following suit.
This time, he allows himself to go to his own most special place. Or rather, special places.
It hadn’t always been that way, but over time, he’d realized that the space he went to when he needed to center himself was changing. He wasn’t sure what had started it, but one day, he’d been laying on his bed, imagining scenes from Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. Only, instead of Javier and Katey, the figures dancing in his mind were he and Tina.
It had only progressed from there, ever-changing, growing bigger with every new experience that they shared together.
Anchored by the feeling of Tina’s hand in his, he lets himself drift away, swept in a tidal wave of happy moments and memories.
Their very first kiss, in the restaurant that sits just below where they are now.
Cruising around town in his car, finding any abandoned nook and cranny they could to park in and steal a few moments alone.
Blowing kisses to each other through the windows of their families restaurants whenever their parents weren’t looking.
Dancing together at prom, when it felt like they were the only two people in the entire crepe paper-covered gymnasium.
Late night meet-ups during their college years, when he’d drive hours each way just to spend a lazy weekend in bed with her.
Setting up their apartment together, and the way it felt to wake up next to each other every single morning, never having to say goodbye.
The day he’d asked her to marry him, the ring box burning a hole in his pocket until he’d finally worked up the courage to ask, and the way she’d practically tackled him to the ground afterwards.
“Hey, Jimmy Jr.?” Tina says suddenly, snapping him out of his reverie.
“Hmmm?”
“Happy wedding day.”
Rolling over onto his side, he’s not surprised to see that she’s already looking at him, a soft expression on her face. To his immense relief, she appears to be way more relaxed than she had been when he’d first come through the window, and he suppresses a smug smile at his accomplished mission.
“Happy wedding day, T. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes. I think you were right,” She says, and this time, he’s unable to hold the smile back. “It’ll be fine…I think. Nobody is going to fall asleep, or trip and fall, or say the wrong name…”
“Definitely not.” Jimmy Jr. agrees. “We’re going to be like, professional wedding…havers? After this. They’ll probably make a movie about it or something.”
“Right. And if anything does go wrong…a horse wearing a tuxedo comes in and starts serving champagne, and that’s the only thing anyone will be able to focus on, so we’re in the clear.”
They dissolve into a fit of slightly hysterical laughter, and Jimmy Jr. can feel the late hour catching up to him. Unless they really do want to put the "Weekend at Bernie’s" plan on the table, they’ll both need to catch some sleep before the day’s festivities.
When they eventually situate themselves into Tina’s bed, they’re a little more squished than they used to be - after a lot of shuffling around, and a fight with the blanket that he eventually lost, he ends up flat on his back, with Tina’s head resting on his chest.
As he drifts off to sleep, he thinks of his happy place, his Zen zone, his imagination vacation station. The most special place he can think of.
Really, he hadn’t had to go through the process with her at all.
As long as they’re together, he’s already there.