"What do you think about the color red?"

Orion and I are at home, eating cereal for breakfast. I look at him, confused, spoon half-raised to my mouth.

"Uh...it's a perfectly fine color?"

Orion laughs, putting down his own spoon. "I mean for our wedding, silly!"

"Oh." I wipe my mouth with a napkin. "It's fine."

"Fine? It has to be great, wonderful, spectacular!"

I chuckle.

"This is our wedding we're talking about here," he continues, shoving some cereal into his mouth. "It's only gonna happen once, yaknow?"

I chuckle again. "I didn't know it meant so much to you."

"I'm not about to half-ass a wedding, Tristan."

Briefly I hold up my hands before sipping some coffee. "I didn't say you were going to."

"I mean, Gloria and I put a lot of thought and effort into our shows. This is way more important than any stupid concert."

I can't help but snicker. Orion's brow furrows.

"What?"

"What what?"

"That laugh. You keep laughing. Why do you keep doing that?"

"Look, love. Don't take this the wrong way, but I could care less."

His brow furrows more and he's downright scowling at me.

"I always thought if I got married it wouldn't be a big deal. Just a small wedding, nothing fancy. Maybe even just a party in the back yard and a barbecue."

"No."

I flat out laugh now. "No?"

"No," he replies. "We're doing this the right way, with flowers, and wedding parties, and exchanging of rings and shit."

"Okay. Whatever you want."

"Thank you."

Orion comes around and gives me a kiss on the cheek. I watch him as he puts his bowl in the sink and then leaves the kitchen area. It's not until he's gone do I sigh and put my forehead against my clasped hands.

This is going to be a shit show, I can tell already.

~

"Alright! So!"

Amy, Jake, Ben, and myself are in Orion's living room. He's standing before us, arms clasped behind his back.

"As you know, we're getting married. Well, we want to get married as soon as possible."

We did? 

"As such, we need to start planning immediately. Well, we should've started planning like, yesterday."

I suppress the urge to roll my eyes.

"Jake, I would love for you and be honored for you to be my best man."

Jake grins immediately and gets to his feet. "Of course!" He comes over and hugs Orion briefly before sitting back down on the plush white couch.

"Ben and Amy--I would love nothing more than to have you guys stand up for me, too."

"We'd love to!" Ben says.

"Wait, can I?" Amy asks, looking bewildered. "I'm a girl."

Orion rolls his eyes. "Yes...and in case ya didn't notice, there's not a bride?" he smiles, putting his hands to his sides. "I looked into it--the official title is called groom's attendant."

Amy grins. "Oh. Sweet! Yeah I'm totally in!" She gets to her feet and hugs Orion. "Thanks, Ori!"

On her way back, she slows down and gives me a quizzical look. "What about you, Tristan? Who's standing up for you?"

"I'm not sure," I reply honestly, before I narrow my eyes on my fiance slightly. "It hasn't really been discussed yet..."

"Well let's brainstorm!" Amy says cheerfully. "Since Orion has three, you have to have three."

That makes me frown. "Besides Arlene, I...don't really have any good friends. I would've loved to have my brother be my best man, but..."

Amy gives me a quick hug and rubs my back. "I'm sorry."

I shrug.

"Well, what about your parents?"

"Isn't that a little weird having your parents stand up in your wedding?"

"Why? I mean, two of them plus Arlene makes three..."

"I've just never heard of that."

"What if the three of us just stood up for both sides?" Ben offers.

"No," Orion shoots down immediately.

"Plus that wouldn't be fair to Tristan," Jake says.

"Well I was just thinking Arlene could join us," Ben adds.

"No," Orion says again.

"I just think I'd be weird to have my parents up there with me," I say.

"I've been to wedding where the mom has been part of the wedding party," Amy says.

Jake chuckles. "Besides--this isn't a traditional wedding already given you're two dudes. So who gives a fuck about norms?"

I pause. "That's a valid point."

"Call them!" Orion says happily, hopping up and down and clapping. "Ask them, ask them, ask them!"

I call Arlene first and get her voicemail--no surprise, she's probably working. Then after a quick phone call to my parents they agree.

"Alright! Next item on the agenda!"

Ben raises his hand.

Orion rolls his eyes. "This isn't school, Ben. What?"

"Uh...are we going over the entire wedding now?"

"Is that a problem? Come on, it's not like any of us have nine to five jobs or anything."

Ben laughs, shaking his head. "Well yeah, but next time give me a heads up if you're going to kidnap me for a day."

Orion raises his eyebrows. "Did you have something planned for today?"

"Well, no--"

"Then what's the problem?"

He laughs again, shaking his head. "There isn't one. God, you're in Business Orion mode. Just--carry on, carry on."

"So--I was thinking the color red. Like, deep red. So the boutonnieres and the bouquets Amy, Arlene, and Tristan's mom would carry would be red roses."

There's a unanimous agreement that that's fine. Orion grins.

"Well this is going much easier than I thought!"

I suppress a cringe--that means something, somewhere, is going to become a dumpster fire. I remain silent, hoping I'm just being overly pessimistic.

Ben raises his hand again.

"Stop that!" Orion snaps at him.

"Sorry. So, if the color is going to be red, what are we wearing?"

"Hmm, we'll have to research that..." Orion pulls out his phone. "I'll start a list of things that will have to be looked into."

"Bouquets," Amy says. "There's a lot that goes into them. They can look different, have accent flowers. Also the style of dresses you want the women to wear."

As she speak, Orion is nodding, furiously typing things into his phone.

"Have you guys thought about venue?" Ben asks.

Orion lifts his head to look at me. I gesture at him to speak. Because honestly? I don't care. I literally don't care. So long as I'm married to him at the end of the day, it's meaningless to me. It obviously means a lot to him though.

"I want to get married on a beach."

Amy clasps her hands, and I see tears well in her eyes. She puts her hand to her chest. "Aw! Are you serious?"

"No, I'm joking," Orion says with an eye roll.

"That's so romantic!" she gushes.

"It's...whatever." He looks back down at his phone, though I can tell by the blush he's only pretending to do things.

"I knew you were a softy at heart!"

"Whatever," he grumbles, face a deeper red as he lifts his head. "So I need to look into beaches."

"Virginia has a lot of beaches," I offer.

Orion nods, briefly nibbling on his thumb before pulling it out and shaking his hand, annoyed at himself. He then types more into his phone.

"Whatever you do," Jake says, pointing at Orion, "do not--I repeat, do not--call the beach and ask them if holding weddings is okay."

I look at him. "Why?"

"A lot of parks and beaches and stuff will tell you no," he says. "If you're gonna do it, just show up and fucking do it."

"How do you know that?"

"My cousin had a bitch of a time trying to find a venue a few years ago," he replies with a shrug. "It was a nightmare."

Orion smiles a bit. "Thanks for the info."

It goes on like this for awhile--what color shoes should the women wear? How would they do their hair and nails? Where would our tuxedos and dresses come from? Where would the food be catered from? I never realized so many details went into weddings, and after about an hour I had utterly lost interest, only half-listening.

It seemed like everything was going smoothly. We finished up that day. The days following, Orion continued to look into things, occasionally looking to Amy for assistance. I didn't understand why or how weddings went wrong.

Oh, how naive I was.

~

"Tristan!"

I was in the basement, because I had convinced myself I would eventually be better than Orion at video games. Actually, who was I kidding; I was just trying to get so I could occasionally beat him. But in order to do that I needed practice.

"Your mom's here!"

I pause the game. For a moment I just stare at the screen.

"What did you say?"

"Hi honey!"

I scramble to my feet and run up the stairs. I heard correctly alright--that was my ma.

"Tristan!" she greets as soon as I emerge from downstairs, arms open.

"Hey ma," I say awkwardly, giving her a hug. She's a short woman and I have to stoop over. Over her shoulder, Orion is making a face at me. I merely return the look with my own bewildered one. Once we're done hugging I smile at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I had heard you guys had started planning the wedding--"

Immediately Orion's face grows dark. Oh, fuck.

"You had? From who?"

"Oh your father."

Orion's look hardens and I can't help but swallow thickly.

"So I thought I'd come by for a few days--"

Orion frowns.

"--and help you out--"

He frowns deeper.

"--I mean, you know." She does a little shimmy. "Get a woman's touch to everything."

I nearly facepalm and Orion's eyes flash. My mom sees my expression and falters for just a second. "I mean, since I've had a wedding. Thought I could help!"

She turns around and faces Orion, and he forces a grin on his face. "Er, h-how long, now?"

"Oh, just a couple two-three days," she assures with a nod of her head. "You'll barely even know I'm here! I mean, I know you have guest rooms and such."

Orion gives his nervous laugh. Luckily I don't think my mom knows that's his nervous laugh. Even so I rush forward, guiding her to the stairs. "Sure, yeah. Why don't you have a peek upstairs? The first room on the left is Orion and mine, while the last one on the left is Amy's. Besides that you can use whatever room you want."

"Oh, how nice dear."

I all but shove her up the stairs. "Just take your time, ma. Look at each one. We want you to be comfortable, okay?"

"Aw, thank you hun, that's sweet. I'll let you know once I've made my selection."

As soon as she's up the stairs Orion rushes over to me. I go to speak but he clamps his hand over my mouth, his eyes on fire.

"What the hell Tristan?" he whispers.

I remove his hand, whispering back. "I had no idea!"

"Did your mom seriously just show up unannounced and invite herself to stay over for days?"

I run my hands along the hem of my shirt. "Yes?"

"Who does that?"

"My ma, I guess?"

"You guess?"

I wince. "I'm sure her heart is in the right place."

"Has she ever done this before?!"

I look to the side. "Well, I've never gotten married before..."

"Don't be a smart ass!"

"I'm not!"

He rolls his eyes impatiently. "I meant does she often just invite herself over? Is this what I have to look forward to?"

"Oh. No. I swear to you, she's never done this before."

Orion sighs, putting a hand on his hip and shifting his weight to one leg. "Well this better not become a common occurrence."

We hear a shriek from upstairs. Then there's shouting. Amy comes barreling down the stairs looking frightening.

"GUYS! There's an old lady in the bathroom, and she's snooping around in the cabinet--"

Orion cracks up immediately. "HA! She called your mom old."

I'm immediately furious. "Why don't you say that a little louder?"

Orion stops laughing immediately.

"M-mom?" Amy looks horrified.

"Yes," my ma replies, smirking, coming down the last half of the steps. "I'm Tristan's mother. Although the term 'old' is debatable."

"I am so, so, so, so unbelievably sorry Mrs. Tristan--"

My ma laughs, extending her heavily ringed hand. "Mrs. Smith."

"Mrs. Smith," Amy corrects, shaking hands.

"It's alright, dear. I'd scream too if some old bat was in my house." She gives a wink to let her know she's merely joking.

Amy laughs nervously (and I'm thankful to find she doesn't share that quality with her brother; her laugh doesn't like Mozart's from the movie Amedaeus). My ma pats her hand and then releases it.

"She's going to be staying with us for a few days," Orion says, a painfully wide grin slapped onto his face.

Amy nervously looks between my ma and her brother. "O-oh! Well that's-that's great. That's really great."

"I hope that's alright, deary."

"Well, you showed up with your bags!" Orion replies instead of Amy. "So yes, of course it's alright!"

My mom's smile falters for the first time. But then she smiles again and she points towards the steps behind her. "I like the third room on the right--is that okay?"

"Of course," Orion says, moving to her bags and picking up two suitcases. "Here, let me help you unpack."

"Oh, that's so sweet Orion, thank you!"

As soon as the pair disappear upstairs, Amy looks at me with a completely frantic look. Unfortunately, all I can do is sigh.