Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 2845

Josh's POV

"I'm sorry, she's what?" I looked at Jenna in disbelief.

"Getting married, Josh. It's not a difficult concept."

"To who?"

Last time I had checked, Y/N wasn't even dating anyone. Now out of the blue she was getting married in a few weeks?

"A guy she met at work. They started dating around a year ago."

"Why didn't you tell me she was dating someone earlier?"

"Because it's none of your business, Josh. You're her ex."

"You knew!"

"I'm her best friend, of course I knew!"

Tyler walked into the room, obviously disturbed by the amount of noise that Jenna and I were making.

"What's going on in here?"

"Y/N is getting married in a few months and Josh is upset about it," Jenna calmly explained.

"Oh yeah, I knew that."

"You told Tyler?" I asked incredulously.

"Tyler was there when she told us."

I leaned back on the couch and stared at the ceiling, exasperated.

"I need to do something to stop this."

"Josh, it's not your place," Jenna said.

I turned to Tyler, hoping that he would back me up. He shrugged.

"I don't think that's a very good idea, man."

"You guys don't understand. I need to do this."

"Why?" Jenna asked.

I sat up so that I could look at her properly. She needed to understand that I really meant what I was about to say.

"Jenna, our breakup was never meant to happen. We were both exhausted and emotional, I was about to leave for tour and we had stayed up too late the night before just trying to spend time with each other. We were having a long discussion about the future and she mentioned how hard it was when I'm away and then I threw breaking up out there without really meaning it, but we talked about it and thought it was a better decision for both of us. I didn't mean it, that was the last thing I wanted. It really hit me the next day, but Tyler and I were already on the tour bus hours away from home and it was too late. When I got back, she had taken the little things that she always left at my apartment back home. That was the last time I saw her, and I've regretted it ever since."

"Isn't there a...less destructive way for you to go about this?" Tyler asked.

"When is the wedding?"

"About two weeks," Jenna answered. "Which reminds me that I need to get my dress picked out."

"Not if I have anything to do with it," I mumbled.

Tyler walked over and took a seat next to me on the couch, "Josh, are you really going to go through with this?"

"Don't you think it seems fishy that she met this guy just over a year ago and they got married this quickly? She told me that we had to be dating for at least three years before we even thought about getting married."

"Maybe it does, but this is her life. Not yours. And I'm not going to support you barging into her life and trying to ruin her wedding."

"Fine, then don't. But I need to talk to her before she goes through with it."

Tyler sighed, "Whatever you say."

Your POV

Your phone buzzed just as you were laying down to take a nap. Life had been so hectic lately that you took any chance to have some time to yourself. Between work and wedding planning, that time was rare.

You debated not looking at the text, but in the likely scenario that it was someone texting you to clear up something about the wedding, you decided to deal with it before your fiance got his hands on it. He was a good guy, but his opinions about the wedding were questionable at best.

Your stomach dropped when you read the name on the text message. There was still a heart emoji after his last name that you refused to get rid of. With shaking fingers, you slid the text message open so that you could read it in its entirety.

Hey, I wanted to talk to you about some things. Are you free on Friday at noon? We could get smoothies or something.

"So much for napping," you sighed, extremely aware of the adrenaline that was now pumping through your body.

You took a few moments to think out a good reply. He hadn't really explained what he had to talk to you about, and it seemed odd that he was just popping up out of the blue after over a year of not talking to one another.

That just so happens to be the only day this week that I'm not busy. The usual place?

"The usual place" seemed so weird to say, as if the two of you were still dating. Smoothies had always been a post-studio tradition for the two of you to celebrate whatever work he and Tyler had gotten done that day. In fact, you hadn't had a smoothie since the last time the two of you went.

Sounds great. Can't wait to see you :)

You decided not to answer, despite how badly you wanted to. The conversation could easily come across as suspicious, especially given the heart after his name, and the last thing you wanted was to lose your fiance's trust right before your wedding.

Josh's POV

I showed up to the smoothie place a full ten minutes before I was supposed to. This was mostly due to a mixture of excitement and nerves. It had been a long time since I had seen Y/N. Hopefully she hadn't told Jenna that the two of us were meeting up, her and Tyler would definitely disapprove of what I was doing.

I got out of the car and headed inside, deciding that sitting inside would be less weird than sitting alone in my car. There were a couple empty tables, so I sat down at one and pulled out my phone to kill time.

Ten minutes later, Y/N showed up. She was right on time, as she had the tendency to be. I waved at her to grab her attention and her face lit up as soon as she saw me. She walked over to the table I was sitting at and I stood up so that I could hug her.

"How are you?" she asked, hugging me tightly.

"I'm good. How about you?"

"Great," she smiled. "Want to get something to drink?"

"Yeah, that would be awesome."

I tried not to stare at her as we walked over to order. She looked just as beautiful as the last time that I had seen her, if not more so. Maybe it was because she wasn't sleep deprived like she had been when we broke up.

Once we both had our drinks, we sat back down at the table that I had been at before. Y/N hung her bag over the back of the chair.

"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" she asked, twirling her straw idly in her drink.

I opened my mouth to answer her, but my tongue felt tied and I struggled to get any words out. Y/N was looking at me with raised eyebrows, waiting for me to say something.

"I heard you're getting married," I finally managed to say.

Her cheeks grew flushed with color and she cast her gaze down at the table, "Yeah, I am."

"How is that going?" I asked.

She shrugged, "Good, I suppose. Planning a wedding is stressful, especially on such short notice."

I nodded, unsure of what to say after that. The color was slowly leaving her cheeks.

"Listen, I know you're probably wondering why you weren't invited but-"

"No, not at all," I interjected. "It's your wedding, you're free to invite who you want to."

"Yeah," she sighed.

Something seemed like it was upsetting her, but I didn't think it was my place to ask. I knew that if I was going to tell her about how I felt, it was now or never.

"So, um, there's something else that I wanted to talk to you about."

It was odd how comfortable I still felt around her. Despite the fact that we hadn't seen each other in over a year, it felt as if it had only been a week at most.

"Sure, go for it."

"I think breaking up was a mistake. When I suggested it, I didn't really mean it. Then you started to talk about it, and you made it sound like the best option and I didn't want to hold you back. What I'm trying to say is that I still love you, Y/N."

"Josh, I-"

"I know, this is really bad timing because you're about to get married but I just couldn't not tell you."

I knew that what I had done was terrible, but I meant everything that I had said. This was the best way to try and stop her from getting married without completely ruining her life.

"I have to go," she said, grabbing her bag and smoothie as she stood up.

I started to say something, but she seemed so flustered that it was evident that she didn't want to be around me right now. Maybe my plan hadn't been as solid as I thought after all.

"Bye," I said meekly as she walked away from the table.

She didn't turn back once.

Your POV

You tossed your bag down next to the door and walked straight over to the couch. Once your face was completely buried in the pillow, you screamed to release all of the tension that had built inside of you. As soon as you had convinced yourself that things were going to be ok and Josh was just a distant memory, he popped back into your life and said, well...this.

You hadn't wanted to marry your fiance. Not yet, anyway. Sure, he was a nice guy from work but things with him had never been quite like they were with Josh. Josh was exciting and every day was an adventure with him. Your fiance, on the other hand, was so focused on work and getting to the top of the ladder that it consumed him at times. It attracted you at first, but it quickly became more annoying than admirable.

Then came the day when he proposed. You had always wanted to wait for a few years before you married anyone, but your parents had really been putting the pressure to get married on you. It really felt like you had no option but to say yes, despite everything else telling you to say no. You had pushed Josh to the back of your mind and accepted that he would never feel the same again, and now here you were.

Your phone buzzed, and when you grabbed it Jenna's contact picture was on the screen. You hit the green button and brought your phone to your ear.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Y/N. Did you by any chance see Josh today?"

"Yeah, we met up for smoothies. Why?"

You heard Jenna sigh on the other end of the line, "He's been acting off and Tyler is super worried about him. I thought he might have come to see you. What happened?"

You explained the conversation that you and Josh had to Jenna. She listened intently as you added your own commentary about how you were feeling and by the end of the call, you had made a decision about where to go from here.

"Thanks for listening, Jen."

"Of course, Y/N. Good luck. I hope you know that I'm always going to be here for you."

"I do. Thank you so much."

"Goodbye."

"Bye."

You ended the call and got up from the couch. There was a lot of packing to be done.

Josh's POV

It had been close to a day since I saw Y/N. Tyler and Jenna had found out that I had seen her, although exactly how I wasn't quite sure. I had spent most of my time at home, feeling awful for causing her so much distress. In hindsight, I should have expected that. You can't really drop a bombshell on someone like that and expect them to be fine.

There had been numerous times where I had debated calling Y/N to make sure she was ok, but decided against it. She had probably told her fiance all about what happened, and I didn't want to accidentally make things much worse than I already had.

I set my empty mug in the sink and started to walk back to the living room when there was a knock on the door. Tyler wasn't supposed to have shown up for another couple hours, so I was confused as to why he had decided to come over early.

I ruffled my hair a bit as I walked over to the door, my socked feet making hardly any noise. When I opened the door, I was surprised to see it was Y/N on the other side, looking extremely nervous.

"Uh, hi," I said, running a hand through my hair again.

"Hi," she murmured. "I might have just done something very stupid."

My eyebrows furrowed, "What did you do?"

"I called off the wedding so that I could be with you."

"You what?"

"Called it off. All of it. I couldn't marry that guy, not when I knew you would take me back."

I couldn't help but smile, even if it wasn't really a smiling matter. Despite how happy I was, she still looked very upset.

"All of my stuff is in my car," she explained.

"We can deal with that later, you should come inside."

She walked inside and I followed her to the couch where she took a seat at one end. I sat across from her, not knowing how comfortable she was with physical contact yet. There was nothing I wanted to do more than hug her to me and press kisses to her forehead, but now wasn't the time.

"I feel awful, Josh," she explained, trying to pass wiping away a tear as itching her cheek.

"Don't feel awful. You're doing what makes you happiest, you can't be blamed for that."

"I know but I still have to tell my family and everything," she said, starting to shake. "And-"

"Hey, it's ok," I said calmly. "Come here."

I held my arms out and she scooted closer to me so that she could rest her head on my chest. She held onto me tightly.

"We're going to work this out together, ok?" I said. "I have your back."

"I missed you so much," she sniffled. "So, so much."

"I missed you too, but you're here now. And that's what matters."