Closed-Door Confrontations
by Poet on the Run

For what wasn't the first time in his life, Jeff wondered if he was making the right decision. He was a man of more words and fewer morals than most, but his conscience occasionally stirred from its nigh-eternal slumber to mumble incoherently in his ear. And, though it pained him, he usually perked up and listened.

Now was not technically one of those times, but he was questioning his decision nonetheless. He was questioning quite a few decisions. Starting a college study group, for instance. Pursuing a woman who had virtually no interest in him. Finally begging said woman to give him one chance to prove that dating him wouldn't kill her. Proposing to said woman after a three-year relationship. Inviting all of his family and lawyer friends to the wedding…

There were a lot of bad decisions to question. Specifically the last two, if he were being honest. Maybe even the last three.

"Britta, honey…?" he called, leaning his forehead on the door. "Please come out of the bathroom, sweetheart."

He heard an inhuman snarl and automatically jerked back. "No," she snapped. "Not until you pull your head out of your ass."

He sighed and once again jiggled the handle, unsurprised that it would not turn. He should have known that allowing her to peruse bridal magazines at this time of the month was a bad, horrible, colossally stupid idea, but it was only the second day, really, and he'd been in the midst of hiding them when she came home early. What could he say? I'm sorry, Britta, but I thought that, with your hormonal state, it would be best to keep you from making important wedding decisions.

That would have earned him a slap, possibly a ring tossed at his face, and, her favorite tool of torture, locking herself in the bathroom as she had done now. And as he had learned the first time it had happened, simply ignoring her and letting her sit out the tantrum was not an option. Oh, no. He had to stand at the door and plead and wheedle and bribe until she thought he had suffered enough. And then he got to sleep on the couch. Oh, joy.

Instead, he'd offered to go through them with her and they'd sat down to a long, hopefully peaceful afternoon that had erupted into a fight… about her dress.

"Britta, it's not that I've got my head up my ass," he said as soothingly as he could. He heard a loud snort from the other side of the door and chose to ignore it, closing his eyes as if to pray for patience. "It's just… my mother is going to be coming to the wedding and if she sees you wearing some… some anti-wedding dress, she's going to—"

"I don't care what she's going to do!" Britta yelled. He heard something THUNK! against the door and took a step back. She must've thrown something at it. The bar of soap, possibly. "I shouldn't need anyone's approval but yours! I refuse to play the industry game!"

Jeff leaned against the opposite wall and rubbed his temples, refusing to groan and let her know that this was getting to him, too. He had to maintain a calm front—that was the only way he was going to win this. And he had to win this. If his mother saw her walking down the aisle in that… monstrosity she'd showed him, the old woman would have a seizure, then a heart attack, then a stroke, and die, mouth foaming, on the chapel floor. It had been a struggle to get Britta to even agree to the chapel. It's a family tradition, my mother would break down sobbing if I told her no… And besides, Shirley would give you that long-suffering look, tell you how she always imagined the two of us having a glorious white wedding in a church with stained-glass windows…

Jeff perked up suddenly. Shirley! College study group, you are off the list of bad decisions.

"I could call Shirley, you know. I'm sure she'd have a lot to say about your dress," he said amiably. A small smirk colored his words. "Remember how she said that she and Derrick got married in Vegas? She would tell you how much it pained her that she never got to walk down the aisle in a real dress. I'm sure she would go on about it, in length, until you agreed that, yes, a white dress would be a good idea and then—"

He heard the lock being hastily undone and the bathroom door whipped open just enough for her to poke her head out. Her eyes were red-rimmed (they'd gone through the crying jag mere minutes ago, with him being properly apologetic and comforting through the bathroom door), but they glared at him with ferocity that would make lesser men (coughPIERCEcough) quail.

"You wouldn't," she hissed darkly.

He leaned in closer, mere inches from her face and narrowed his eyes in challenge. "Oh, but I would."

SLAM! went the door and his last hope. He groaned in frustration, clenched his fists, did an angry jig. None of this, he knew, would help the situation, but it made him feel monumentally better than just standing there with a schooled look of calm on his face. He fell back against the wall and slid down, down, down, until he could rest his head on his knees and sigh in defeat. He was going to have to see his mother being carted out of the chapel on a stretcher, all of his colleagues would pronounce him nuts, and his idiotic little twerp of a brother would die laughing at his misfortune. Oh, and his father would probably throttle him for shaming the Winger name.

And that was when it hit him. He could bargain his way out of this. That particular argument had happened before they started planning the wedding, and he had gotten her to agree by promising her she could decorate the apartment they shared now and the house they would eventually buy together. Her taste had surprised him (in a good way), but he still had not given it up: she would take his name when they married. Now, he wondered…

"Britta," he said, getting up with the tiniest of grunts. He put a hand on the door. "I'll…" He paused as a pained look crossed his face. He had worked hard to earn that win, but in the end it would be worth it… right? "I'll take your name."

There was silence for a moment on both sides of the door before he heard the lock mechanism working again, this time slower. The door opened, wider this time, and she leaned against the doorjamb. She gave him a critical look, searching his face as though she could tell if he was lying simply by looking in his eyes. (She couldn't, but she always made him feel nervous when she did that.)

"…really?" she said quietly, almost hopefully. An almost-smile curved her mouth just a tad, as though it were waiting for a reason. He blinked, swallowed, then nodded his head.

"Really," he said. She still looked suspicious, but took another step out of the bathroom. He stammered to continue, "You were right, anyway. Jeff Perry sounds better for my kind of work, doesn't it?" He gave her a hopeful smile.

Her face broke out in a grin and she crossed the hall to wrap her arms around his neck. He let out a grateful breath and leaned into her, resting his face in the crook of her neck and sliding his arms around her waist. He could still hear the smile on her face when she said, "You'd do all of this just so I'll wear some overpriced dress that I'm probably going to burn after the ceremony?"

"And so my mother won't have a seizure/heart attack/stroke on our wedding day," he insisted. She laughed out loud at the suggestion. He grumbled against her skin before he lifted his head to look her in the eyes. "Besides, hasn't Annie been bubbling over with excitement about helping you pick one out? I mean, you helped her when she got married."

"That just earned you the couch, buster," she said, mouth twisting in a sardonic smile.

Jeff's mouth dropped open. "What? You're kidding, right?"

She wrinkled her nose and ducked out of his arms, moving toward the kitchen. He waited a beat before he followed.

"Britta, you're joking, aren't you?"