"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."-John Lennon 'Beautiful Boy'


"Reid, I'm your best man. You have to let me throw you a bachelor party."

"I really don't see the point, Morgan. I'm not dreading married life. There's nothing I can't do married that I would want to do anyway. The typical bachelor party is about getting drunk and watching strippers. I don't get drunk and I don't think I need to explain why. As for lap dances, I was nervous enough to have sex with the woman I love the first time. Being uncomfortable and feeling like even more of a giant nerd isn't going to really be a party for me. I can see a naked woman any day I want."

"But Maggie is having a bridal shower."

"That is so different. A shower is to prepare for a new life together. A bachelor party is about mourning the end of bachelorhood. Why would I want to lament the end of that level of loneliness? I don't want to spend a night doing things I have never enjoyed in order to mourn not being able to do them again."

"Okay, I get it but what am I supposed to do as your best man?"

"Do what you've always done; be my best friend."

Morgan begrudgingly agreed to this. Spencer could see the disappointment in the eyes of the man he had come to know as an older brother.

"I did think maybe we could go to a movie or hang out and watch a game together while the women are having the shower."

"Now that I can do."

Morgan looked thoughtful for a moment.

"You know that friend of Maggie's—Claire?"

"What about her?"

"Do you know if she's seeing anyone?"

"She's single right now, why?"

"She seems nice is all."

"Since when do you ask about a woman because she seems 'nice'?"

"Okay, she's gorgeous. I thought maybe I'd ask her out."

"I'm sure that would be fine just don't pull your normal Morgan crap or Maggie will have both our heads."

"I'm just talking about dinner and what do you mean my 'normal Morgan crap'?"

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about."

"Are you saying something about my character or how I treat women?"

"Morgan—"

"Hold that thought and get in my office now."

Once inside Morgan's office with the door shut, Reid was certain he was about to have his ass kicked but good and really he kind of deserved it. It's not that he was inaccurate about Morgan's track record with women but he really could have been more tactful and not started that line of talk in the break room. He tried to keep his breathing even as he watched Morgan flex his fists repeatedly in an effort to control his anger. At last Morgan looked Reid in the eye and spoke very calmly and deliberately.

"Please explain what you meant, Reid. I know you wouldn't have said those things without reason. At least I hope you wouldn't because that was way out of line."

"Morgan, I'm sorry for how that came out. It's just that you sometimes seem to take relationships and well, relations, rather lightly. Not all women are as okay with that as they might try to make you think."

"Go on."

"The first time Maggie and I were…together, I thought she had fallen asleep after…well, just after. I got up to use the bathroom. She thought I'd snuck out and left her. She was crying and near inconsolable. Claire is a nice person and she deserves to be treated nicely. I guess I'd just ask that you treat her the way you'd want someone to treat your sisters."

"Wow, that's hard to hear. I'm not denying anything you said but it was hard to hear all the same. It sounds like Maggie ran into some real jerks in the past. I try not to be one but I am sure that I have been. I promise I'll treat Claire like a lady—if she agrees to go out with me."

"Oh, she will, she likes you."


Later that day Spencer noticed that Morgan was heading to get himself some more coffee. He was whistling. Reid decided to get some coffee too.

"Hey Morgan, what's up?"

"Well, I called Claire."

Reid just looked at Morgan waiting for the rest of this story.

"We're going for dinner tomorrow night. And don't worry, this is just dinner. I will be a complete gentleman. I might kiss her if she seems open to that sort of thing. I wasn't kidding when I said she seems nice. She really does and I think that I am falling behind the game here. I'm getting too old to keep flitting around like I've been. Might just be time to start approaching relationships a little differently."

"You're jealous of me?"

"Have you looked at that woman you're about to marry?"

"Yes and you just keep your leering eyes off of her."

"That's why it's a good thing she has a friend."

Spencer laughed at that.

"Actually it's not Maggie that I'm jealous of. It's the home you have. It's the wife you are about to have and the child you almost had. I tease you something awful but you have just sped past me and made me look at my own life and what I have or more specifically what I don't have."

This made Spencer smile and be very glad that he was almost done with work for the day and about to head toward that home and that woman and the promise of that future. He was a damned lucky man that was for sure. And he couldn't wait to tell Maggie that Morgan called and asked Claire out. She would be so happy.