Author's Notes: First of all, thank you for all the wonderful feedback, I'm so glad you're enjoying this fic. Second, I just wanted to give you a heads up that part of this chapter is from Toby's POV, and it's by far my favorite chapter of this fic. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. There's only one more chapter after this one, so we're almost done.
Chapter 13
"What the hell are you talking about? Retribution?" Josh asks.
"Tell me this is a joke Josh. Tell me you're getting back at us," CJ says not loudly, but certainly not quietly.
"For what?" he asks, obviously as confused as I am. What's going on? How do they know about the other rings? Were they there? They must've been there. Why didn't they mention it?
CJ and Josh are staring at each other, both waiting for the other one to explain, so I turn to Toby. "How do you know about the other rings," I ask him quietly.
He's mesmerized by the stare down going on between Josh and CJ, but he snaps his head in my direction when he hears me. "It was just a joke. We didn't think…"
"What?" I yell, and now CJ and Josh are both staring at us.
"It was…" he starts to speak. Then he looks calmly at me and says, "It's CJ's fault."
"Shut-up Toby," CJ says quietly.
"I told you I was going to blame all of this on you," Toby says to her.
"All of what?" Josh asks Toby.
CJ turns to Toby, yelling. "It was a joke. I didn't expect them to wake-up and like the idea of it!"
"Of course they'd like the idea of it. Have you ever met them?" he yells back.
She ignores him and turns to me. "Did he talk you into this? We played a trick on you so you thought you'd get married? What the hell were you thinking?"
Josh stands up and snaps at her. "Don't talk to her like...what? You played a trick on us?"
"That was you?" I scream, standing up next to Josh.
CJ simply ignores all accusations and stands up and yells at Josh. "You married your assistant? Do you have any idea how that's going to look?"
"I really don't give a damn how it's going to look," he says to her and then turns back to Toby. "What the hell's going on?" he asks in a steely tone.
Toby, the only one sitting down, looks at all of us. Then, ever so quietly says, "Ok, sit down and be quiet. We're making a scene. We've got enough PR challenges today. We don't need to add getting thrown out of a restaurant to it."
"Toby," Josh warns.
"Sit down Josh, and we'll discuss it." Reluctantly, Josh sits down. CJ and I follow and take our seats, and Josh leans forward in his chair, rubbing his face with his hands. Without thinking much about it, I reach my hand over and rub his back lightly.
"Donna!" CJ yells.
"We're married CJ, get over it."
She throws her hands up in the air. "I can't believe this is happening."
The table gets eerily quiet and finally Toby says, "Ok, let's start from the beginning. Cast your mind…"
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"We shouldn't do this."
"Of course we should. You know you want to do this," she says to me in her drunken stupor.
I shrug because let's face it, it's unbelievably mean and would be so much fun. "Of course I want to, but we're going to get in huge trouble when they find out."
"Yes," she says nodding quickly. "But won't it be worth it?"
I think for a minute. "Yeah, but you should know right away, I'm blaming it on you."
"I wouldn't expect anything different."
"Ok then, let's do this," I say and shake her hand. It's probably smart to mention that I'm not all that much more sober than she is.
"Right. Where do we start?"
"Well, they can't sleep in that. Look through Josh's stuff, see what he has that they can sleep in."
"If it's their honeymoon, wouldn't they sleep naked?" she asks, nearly as drunk as the two passed out people lying on Josh's bed.
"Do you really want them to wake up in the same bed naked? I don't think that's such a good idea."
"Yeah, they might constipate the thing." I raise my eyebrows and she holds a finger up to me. "Wait…not constipate."
"Consummate, and we don't need that."
"Right." She goes to Josh's bag and rifles through it while I take off Josh's shoes.
"Hi, Toby," Josh slurs to me, waking up from the passed out position he's in on the bed.
"Shh, Josh. It's time for bed."
"Kay." I continue with his shoes and suddenly something hits me in the side of the head.
"Put those on him," CJ whisper yells to me. She's not nearly as quiet as she thinks she is. I pick up a pair of pajama bottoms and tell Josh to take his pants off and put them on.
CJ meanwhile, is trying to get leather pants off of a not contributing much Donna. Between the two of their drunken asses, it's like watching the Three Stooges. "Come on Donna, we gotta get you in some pajamas."
"There's more than one of you," Donna says to her, opening her eyes lazily.
"Yeah, you too. Come on. Help me." Finally Donna stands up and shimmies out of the pants. Then CJ helps her…
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"You saw my wife naked?"
"No, I saw your wife in her underwear. But I was very busy focusing on trying to get you in some clothes. You kept falling over. Right on your face, you didn't even put your arms out to catch yourself. It was pathetic."
"You're telling me you didn't look at my wife's underwear? I don't believe you."
"That's because you're an intelligent man. Anyway, she wasn't your wife yet. Now shall I continue?"
"Yes, but we're coming back to that part later."
"Fine. Anyway…"
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"Ok Donna, get in bed," CJ says to her.
"Ok," she says and gets in bed next to Josh. Immediately, he pulls her half on top of him and tells her she's beautiful. This is the first time I re-think this plan of CJ's.
I watch them for a minute, in case I need to break anything up, if you know what I mean. Once they're still, CJ and I go downstairs and throw all of Donna's things in her bag, then CJ calls the front desk. "Hello, I need to cancel my room." I don't hear the other side of the conversation, but when she hangs up, she turns to me. "They'll be here in five minutes to take her things up to Josh's room."
"Why don't we just take them up there?"
"How would we do that? We don't have one of those gold pushy thingys."
"A luggage cart? It's a garment bag and a carry on bag. I think we could have handled it."
"Right. Should I cancel?"
"Yes. No, never mind. I'll do it." I call the front desk back and tell them we'll take her bags ourselves, and we take them upstairs.
Upon entering Josh's room, CJ shrieks, "Oh my God! Donna and Josh are in bed together."
I look at her like she's lost her mind. "Yes, we just put them there a few minutes ago."
"Oh, right. They look pretty comfortable, don't they?" I look over and they've changed positions. Now they're on their sides facing each other, noses centimeters from each other, his hand around her back holding her too close to him for my comfort, her hand on his hip. This is the second time I re-think this plan of CJ's.
"This might not be the smartest thing we've ever done," I mumble.
"You don't think they'll have sex, do you?" she asks me.
"No," I say sarcastically. "They're only madly in love and now in bed together. How could that possibly lead to sex?"
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"You did have sex, didn't you?"
"You don't want to go there right now, CJ. You're in enough trouble as it is, don't you think?"
"Oh lord, you did."
"Yes, several times. Happy?"
"Can we just get on with the story, you two? And Josh; please stop arguing with CJ about our sex life. She and I will go to lunch next week when all this is cleared-up and she's calmed down. I'll give her all the details then."
"Thank you, Donna."
"Of course, I'm not leaving the sisterhood, CJ."
"Focus people, focus."
"Sorry Toby, please continue."
"Right. Where was I…"
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"Where did you see those rings?" I ask her when we're in the elevator.
"In a thing," she states simply as she fixes her make-up in the mirror in the elevator.
"In a thing?" Is she going to be this helpful all night?
"You know, you put money in them and… things come out," she says gesturing.
"Things come out? You are so drunk." Why did I let her talk me into this? Maybe I'm more drunk than I thought. I must be; in my right mind, I'd never succumb to one of her schemes.
"Candy bars."
"Candy bars? Do you mean a vending machine?"
"Yes! At that place with the things."
"A vending machine at that place with the things…" These are gonna be some high quality rings.
"Yes!" she says loudly.
"Of course. The place with what things?"
"The shirts and stuff."
"The souvenir shop?"
"Yes! You're very smart." She looks at me like I've just solved world hunger.
Fifteen minutes later, we're at the same dive souvenir shop Josh threw up behind an hour ago. And as drunk as she is, she's right. There's a vending machine with confetti, gaudy rings, ugly bouquets and other wedding paraphernalia.
"I like the gold ones," she says, pointing through the glass to an extremely ugly set of rings.
Wedding rings for eight dollars. This is an all-time low. What I'll do for a good laugh. I tell myself I need a life as I get a ten-dollar bill from my wallet and put it into the machine. I punch B1, and the rings fall to the bottom in one of those gumball machine round containers. Which sounds about right. These are about the same quality as a gumball machine ring.
"Confetti too!" she yells. It's fifty cents, so I put a dollar of my change in the machine and hit A5.
"Do we need anything else?"
"How much money do we have left?"
"We? A dollar fifty."
She takes the money from me and looks through the glass again. "I don't see anything," she says and starts to leave.
That's when I notice the fake marriage certificates hanging in plastic near the checkout counter. "How about this?" I ask her.
"What is it?"
"It's a fake marriage certificate. There's a cd-rom and you plug in the names and run it through a printer. I bet the hotel would let us use their printer if we used the "White House" card.
"You have a card? I didn't bring my card."
"I just meant… never mind. Let's get this. Give me the money."
"Why do I have to pay for everything?" she asks me flabbergasted.
"What? It's my money. You took it from me."
"I did?"
"Yes." She pays for the certificates and puts the change in her pocket. What the hell?
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"Donna does that too."
"I do what?"
"You take my money to buy things and then you keep the change."
"Hey, what's yours is mine now, remember?"
"But you've been doing that for years."
"Yes, but I always knew we'd get married some day and what's yours would be mine. I was just practicing."
"I see. I might just have to kiss you now."
"Please don't. I'm telling a story here."
"Right. Sorry, Toby."
"So, we get the stuff and…."
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…head back to the hotel. It's almost three o'clock in the morning at this point and I've got a very important poker tournament at noon which I need to be well rested for, but CJ refuses to be rushed.
We tell the guy at the front desk we need to use a computer and printer and that it's official White House material and can't be viewed. They give us an office to use and ten minutes later, we have a marriage certificate.
We go back to Josh and now Donna's room, where we see that Donna is once again draped across Josh. His hand is in her hair and he's snoring. For her part, she's drooling on his chest.
"You take care of the rings," I whisper to CJ.
"What should I do with them?"
"For crying out loud. Never mind. Give them to me." I take the rings from her and ever so carefully put Josh's on him. First I have to get him to let go of Donna's hand, which he's holding on his chest, and this is the third time I re-think this plan of CJ's.
Once I have his ring on him, I have to get Donna's ring on her. Unfortunately, her hand is under Josh's pillow. "What're we gonna do?" I ask CJ.
"Put it on her other hand?" she asks me while she picks things up from the mini-bar and puts them back down. Josh is going to be charged for all that stuff, which is just an extra perk!
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"That was you?"
"Get over it."
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"We can't put it on her other hand. We've got to get her off Josh," I tell her, looking around the room.
CJ grabs the remote off the television and begins lightly poking Donna in the side with it. "This is fun," she says. I just nod and watch her.
Finally, Donna, starts stirring, but Josh, who immediately went back to holding her hand once I got the ring on him, starts squeezing her tighter. So I grab his shoe off the floor and start poking him. "You're right," I say to CJ. "This is fun."
"Told you." After a few minutes of poking, they finally separate. Donna rolls onto her other side, exposing her left hand. I take that as my opportunity to put the ring on her, which is when I learn that it's too big for her finger.
"It's too big," I whisper to CJ.
"What's too big?" she asks me confused.
"You are the worst trick playing partner in the world, you know that? The ring, CJ, the ring. It's too big."
"Oh, let me see it." I take it back off Donna's hand and hand it to CJ. She squeezes it together on the sides a little and hands it back. "Try this." We got her a bendable ring? She's gonna think Josh is a cheap bastard. I put it on and it fits better. Not perfect, but better and I decide we shouldn't push our luck.
A few seconds later, Josh rolls onto his side and spoons Donna from behind. This is the fourth time I re-think this plan of CJ's.
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"After that, we put the certificate under your watch and left. We figured you'd wake up and panic, but figure it out in a few minutes."
I look at Toby. "Not so much."
"If you really thought you were married, why didn't you come to me? I'm your first call. How many times do I have to tell you that?" CJ asks.
"Well, instead. I threw my poker tournament and Donna left her little naked massage spa day so we could go downtown to the courthouse and have the damn thing annulled. That's when we learned it was a fake."
I step in. "The lady there told us that it's fairly common for drunk people to be taken by cab drivers who perform fake ceremonies, and they're too drunk to remember the details. That's what we figured happened to us."
"So, you thought you should get re-married?" CJ screeches.
"We liked it," Josh says. "We liked being married. Let me rephrase that; we like being married."
She puts her head down on the table. "So, I'm guessing you're not going to annul this one."
"Nope."
"And you want my help telling Leo and the press."
"I think it's the least you can do. After all, waking up together started the whole thing. It's like you were playing cupid."
She looks at Toby and then at me. "You want to be married to this guy?"
I look at him and back at her. "Yeah. I do."
She nods. "Then we need a plan."
