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"What time are you leaving?" Vaughn asked as Sydney exited the bedroom Saturday night.
She shrugged. "Whenever they get here to pick me up. What about you?"
"I'm heading off to Weiss's now." He walked over and gave Sydney a kiss. "You behave tonight."
"What? Behave properly, or behave like the way you'll be 'behaving'? Which one?"
Vaughn grinned. "Definitely the latter."
"Good answer," Sydney murmured, leaning up for another kiss. When they separated, Vaughn noticed a slightly odd expression on her face.
"Syd, are you ok?"
She hesitated before answering. "Are you scared?"
"About what?" Vaughn queried, baffled.
"About tonight! You know our friends. Who knows what state we're going to be in tomorrow."
Vaughn laughed. "Well, let's be thankful that they're doing it this weekend. Gives us two weeks to recover."
"Yeah," Sydney said as she walked with Vaughn out to the driveway. "So?"
"What?" He paused as he was climbing into the car.
"Are you scared?"
"Absolutely terrified."
Vaughn was about halfway to Weiss's when he noticed the flashing emergency lights coming up behind him. Slowing down, he pulled over to let the vehicle pass. But it didn't.
Instead, it stopped behind him. Looking out of his rear view mirror, Vaughn could see now that it was a police car. But why had it stopped was beyond him. He had not been speeding and there was nothing wrong with his car.
"This is the police!"
Vaughn jumped as a deep voice blared over a loud speaker.
"Please remove yourself from the vehicle immediately."
"What?" Vaughn muttered, so stunned that he didn't move.
"I repeat, remove yourself from the vehicle."
Slowly Vaughn climbed out of the car. Surely this had to be a mistake. He was being treated as if he were some kind of criminal.
"Move to the front of the vehicle and place you hand on the bonnet."
Vaughn did so, humiliated by the stares coming from the cars driving past and from the people who were out on the street.
"Now shake your butt."
Vaughn almost, very nearly did. It took a second for him to register exactly what had been said.
"Didn't you hear me? Shake that butt! Show us how you do it for Syd!"
Vaughn straightened up and strode towards the police car. "Weiss!" he bellowed.
A laughing Weiss jumped out of the passenger seat. "You should have seen your face! The guys are never going to let you hear the end of it."
It was only then that Vaughn noticed the mini-bus parked behind the police car, with all of his mates faces staring out of the front windscreen.
"But…what…"Vaughn stammered and then pointed at the car. "How?"
His question was answered when Craig stepped out of the backseat.
"Helps to have a friend who moonlights as a cop." Weiss grinned.
"Thanks Andrew," Craig leaned in the driver's side window. "I'll see you on Monday." As the car drove off, Craig turned to Vaughn. "I've had this cleared with the boss for weeks."
"You are unbelievable." Vaughn said, finally allowing himself to laugh.
"Yeah, we know." Weiss replied and then gestured to the bus. "Come on, your chariot awaits."
"But what about my car…" Vaughn trailed off as Weiss's dad climbed off the bus.
"Taken care of," he said, holding out his hand.
Vaughn handed over his keys, dumfounded at the planning that had gone into the night. He stood, almost rooted in his spot, until the blasting of a horn blasted through the air.
"Come on Mike!" Will yelled from the bus.
Weiss and Craig grabbed him and then dragged him onto the bus.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Sydney muttered as somebody knocked relentlessly on the door. It was usually the way that Weiss announced his arrival, so Sydney was willing to bet a fair amount that it was Ainsley.
She was right.
"Hey, where is everybody else?" Sydney asked.
"Waiting in the car," Ainsley replied vaguely. "You ready?"
"Yup," Sydney went to step out the front door, but was stopped by Ainsley. "What?"
"You have to put this on first."
Ainsley held up a small veil that looked as if it had come from a little girl's costume set. Sydney stared at it, aghast. Ainsley couldn't be serious, could she?
"No," she shook her head. "Uh, uh, no way."
"Yes way." Ainsley replied in a singsong voice as she proceeded to pin the veil to Sydney's head. "Now, that looks really cute."
"I am going to kill you," Sydney said.
"Now, if you do that, we won't let you in the car." Ainsley said with a sickly sweet smile. She stepped back out of Sydney's line of vision, revealing a shiny black stretch limousine parked out on the street.
"That's the car?" Sydney asked as Ainsley led her down the driveway.
"Of course it's the car!" Ainsley exclaimed. "We are doing tonight in style."
"Style? Uh, Ainz in case you haven't noticed, I have netting on my head that looks like it belongs in a kindergarten dress up box."
"I know," Ainsley looked at her as she opened the limo door. "That's why I said 'we' and not you. Now come on, get in."
Vaughn was beginning to lose track of where they had been. The drinks seemed to be continuously being handed to him, but despite his lack of awareness of his surroundings, he knew that he was having a great time. And thankfully, apart form the police car incident, Weiss had not caused any more embarrassment…yet.
At this point the group had stopped to see a band playing at one of the popular bars down town.
"These guys are good." Vaughn yelled to Weiss over the loud music. "Who are they?"
"Nocturne." Weiss yelled back. "Local guys, just starting to make their break."
Vaughn turned back to the band as another beer was placed in his hand. He could relax here, he thought, looking around. There didn't seem to be anything that Weiss could do.
Or so he thought.
As the band finished up their current sing, the lead singer stepped forward. "Now, we got a call from our radio buddy Eric Weiss the other day," he said.
Vaughn choked on the mouthful of beer he'd just taken.
"And it turns out that his best friend is here tonight celebrating his buck's night," he turned and picked up his guitar. "So Vaughn, this song is for you…and may I add, Eric told us the whole story, and dude, you are classic."
Vaughn turned to Weiss as the band launched into a rocked up version of 'Time of My Life', his mouth agape. Weiss was a little apprehensive about Vaughn's reaction, but he needn't have worried. Vaughn simply grinned, as he raised his glass to Weiss in a silent toast.
"How?" Vaughn demanded through his laughter, as he and Weiss stood by the bus. "I thought the police car would be the most outrageous thing you did tonight, but getting a rock band to play that song?"
"I told them I would give their song some air time if they did this," Weiss replied.
Vaughn shook his head. "I gotta get myself some friends who aren't so well connected."
"Well guys," Will banged the side of the bus as the rest of the group filtered outside. "What do you say we head on to our next destination?"
"Here you go, Syd." Francie handed her a drink as they stood at the bar of the club they were currently in.
"Thanks…ooh, champagne!" Sydney let out a giggle and then, hearing herself, clamped a hand over her mouth. She stared at Francie though wide eyes. "How many of these have I had?"
"Enough for you to get up on that podium at that last club," Amy put in, snickering at the memory. Thank god they had thought to bring a camera along. Photographic evidence was needed if anybody else was going to believe that that incident had occurred.
Sydney just smiled and then turned to head towards the dance floor. But as she did, she lost her footing and fell smack into somebody.
"Oops!" She giggled again. "Sorry."
"It's ok…Syd? Is that you?"
Sydney looked up as she took a mouthful of champagne. When her eyes fell upon the face of the guy, she nearly spat the drink all over him. Thankfully, that moment passed and she swallowed it.
"Noah? Hey."
"How are you?"
"I'm good. You?" Sydney noticed his eyes taking in her headdress.
"I'm fine…what's with the…thing?" he asked, pointing.
"It's my veil," Sydney replied. "Ainsley wouldn't let me in the car without it."
"Who's Ainsley?"
"The red head." Sydney said, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb and taking another mouthful of champagne.
"Right." Noah smiled. "So veil? Does this mean you're getting married?" he asked, half-joking.
"Yup." Sydney said with a grin, placing the empty champagne flute back on the bar. Even given her current state, the look of shock that briefly crossed Noah's face was not lost on her.
"You're getting married?"
"Yeah…well, not here," Sydney laughed. "But in two weeks."
"So who's the lucky guy?"
"Vaughn…I think you might have actually met him."
Realization dawned upon Noah's face. "Is he that guy from the supermarket?"
Sydney's eyes widened. "Yeah, it was Halloween right? God, we hadn't even been together a week at that point."
"And now you're getting married."
'Yeah," Sydney replied. "Yeah, we are."
"Well, congratulations Sydney." Noah said sincerely. "I wish you all the best for the future. You truly deserve it."
Sydney gave him a small smile. "Thanks Noah."
"I'll see you around, Syd."
Sydney just nodded as he walked off.
It was late Sunday morning when Sydney finally got home. She had managed a couple of hours sleep on Francie's couch, but now just wanted a long hot bath and her own pillow.
She made her way to the bedroom, quietly as she assumed that Vaughn was in bed asleep.
She was half right. Vaughn was asleep, but not in the bed. No, he was curled up on the floor near the wardrobe, snoring loudly.
"Vaughn." Sydney knelt on the floor beside him and shook him gently. "Wake up."
"Huh?" he murmured groggily as he looked up at her. "Hey Syd."
"Hey yourself. What are you doing on the floor?"
Vaughn looked from side to side as if he were only just realizing where he was. "Uh," he brought his hands up and rubbed his eyes. "I got home this morning and was changing to go to bed, but the room was spinning…"
"As it does," Sydney smiled.
"So I thought that if I sat down it might stop…and I guess I fell asleep."
"Sounds as if you had a good night," Sydney commented as she lay down next to him.
"I did." He proceeded to tell her about the police car and band incidents.
Sydney laughed and then winced. "Oh, my head."
"Looks like I wasn't the only one who had a big one."
"Yeah," Sydney groaned. "I keep having these flashes of me dancing on a podium."
"What?" Vaughn exclaimed.
"Don't get too excited." Sydney said. "There is no way I would do something like that. It's probably my mind playing tricks."
Vaughn allowed himself a small laugh as he shifted his position, enabling him to wrap his arms around Sydney.
"This time in two weeks, Syd…"