The ringing of Lindsay's cell phone woke her early on a Saturday morning.

"Hello?" she answered groggily.

"Lindsay!" a perky voice exclaimed. "Did I wake you?"

"Um, no," she lied, "uh, can I ask who this is?"

"Oh! Silly me! It's Leila! Danny's old friend?" Every single thing that Leila said was followed by an exclamation mark. It was unnatural for somebody to be that perky at 8:30 on a Saturday morning.

"Oh. Um, hi?" What the heck did she want?

"So, I was sitting at my house this morning and was thinking that I'd love to go shopping! Problem is, I don't really know anybody in New York, so I thought, "Hey! I'll call Danny and get his fiancée's number! So I did!"

"Are you asking me to go shopping with you?" Lindsay asked, still half asleep.

"Yes, silly, I am!" Leila's cheerleader voice was beginning to grate on her nerves.

"Well, I'll call Danny and see if we're doing anything today and call you back." That was a lie, of course, she had no intention of going shopping with a Barbie doll.

"Oh! I already talked to him! He said that Mac called and wants him to come in this afternoon! So, you wouldn't be able to do anything, anyway!" Lindsay was pretty sure that Leila was just acting like this to annoy her. It was working.

"Oh. Ok. Shopping sounds great." She grimaced as she said this, knowing that there was no way that she could get out of this. She had played the Danny card, which Leila successfully meandered around, and there was no way she could play the Stella card, as she was working a shift today as well.

"Super! I'll be there in, say, half an hour?"

"Sure. You know where I live?" Lindsay asked warily.

"Yep! Danny gave me your address!"

"I'll see you soon!"

Lindsay hung up and flopped down onto her back and groaned. She loved shopping, but the prospect of going shopping with Leila made her want to crawl into a hole and never come out. She hit speed dial 2 on her phone and waited for Stella to pick up.

"Bonasera." She answered.

"Stella!" Lindsay wailed. "I just agreed to shopping with Barbie!"

"What? Why?"

"I don't know! I tried to get out of it, but I couldn't!"

"What are you gonna do?"

"Um…get dressed? Try and get through the day? She's gonna be here in half an hour!"

"How did she even get your number?"

"That would be my fabulous fiancée's fault!" she said sarcastically.

"Danny gave her your number?"

"Yes!" Lindsay screeched. "I'm so gonna kill him next time I see him!"

Leila arrived right on time. Lindsay was outside the apartment waiting, in order to avoid Leila entering her apartment and messing with her things. It just seemed like the thing that she would do. Barbie greeted Lindsay with a hug, which she found somewhat strange seeing as she was Leila's ex-boyfriend's fiancée and they had met a grand total of one time.

"You ready?" Leila squealed.

"Yeah," Lindsay said with as much enthusiasm as she could.

They got back into the cab and headed off. It was an exhausting morning for Lindsay. Leila dragged her from store to store, forcing her to try on the most ridiculous clothes. Finally, around 11 o'clock Lindsay begged Leila to let them take a break. "I'll treat you to lunch!" she exclaimed finally as a last resort.

"Alright!" Leila – still as perky as ever – agreed.

They ate at a cozy outdoor café. They sat down and ordered salads when Leila suddenly spoke up.

"You're not right for Danny, y'know. He's never going to go through with a wedding."

Lindsay's heart began to pound, but she kept her voice cool and even. "Danny's changed, Leila," she said lightly.

"Maybe he has," she shrugged, "but that doesn't change the fact that you're a little farm girl, and I'm a glamorous city girl. He may fool around with you for a while, but he always comes back to me in the end. I've seen it happen time and time again. "

"I'd hardly call getting engaged 'fooling around,' Leila," Lindsay snapped.

"Whoa there! Don't get all feisty with me!"

Lindsay took a deep breath and counted to ten, but it didn't cool her down. "I think that I have the right to get feisty with you, Leila. In case you haven't noticed, I'm the one he proposed to and gave his grandmother's engagement ring, and you're the one that he dumped and hasn't seen since college."

Leila's eyes widened. "Excuse me?"

"Excuse you? Excuse ME!" Lindsay pushed her chair back angrily and stood up. "We're done here, Leila." She threw a wad of cash on the table. "Have a nice lunch." With that she walked away.

Danny showed up at Lindsay's apartment late that evening. "Leila told me what you said to her, Linds. How could you be so rude?"

"Well, hello to you too, Danny." She shot back.

"Seriously, Linds, she's one of my closest friends! You had no right to yell at her and insult her just because you're jealous of what she and I had!"

Lindsay's jaw dropped. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that," she said through clenched teeth. "I'm going to pretend that we're being all lovey dovey and we're getting MARRIED in six months. And if you can't go along with this hypothetical situation I've got going, I'm going to ask you to leave "

Danny raised his eyebrows. "Are you PMSing or something? 'Cause this doesn't seem like you."

"No, Danny, I'm not PMSing!" her voice began to rise, "And forgive me if I haven't been myself since your ex-girlfriend has magically appeared and tried to steal you away from me."

"She's doing no such thing!" Danny shouted.

"Men are so blind! Can't you see what's right in front of you?"

"Yes, what's right in front of me is the woman I'm about to marry yelling at me because she can't stand the fact that I've dated other women!"

"Other women? Try half of New York!" Lindsay spat.

Danny groaned in frustration and then attempted to calm down. "Look, Lindsay, I love you. I want to marry you. But I'm not going to marry you if you act like this."

"I'm not going to marry you if you don't admit that you're wrong," Lindsay retorted.

"I'm not wrong! Leila is over me! I am over Leila! There is nothing between us!"

Neither of them spoke. Suddenly, Danny grabbed Lindsay and pulled her to him, kissing her passionately on the mouth. Lindsay resisted for a moment, intent on staying mad at him, but it was too much for her and she eventually gave in.

"Why do you make it so impossible for me to hate you?" she asked breathlessly when the kiss was over.

"'Cause I love you too much to have you hate me."

A/N Tension, tension! Lol. I'm gonna have a whole lot of fun with this story! Sorry about the long wait for the update.

xoxo

Lia