The next day, Leland called him mid-morning, having promised Natalie he'd call to check in on Adrian at least once. "How're you holding up?" he asked.

"Pretty well, actually," Adrian said. "I'm staying with Ambrose and my father for the weekend."

"You are?" Leland couldn't hide his surprise. "I didn't know you'd planned to stay there."

"I hadn't, originally. But I came over on Saturday morning go over the ceremony with Ambrose, and when my father found out Natalie was gone until Monday, he invited me to stay."

"Oh." To Adrian's surprise, Leland actually sounded a little envious. "That's good that you'll get to spend some time with them before the wedding."

"How are you?" Adrian asked. He thought Leland had to be feeling a little lonely, too. To his knowledge, this was the first time that he and T.K. had been apart overnight since their marriage, other than the times Leland had to pull an all-nighter after catching a case. But even then he made an effort to stop by their house at some point, even if just for a few minutes, to say hello.

Leland sighed. "I'm okay, I guess. I went boating yesterday, and I thought about going again today, but I just don't have the heart for it."

"Why don't you come over here?" Adrian asked suddenly. "We could… hang out."

There were a few seconds of shocked silence on the other end of the phone. "You want to hang out?"

"Sure," Adrian said, warming to the idea. "We could call Randy and Bobby, see if they want to join us, since Sharona and Peggy are gone. Maybe Jonathan, too, if he doesn't have other plans."

"Well — I — " Leland let out a baffled laugh. "Why not? You call Bobby, I'll call Randy."

Accordingly, Adrian called Bobby, who sounded delighted by the invitation, and said he'd bring Jonathan as well — apparently he'd been hunched over his laptop the entire morning, and Bobby thought he could stand to get away from work for a while.

It wasn't until he'd already hung up with Bobby that Adrian realized he probably should have first asked Ambrose and his father if they could having people over before issuing the invitations. He didn't know if they already had something in mind for the day, or if they even wanted to spend time with his friends.

But when he hesitantly told his father about the plans he'd made, Jack was enthusiastic. "I'm going to run to the store," he announced, grabbing his car keys. "This is the perfect opportunity to fire up that old charcoal grill in the backyard, and grill some burgers."

"You really don't have to — " Adrian began.

"I want to," Jack said, already halfway out the door.

Ambrose snapped his fingers, suddenly inspired. "I have some peaches that are ripe. I'm going make a cobbler," he announced, and disappeared into the kitchen.

His father returned thirty minutes later, laden with a big bag of charcoal, hamburger fixings, bags of potato chips, and sodas. By the time Randy, Bobby, Jonathan, and Leland arrived, the latter bearing a case of beer, Jack had the grill nearly hot enough for cooking. The distinctive smell of burning charcoal wafted all the way to the front of the house.

"All right, grilling party!" Randy said, obviously enthused, as Adrian opened the door to greet them and usher them inside.

Leland stared in disbelief at the clean, tidy foyer and living area. "Holy shit," he blurted, then reddened in embarrassment. "Uh… sorry."

Ambrose, who'd come out of the kitchen to greet the visitors, grinned. "Dad and I made ninety-seven trips to the recycling center," he informed Leland.

"I can see that," Leland said, raising his eyebrows at Adrian.

"Quite the transformation, isn't it?" Adrian commented as he closed the door behind them.

"It's like we're at the wrong house," Randy said, his eyes wide as he took in the changes. "Have Natalie and Julie seen this place yet?"

Adrian shook his head. "I just saw it myself for the first time yesterday." Noticing Bobby and Jonathan's confused expressions, he explained, "There used to be a lot of… stuff… in here."

"That's an understatement," Leland muttered. He hefted the beer. "Where do you want me to put this?"

Before Adrian could answer, Jack came in from outside. "You can put them in the cooler on the patio. I've put ice and some sodas in there already."

"Sounds great." Leland smiled appreciatively as he headed out to the backyard.

"Burgers are on the grill," Jack said cheerfully. "Why don't you all come out back and sit down?"


To Adrian's surprise, the rest of the afternoon flew by. It was by far the most enjoyable day he'd ever spent at his childhood home. In fact, the small gathering was like a lower-key version of his bachelor party, sans bowling.

The food was wonderful – his father had outdone himself with the hamburgers, and Ambrose's peach cobbler was delicious. Both Adrian and Ambrose eschewed the alcohol, but the other men, including Jack, indulged. They spent a pleasant afternoon relaxing on the back patio and talking – about the wedding, the SFPD, Davenport Toothpaste, Ambrose's technical manuals, sports, and a dozen other topics.

Leland and Randy spent a considerable amount of time regaling Jack, Ambrose, Jonathan, and Bobby with stories about the more memorable cases they'd worked with Adrian and Natalie, including a long, detailed version of the events immediately before and after they'd met Natalie for the first time.

"Natalie stabbed a guy to death in her living room?" Jack asked, his mouth agape.

"He was trying to strangle her at the time," Leland said mildly. "She didn't mean to kill him; she was just defending herself."

"She never told us about any of that," Bobby said, exchanging a frown with Jonathan. "Come to think of it, she never really told us exactly how you two met, just that she'd started working for you."

"She probably didn't want to worry you," Adrian said, suppressing a sigh, although he suspected that her long estrangement with her parents had more to do with it. Like him, Natalie simply wasn't accustomed to updating her family with details about her life, even major ones.

"So why'd you offer her the job?" Jonathan asked.

Adrian mulled this question over for a long minute. "I admired her pluck," he said finally. "And her resilience." Remembering their encounter with the "corpuscle" at the science museum, he grinned. "And even her sass."

The assorted men laughed. "She has that in spades," Bobby chuckled.

"Bet you never thought that you'd end up marrying her," Randy teased.

"Not at all," Adrian agreed, then shot Randy a meaningful look. "Sort of like how I never thought you'd end up with Sharona."

Randy flushed. "Tell me about it," he mumbled, but he was smiling.

"Are you and Sharona planning on getting married?" Ambrose asked him.

"Not anytime soon," Randy answered, his smile fading. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I mean, I want to, but she…" He hesitated, then continued, "She had a really bad experience with her ex-husband, both times they were married, and I think it's left her a little… gun-shy, I guess… where marriage is concerned."

"Boy, do I know how that feels," Jonathan remarked sympathetically.

Adrian remembered Trevor Howe, Sharona's ex-husband (times two). He'd never liked him. Sharona hadn't spoken much about her (first) marriage, but he'd heard enough negative stories that he'd been very skeptical of the alleged transformation that had prompted Sharona to move to New Jersey and remarry him. At the time, he'd expressed his concerns, but Sharona had brushed them aside. He was actually sorry that he'd been right about Trevor, because it meant Sharona, and probably Benjy, had been hurt again. At least she had Randy now.

"Maybe seeing Adrian and Natalie's wedding will help change her mind," Jack suggested.

Randy grinned. "Maybe. I know she's had fun helping Natalie with the planning."

"So has T.K.," Leland said. "I think she's had even more fun than she did when she was planning our wedding."

"Natalie was in your wedding, wasn't she?" Ambrose said to Leland. "She showed me pictures."

"Yeah, she was the maid of honor," Leland confirmed. "We're lucky she agreed to step in at the last minute after our first one got arrested for murder."

Bobby choked slightly on the beer he'd just sipped. "Now that sounds like an interesting story."

Leland told the tale of his nearly-aborted wedding, and how both Monk and Natalie had saved the day – Monk by solving the case, and Natalie by talking T.K. into marrying Leland despite her fears about his job.

When he was finished, Jonathan goggled at him. "So Adrian caught a murderer at my wedding, and he caught a murderer at Leland's wedding…" He turned to look at his future brother-in-law with a speculative expression. "Are you going to catch a murderer at your wedding, too?"

"I hope not," Adrian said, shuddering slightly. "I want murder of any kind to stay very far away from my wedding."

"Well, considering you'll have my entire homicide division in attendance, I don't think you have to worry," Leland said with a wink. "We'll deal with catching any murderers who show up. You just need to concentrate on getting married."

"Sounds good to me," Adrian said, toasting him with his bottle of water.

"What about the honeymoon?" Jonathan said, grinning. "You're not going to Alcatraz or anything, are you?"

They all laughed. "No," Adrian said with a smile.

The men waited for him to say more, but he didn't. "Well?" Jack finally asked, his eyebrows raised. "Where are you going?"

Adrian shook his head. "That's confidential."

"Oh, come on," Leland protested. "You can tell us."

"I've put my foot down on this one, Leland," Adrian said, with a stubborn expression that his friends recognized all too well. "We want privacy, and the only way to get it is if Natalie and I are the only people who know where we're going."

"You're not even telling Julie?" Leland pressed, skeptical.

"No," Adrian said firmly. "We can be reached by cell phone if there's an emergency, but even she won't know where we are. All she knows is that we're leaving on Saturday, after the brunch, and we'll be home the following Saturday."

"It's not like any of us would crash your honeymoon," Randy put in, laughing at the very idea.

"We're not taking any chances." Adrian gave both Leland and Randy a pointed look. "And any murder investigations are going to have to wait until we come back. I don't care if the mayor himself asks for me."

"What about the governor? Or the President?" Leland asked, deadpan.

"You can call me if either of them ask, but even then I won't make any promises," Adrian said.

"I could search your financials and see if you've paid a deposit anywhere lately," Randy mused with a teasing glint in his eye.

"You'd need a warrant first," Adrian returned.

"Okay, okay," Leland relented, laughing. "Keep your secret. But I hope we'll at least see pictures once you get back."

Adrian grinned at that. "I think we'll have better things to do than sightsee."

"Whoa, way too much information there, dude," Jonathan said, pretending to cover his ears as Leland and the others roared with laughter. "That's my sister you're talking about."

"I'm marrying your sister," Adrian said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "What do you think we're going to do on our honeymoon, play Monopoly?"

"I don't want to think about it," Jonathan protested, but he was laughing, too.

The conversation drifted to other topics, but Adrian only vaguely participated in the conversation from then on. He was too distracted. All of the talk about their honeymoon made him yearn for Natalie more than ever, and he couldn't help but daydream about what their honeymoon would be like. A quiet, private, secluded cottage. No crime scenes to go to, no teenagers lurking about, no distractions. Just the two of them, husband and wife, entirely and gloriously alone for an entire week.

Six days to go, he thought wistfully.

"Monk," a voice said loudly.

"Hmm?" Adrian said, coming back to earth with a jolt.

Leland gave him a knowing grin. "I said, we're going now."

"Oh!" Adrian rose to see them out.