After a short run-through of the ceremony at the church where the wedding will be held the following afternoon, everyone is looking forward to a relaxing evening with good food and drinks. Jim and Drew keep eying me with furtive glances the entire time we are at the church, winking at me and nudging my arm whenever they can. I come close to punching Drew in the stomach directly under a statue of Mary at one point.

“Hey, Carter, can I pop you a question?”

It's the fourth time Drew has made a reference to asking a question, and I’ve had enough. The groomsmen are standing in a straight line at the side of the altar while the priest speaks quietly to Liz and Jim in the center of the aisle.

“Will you shut the f**k up already? Claire’s going to get suspicious you dick-fuck!” I whisper angrily at him.

“Whoa, dude, slow your roll. You just said f-u-c-k in front of the Virgin Mary. Show some respect,” Drew scolds.

“What’s a virgin?” Gavin asks from his position standing next to me as he swings the ring bearer pillow around his head like a lasso.

“Uh, it’s a kind of chicken,” I stammer. “Very rare. No one talks about it.”

It's impossible not to be nervous as I take Claire’s hand and help her out of the car. My palms are sweating, and I hope she doesn’t notice as I stand there for a minute staring at her while she helps Gavin out of his car seat.

She’s so f**king beautiful I want to cry like a baby.

She closes Gavin’s car door and catches me staring at her.

“Are you okay? You seem a little out of it,” she says as she looked me over.

Shit, is my forehead sweating? Is she looking at me right now wondering why I look like a chubby man with a heart condition who just ate his weight in chicken wings and Jell-O salad at a buffet? That’s not a good look to have when you want the woman you love to look into your eyes and pledge her undying love by saying ‘yes’ to marrying you.

“Mom, my stinky wiener ticks,” Gavin states, interrupting the sweat fest and giving me time to wipe my forehead.

“Um, what does that mean?” Claire asks him.

“It means GET A MOVE ON! I wanna eat some beef turkey!”

The three of us turn and make our way up the sidewalk to the set of stairs that will lead us to the rock face where the restaurant sits.

Once inside the doors, the maître d' escorts us across the room to a long table set up in front of panoramic windows that overlook the lake. We are the last to arrive, as per the plan devised by Drew and Jim. The last three empty seats are strategically placed at the end of the table, the perfect spot for everyone to see what is going to happen.

Our friends are all in the midst of quiet conversations amongst themselves when we walk up but stop long enough to greet us and for Jim to make sure we know not to order any drinks since they are getting champagne. The mention of champagne is over exaggerated with a wink when Claire turns to help Gavin into his seat.

As the conversation moves to talk of the wedding the following day, I try to listen while going over my lines in my head. It doesn’t seem appropriate to use the same speech I had prepared for the Indian’s game proposal since there were words like “grand slam” and “switch hitter”.

Hey, I never had said it was the best speech.

Since that plan had tanked, I needed to start from scratch. On our lunch hours at work every night this week, Drew and Jim helped me write the perfect words to say to Claire. Okay, Jim helped me write the perfect words. Drew wanted me to just throw a ping pong ball at her face, reminiscent of her bartending days at Fosters' Bar and Grill where she made up the game P.O.R.N. According to him, I should whip it at her chin and say, “That won’t be the only ball bouncing off your chin if you say yes!”

After three rough drafts of the proposal and several uses of thesaurus.com, Jim and I had written the most perfect proposal ever. This night needs to be flawless. Claire will spend countless hours retelling the story of how I proposed to everyone she knows, and even a few strangers, for the rest of her life. She deserves the most romantic story to tell.

The waitress comes around a few minutes later to take everyone’s order.

“So, little man, what can I get you?” she asks as she bends down to Gavin’s level.

“I want a virgin,” he states.

Claire starts choking on her water and Liz reaches over to pat her on the back.

“I’m sorry, what do want to order?” the waitress asks him in confusion.

“A virgin. I want to order a virgin,” he repeats, looking at her like she was a moron.

“Don’t we all, son. Don’t we all,” Jim’s father mumbles from a few spots down, receiving a smack on the arm from his wife.

“I think he means chicken,” I clarify sheepishly.

“Yes, because that makes perfect sense,” Claire says under her breath as she picks up her water glass and attempts to take another sip.

With our orders taken, the waitress disappears and conversation resumes.

“Jim, I’ve been meaning to ask if you were able to finish hot gluing those crystals to all the ribbons for the church programs,” Mrs. Gates asks. “And also, don’t forget to put Preparation H under your eyes tomorrow morning.”

Drew starts laughing and Jenny kicks him under the table.

“I’m totally calling him Hemorrhoid Head all day tomorrow.” Drew leans over and whispers to me. “I know he’s been stressed about the wedding, but I didn’t realize it would cause ass itching under his eyes.”

Jim’s mom hears Drew and gives him a stern look that instantly wipes the smile off of his face.

“Andrew, it is well documented that this type of cream can reduce puffiness under one’s eyes. Very effective when one needs to have their pictures taken,” she states primly.

“Also very funny when one’s eyes now have anal leakage,” Drew says under his breath.

“Jim, before you leave tonight remind me to give you the magazine photos of the two different floral arches for you to look at. You’ll just need to tell the florist which one you want her to use at the reception tomorrow when she delivers the boutonnières,” Liz’s mom adds.

Jim is right. This woman is a walking, talking wedding robot.

“Jesus Christ, do it already before she starts talking about wedding favors and I grow a vagina,” Jim begs in a low whisper.

I give him a nod to let him know I'm ready. A big grin breaks across his face as he completely ignores Weddingbot 2000 and signals our waitress while Claire is busy discussing the difference between good words and bad words with Gavin.

Jim and I had met with the manager of the restaurant and our waitress the day before to go over the plan for the evening. The waitress will bring over a tray of champagne for everyone at the table as soon as she is given the signal. At the bottom of Claire’s glass will be the engagement ring I had dropped off this afternoon when I ran out to pick up Gavin’s and my tux.

I couldn’t believe it was finally time to do this. I am going to propose to the woman of my dreams who I thought I’d never see again after our one night in college.

The waitress is back and has served almost half the table their glasses of champagne. I figure it's now or never.

I reach down and clasp Claire’s hand that rests on my thigh, bringing it up to my lips, trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart.

When she feels my lips on her hand, she turns to look at me.

“I love you so much, Claire,” I say softly as I see the waitress move closer and closer to us out of the corner of my eye.

“I love you too, Carter,” she replies with a smile.

The waitress only has two more people to serve before she gets to us. I know I need to speed things up a bit if I want to time everything just right.

“Oh my gosh, wait until you hear what Jenny said to me earlier. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you,” Claire says as she leans in closer to me and glances over my shoulder to make sure Jenny isn’t listening.

I look behind me as well and see the waitress rounding the table, heading right for us. I need to be down on my knee when she places Claire’s glass in front of her.

Shit!

“Claire, hold that thought. I have something I need to say.”

She completely ignores me and turns sideways in her chair so she can face me and get closer.

“Wait, this is really good! You’re going to love this,” she says excitedly as my foot starts bouncing frantically on the floor when I see the waitress stop right behind Claire to say something to Gavin. “Okay, so Jenny said Drew’s been acting funny lately. Talking about weddings and marriage proposals and asking her hypothetical questions like, ‘If I were to propose to you, what would you want me to say?’ Drew is so damn obvious.”

I look back at Claire, barely registering what she is saying and wondering if it's bad manners to tell her to shut the hell up right before I ask her to marry me.

“Huh? What did you say?” I ask her as she continues to talk and I miss the last few sentences.

“I said Jenny thinks Drew is going to propose to her tonight. Can you believe that shit?”

My head slowly turns to face her, my mouth falling open in shock, the waitress with the champagne long forgotten.

“Drew? Propose? Tonight?”

Fuckshitballdamn!

“I know, right? First of all, they haven’t been together that long and second – who the hell proposes at someone else’s rehearsal dinner? That’s in poor taste if you ask me. You’re taking the spotlight off of the soon-to-be-married couple and putting it on you. It’s like a slap in the face to them. Like, ‘Oh hey, look at me! I’m an as**ole and want all eyes on me instead of the two people they should be on! Ha ha, I’m such an asshole, who has a camera to document my assholeness for all of eternity?’” Claire says with a laugh and a shake of her head for the imaginary as**ole in her mind.

Except I'm the asshole! I'm the mother f**king asshole!

An arm slides between our bodies and in the haze of my as**ole pity party, I realize there is a champagne glass attached to the end of it. I literally feel my brain shutting down. I hear a computerized voice in there counting backwards from five and feel like I'm in the movie “The Hurt Locker” and don’t know whether to cut the red or the blue wire.

The red or the blue?? THE RED OR THE MOTHER FUCKING BLUE?!

Claire reaches for her glass of champagne.

You know how people always talk about how during a moment of panic they feel like they’re in a dream and everything is in slow motion? I have never experienced that before and always just assume they are full of shit and trying to make their story sound better.

Well, I'm right.

This shit isn’t moving in slow motion; it's moving faster than the speed of light, and I'm cutting the wrong wire and exploding into a complete jackass spaz.

My arm, as if completely detached from my body, flies away from its spot resting on the table, knocking over a lit candle, the salt shaker, my own glass of champagne, and two full water glasses until my hand grasps onto Claire’s champagne flute right before it touches her lips.

I yank the glass out of her hand, sloshing expensive champagne everywhere in the process. In the back of my mind I could hear someone yelling, “Noooooooooo!” and am completely oblivious to the fact that the bat shit crazy screamer in the middle of Pier W is me.

Not even taking one second to think about my actions or the fact that everyone in the place is looking at me in horror, I quickly bring the glass to my lips, tip my head back, and dump everything into my mouth, including the ring.

Drew leans over and whispers in my ear when I slam the empty glass back down on the table. “Dude, are you changing the plan? Because if the new plan is that you’re going to try and shit out that ring, I gotta tell ya, that’s not very romantic.”

13. Tee Time

I’m going to cry.

I’m going to cry like a God dammed baby and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s getting hard to swallow because my throat is so tight, and I’m starting to feel like I’m at a rave with a really bad strobe light because of the way I keep blinking my eyes to keep the tears at bay.

Son of a bitch, I’m going to ugly cry. Some women can pull off crying without their make-up running or fluids leaking from every hole in their face but not me. I’m in a gorgeous gown, my hair is professionally done, my make-up is flawless and in three seconds I’m going to ruin it all by losing complete control of the muscles in my face. I’m going to try really hard to stay quiet which is going to f**k me over because it’s going to force me to make sounds that you only hear in the middle of the night on the Discovery Channel. By the time I’m finished, I’m going to look like I have pink eye after being punched in the face by Mike Tyson.

This is all Liz’s fault. Why does she have to look so beautiful?

We’re standing in the alcove at the back of the church, just seconds away from walking down the aisle. The other bridesmaids have already left to meet their groomsmen at the front of the alter, the doors leading into the church closing behind them to keep the guests' first view of the bride a secret until the last minute.

Mrs. Gates is busy fluttering around Liz making last minute adjustments to the train of her dress and reminding her to smile, but not too much or the creases at the corners of her eyes will show in the pictures. She’s standing up and squatting down over and over as she circles Liz, and I giggle-snort around the tears forming in my eyes since she reminds me of a horse on a merry-go-round. I suddenly want to ask Liz if she has a riding crop I can borrow so I can whip her mother and make her go faster.