It's Not That Easy

Chapter 35 - Time Flies

I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you. - Roy Croft

Chapter 35 - Time Flies

Edward's POV:

"Edward, don't wuss out on us." Elliot yells at me when I tell him I'm not interested in going. He seems to be the only one giving me grief. Mason promised no women tonight, and Holden and Joel agreed. This is my last boy's night out before I attach the ball and chain, as Elliot has been affectionately been referring to Addyson for the last few hours.

There are twelve of us being driven around from bar to bar. We started our night playing pool and darts, before making our hops. So far, it's only been scantily clad waitresses, but Elliot keeps pushing. "If it's ok with you, I like my body the way it is, with no missing pieces," I tell him as we load up for another stop.

--

One week - that's all that's left. The saying goes, time flies when you're having fun, but they don't say that it comes to a screeching halt when you're under stress, and that's what I've been trying to keep at bay...stress. Trying to juggle classes, wedding arrangements, and normal life, Addyson is feeling the stress. I've been trying to keep it fun with my main goal is to come up with ways to prevent her from bailing on me.

Joel has been the peacemaker between the roommates. A job I can't do very well, considering that it's my fiancé and my sister we're talking about, and I can't get in the middle of those two. He keeps Helen under control or at least subdued when it comes to wedding talk, which now is more mentally walking through checklists of to dos than actually making plans. As of yesterday, Helen has been banned from all wedding talk until Thursday.

My main job is to keep this as fun as possible. When we came back from Boston, Addyson told me she was getting nervous about the wedding. The closer we get the more nervous and emotional she seems to get. So, I spend my time trying to distract her from dwelling on too many details. We focus on our upcoming marriage instead, a piece of advice I got from Cooper.

A week ago, I moved into our new house, and she's moved a few of her things also, but she's choosing to concentrate on midterms this week instead of moving or wedding. One of the first things I did when I moved in was have part of the fence torn down. Privacy isn't really an issue, because the garage obstructs the view to Addyson's house. If we need to later, we'll add a gate, but for now we just want access between houses.

Moving me into our house has helped her with her nerves, but using our bare living room floor for dance practice has been the best. We've had a few private dance lessons just to get some help with choreography. Nothing outrageous, but with the song we chose we wanted a few fun moves thrown into the dance.

I've heard the song so many times now I could sing it by heart, and I do enjoy the look on Addyson's face when I sing along. She practices dancing, wearing the long dress she had worn to the hospital benefit months ago, the night I almost lost her to my stupidity, and that has given us opportunities to talk about what it has taken for us to get here. How we got to the point in our lives that we are willing to stand before God and everybody vowing to love each other for life.

I've been bumping up the romance, also, or at least trying to. After our first wedding shower, we decided to stay the night with our parents. I had her sneak out of her parents' house like a teenager and meet me on the 4th tee, just like I had done when we first dated almost five years ago. Her parents found us the next morning, when they were out for a run, sleeping curled up in blankets on the grass. That was only the beginning.

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We pull into the West End, a local sports bar, to end our night the way it started, but with a more drunken version of our first games and the added benefit of live music. "I still think you're a wuss," Elliot playfully slurs and tries to explain how going to a strip club would be so much more fun, and my cousin Jeremy was there to back him up. "What's a bachelor party without naked women?" I ignore him.