“I’m hopelessly in love with her!” Angel declared. “I can’t just let this happen!”
“Hopelessly in love?” Spike repeated doubtfully. “What else is new?” The whole situation was absurd, in his opinion. But then, it was so perfectly Angel that he wasn’t that surprised.
Spike and Angel had been best friends since they’d been William and Liam squabbling in the schoolyard over the best swing and the highest slide. They’d lived next door to each other for years, been roommates in college, and eventually began a catering business together, and that squabbling had never really ended. Angel was the one with the grandiose plans and puffed-up hopes, and Spike had to become the one who took them down before Angel lost control and actually acted on them. All in all, it was the perfect business relationship.
Until Angel had begun “falling in love” with half the blushing brides at the weddings they catered. Spike had let him have his moment with Darla, assuming that he just needed to get it out of his system, and had been forced to hold the other man back when he tried to take her with him away from the wedding. He’d suspected that Darla had enjoyed the prospect of Angel fighting for her, and had concluded, relieved, that there had been no harm done there.
He hadn’t been as understanding when Angel had announced that he was in love with their next bride, Drusilla, two weeks later, or when Faith, Cordelia, and Nina had all been declared the same within the next two years. Angel had a nasty tendency of growing infatuated with their brides and attempting to call off their weddings, whether the brides wanted it or not.
“This is different!” Angel argued. “Buffy and I…we have a connection! We’re in love with each other!”
“I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear it,” Spike muttered. He hadn’t yet met Angel’s newest interest, and his goal was to ensure that he never did, and neither did Angel.
“You don’t understand!” A dreamy look crossed Angel’s face. “She’s beautiful and funny and sweet and completely perfect! And we had a real connection.”
“I’m sure.”
“We both picked all the same foods for the wedding! And she laughs at my jokes-“
“They’re never funny.”
“Exactly!” Angel turned pleading eyes to Spike. “I need to stop the Summers-Finn wedding before she makes the biggest mistake of her life!”
Spike shoved an apron at him. “You need to go tell the waiters what to do. And to stay far, far away from Miss Summers.”
Angel scowled at him. “You’ll understand. When you meet her, you’ll understand!” He stalked out of the room in a magnificent whirl of broody black, probably off to sulk about his misfortune. Spike kept an eye on the side door that led to the main room of the wedding hall, where beautiful, funny, sweet Buffy Summers would probably be walking down the aisle in just a few minutes. As long as he could keep Angel from opening that door, they’d be safe. Angel liked the brides, but he wasn’t nearly as enthused about the married women.
The first chords of the wedding march began, and Spike breathed a sigh of relief, turning back to his supervision of the kitchen. “Wait. What are you doing?” he said sharply, moving toward where the kitchen staff was preparing the steak. “The family specifically requested the other sauce for the steak.”
His chef frowned. “Which sauce?”
“That one.” He was moving toward the counter before Andrew could shout a warning, and the next thing he knew, he was slipping on sauce-slicked tile and sliding to the floor, smashing his head against the side of the oven in the process. “Bloody hell!”
“You okay?” Andrew asked hastily, crouching to help him up and patting him down for injuries.
“Yeah, I’m fine- you can stop that.” He batted away Andrew’s wandering hands. “I just need to…” Automatically, he scanned the dining room behind them, his voice trailing off when he noticed Angel’s conspicuous absence from the room and the side door still swinging on its hinges. “Oh, bugger.”
The main room was in chaos when Spike finally entered. The waiters and the guests were all fighting spiritedly, as were the families of the bride and groom. “Your whore of a daughter-“ “Your son couldn’t keep her-“ It was a scene that Spike was unfortunately familiar with by now, and he knew where all the action was immediately. Summers. Wherever the girl was, that was where Angel would be.
The bride was leaning against the wall next to the priest, watching as her soon-to-be-husband and Angel fought viciously with a look of such disdain on her face that Spike almost laughed. Judging from her expression, Angel wasn’t the only one of the two she wasn’t very fond of.
He moved to separate the two men, but from behind him, the bride said dryly, “Don’t bother. Looks like they need the catharsis.”
He grinned, joining her by the wall. “My apologies for this. That idiot has decided that he’s madly in love with you.”
Miss Summers shrugged. “He wouldn’t be the first,” she noted, glowering at Finn. “But anything that holds off this wedding is fine with me.”
“You don’t want to get married?” Spike asked interestedly. The plot was thickening.
The bride nodded to a pretty girl in the front row who was watching Riley with a sort of dazed fascination. “That’s Sam. One of my bridesmaids. She just told me today that she’s been sleeping with Riley for the past two months.”
“Bastard,” Spike said, and meant it. What kind of idiot would cheat on a girl as beautiful as Buffy Summers? And she was beautiful, golden hair curled back into an elegant updo over flawless skin and green eyes sparkling with mischief and belying an intelligence that her California blonde appearance attempted to conceal. Her white dress was simple, an enhancement of her natural beauty rather than one of those frilly numbers that most of the brides favored, modest without being stuffy and functional and lovely all at once.
“Thanks,” she said softly, a forlorn look crossing her face. “I guess I just wanted…I wanted someone I could count on, someone I could be with and not worry about him doing this to me. And Riley was always so good to me that I never thought he’d stray…” She blinked away a sudden wetness in her eyes, and Spike wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her to him in a loose embrace. “Maybe the crazy caterer would be better for me,” she said, laughing sadly.
“Nah.” Spike rolled his eyes at Angel, who was now tussling with Finn on the floor. Both men were hindered by suit jackets and dress pants, but it looked like Angel was winning. “He falls in love with all the brides.”
“Aw, and here I felt so special.” Buffy grinned, and the world around them seemed to fall away. Spike blinked, dazed, caught in the dazzling beauty that was that smile directed at him.
“But this is the first time I understand him completely,” he found himself saying.
Buffy’s eyes softened and they met his and held for one long, interminable moment. “Oh?”
He took a deep breath, glancing around the room at the mess of people shouting and screaming and attacking each other. “Listen, uh…do you want to get out of here?” His eyes widened and he inwardly berated himself. Rule number one of catering: don’t run off with the bride.
But then she said almost eagerly, “I’d like that,” and his mental voice fell silent, awed by the girl before him who was giving him the gift of her presence.
“Come on.” He took her hand, soft smiles spreading across both their faces, and they stepped over Angel and Finn and headed toward the closest exit, heedless of the hush that crossed over the crowd as people noticed their departure.
From behind them, Spike could hear the priest saying wearily, “I’m going home.”
Chapter End Notes:
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