The Best Laid Out Plans 0: An April Fools Prequel

by Bysen

Set

“So… she say 'yes'?” Jet asked as he walked up to him at the table. Night Light just glared at him as he put the nearly empty bottle of beer down next to the two others, one of which was the wine bottle, and a large now empty ice cream bowl. “Too soon. Got it.” he said and picked up the bill left on the table. Night Light had paid most of it but he was still a bit short. Plus he needed a ride home… which he wasn’t sure where that was right now since he and Velvet shared an apartment.

Even in his wildest worst case scenarios none of them ended with her saying no. He didn’t understand it. Hell, one of those scenarios had been her telling him she was pregnant and even that ended with hot engagment sex under the boardwalks at the peir with the bonus thrill of ‘Well you can’t get more pregnant.’ “I just don’t know what went wrong.”

“Pffhhahaha…” came from a two tables over. He looked at the couple it had come from. They saw him looking. “Sorry…” the woman said before muttering to the person with her “I swear if you propose to me like that you’re getting the same answer.”

“Let’s just go…” Night Light stood and walked out of the restaurant. He looked down the now dark street to where Velvet’s car had been parked and there was already a different car there. Jet’s car. He wondered if she had been out there until not long before he arrived for it to still be empty when Jet parked. He normally sat in the passenger seat up front but instead opened a back door and crawled in.

“You can lay down but put a belt on anyway. Can’t afford the fine.” Jet turned on the ignition and reversed out. “So I take it it was more than just a ‘no’ from the way those two dykes laughed.”

“DAD!!!” Twilight yelled.

“Hey, Jet said it, not me. Remember, it was the 90s and people weren't as accepting of that yet.”

“This whole 90's thing doesn’t really seem to be that important to the story.” Shining Armour added.

“Oh, well I’m sorry you being born 20 years ago doesn’t affect the narrative that much…”

After telling Jet word-for-word what he’d said and saying it out loud, Night Light began to realise what what he’d said must’ve sounded like without the knowledge that a ring was about twenty seconds away when she walked out. “I blame you for this.” he said to his friend.

“Ok…” Jet responded, letting his friend vent. “But why?”

“I didn’t want people to think we were just getting married because we had to.”

“No one would care.”

“I would!”

“Well… that’s on you.” Jet said flatly. “You’re not even religious or anything. Why would you even care?”

Night Light held for a second. He couldn’t really say this without coming off as a bit of an arse. “I didn’t want my marriage to be anything like yours.”

“I had a ‘shotgun wedding’ just because I got her pregnant?” he asked, guessing that’s what Night Light had been thinking about when he’d said to Velvet. In fairness, Jet had probably used the phrase himself once or twice too.

“Followed by a shotgun devorse less than half a year later.”

“Four months exactly.” Jet corrected. And under his breathe “She wasn’t even born yet…” he said softly. But right now wasn’t the time for his self pity when Night Light had his own, much fresher. “We didn’t work because she was a casual hookup that had a hiccup. You, you were dating for three years. That’s a completely different story.”

“Think she’ll forgive me if I explain everything? That that whole kerfuffle was just a mi-”

“‘Kerfuffle’.” Jet sing-song-said.

“-sunderstanding.”

“Oh yeah. Absolutely.” Jet replied.

“I need a real answer…”

“That was.” he looked at his friend in the rearview mirror. “Do you want to have a kid with her?”

“I… yeah. I guess. I just-”

“Stop talking. That's all you need to say to her. As long as you can say that much without shoving your other foot in your mouth too you’re golden ponyboy.”

“You’re right… I just feel so bad about this whole thing.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation I’m sure she feels just as bad.”

“That’s exactly why I feel bad dumbarse.”

“Oh… right.”

“Change of plans. Let’s head to my place instead.”

“Uh…” Jet let out.

“‘Uh’ what?” and then the car bumped a bit as it went up Jet’s driveway. “Oh.”

Meanwhile, on the same block as the restaurant, just around the corner from it.

The music in the club blared as Velvet, bottle of vodka in one hand and a storebrand squeezy bottle of lemon juice in the other, sang along “-no scrub. Scrubs is a chump who can’t get no love from me. Hanging out of the passenger side of his best friend’s ride. Trying to holla at me! Scrubs checking me and I don’t know the lines but I sing it anyway in time with the tu-une!”

“Well that’s telling…” Vee said as she walked up to Velvet. She’d been called from the pay phone out front and told to get here immediately. “Velvet… sorry abou-”

“Vee! You’re here! Hey, try some of this!” as she pushed the bottles up top of her friend's mouth, tilted one and squeezed the other.

A quick sputtering and coughing erupted from her before “Damn it Velvet I drove here!” which got a laugh in return. Vee couldn’t be too mad at her right now. She knew how crappy a serious breakup could be. “Listen… I’m sorry about giving you that stupid advice. Heh, didn’t think you’d be dumb enough to actually take it. Uh, but uh… I know you must feel like shi-”

“Hold on one second. Scrub is a chump who can’t get no love from me. Hanging out of the passenger side of his best friend’s ride. Trying to holla at me! Sorry, love this song!”

“I know you must feel like sh-”

“Has nothing to do with Night Light though. Sorry, you were saying?”

Vee just raised a hand to her temple and groaned. “Sad because of him.” Velvet hated swearing for some reason, as if she wasn’t a groan fucking adult.

“Sad? No. Happy if anything. Your idea worked. He didn’t want a kid and didn’t seem to see us as anything more than dating forever. And if you’re not dating to get married, you’re dating to break up. And that’s exactly what I’m doing tonight. No, actually, they're what I'm doing tonight!” and she pointed to two guys hanging out at the bar looking over the floor. The obvious way they were looking out for some girl or another to start up with oblivious to the fact two woman where looking at them the same way made them perfect throw away buckboys.

Vee for her part wasn’t against the idea. She’d already paid for a sitter so she might as well get her money’s worth. Besides, it's not like she wasn’t buzzed driving here in the first place. “Give me that bottle. No, the booze bottle!” she said, swatting one of her friend's hands away and swiping it from the other.

Vee started drinking. “So which one do you want? The tall one or the buff one? Vee?” all she got in response was Vee raising her hand to hold up a single finger in a ‘one moment’ gesture as she kept drinking.

The formerly nearly-full 1.25 litre bottle slowly emptied as she tilted her head back further to keep the flow going. When she finally finished Vee dropped the bottle and ‘Aggghh……’ loudly, rolling the sound then let a disproportionately small burp out. “Don’t care.” and she walked past Velvet towards the two guys, grabbing her friend by the arm pulling her along with her.

“Vee sounds like a complete T H O T.” Twilight said.

“I don’t know what exactly that means… but yeah, she is.” Night Light laughed.

“So I take it Mom didn’t sleep with one of those guys.” Shining followed.

“Ughh….”

“MOM!!!”

“I’m not proud of what I did that night. And yes Vee may be a thot but she saved your lives that night.”