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Author's Chapter Notes:

Drama! lol

 

Nick stared at the man next to him in the golf cart, slack jawed. Under any other circumstances he wouldn’t have given a crap what Dustin and Amy did because it didn’t affect him but this case was different. Peggy had worked hard to pick herself back up after Dustin had used and abused her emotionally and she had finally managed to cut him out of her life only for her own cousin to drag him back into it.

Ultimately, this situation was going to affect Peggy and by default affect him. That was sometimes the downfall of being a couple. He had a lot of drama all on his own, he didn’t really need someone else’s drama in his life but it always seemed that every time he committed to sharing his life with someone else it also meant sharing the hysteria that came along with it.

Finally, upon hearing the other two chatting behind them, Nick got out of the cart. Slowly he walked up to Dustin, not thinking of anyone but Peggy as he stared up at the other man.

“What are you playing at?” Nick asked, hands on his hips.

Dustin sighed, throwing his arms up in frustration. “What now?!”

“You and Amy are getting married?”

There was a long pause while the two stared each other down, Dustin having no response to the question.

“Why would you tell her today? Why do you want to ruin her day? She was just trying to have some fun and you assholes are going to come and spoil it? That is so not fair."

For the first time since Nick had met the guy Dustin seemed legitimately guilty. The normally sarcastic look that he had on his face wavered slightly.

“Wasn’t my call,” Dustin shrugged. “I don’t know why Margaret seems to hate me so much-”

“You know why.”

“Whatever,” the sarcastic look quickly returned as Dustin rolled his eyes. “She just needs to know and now is as good a time as ever. Amy wants her to be in the wedding so it has to happen now.”

Nick laughed at the audacity - as if the two of them thought that Peggy would want to be in their ridiculous wedding after they had hidden their entire relationship from her. He didn’t know how long they had been seeing one another but could only assume it had been awhile since most people didn’t decide to get married in the spur-of-the-moment.

“She’s not going to be in your wedding,” Nick assured him.

“Are you worried she might get too many ideas? Start wondering when you’re going to get down on one knee?” Dustin questioned sardonically.

Again, Nick was overcome with his signature giggle, not able to take a single word coming out of the other man’s mouth seriously. “Are you kidding me? Peggy and I aren’t getting married. Not now - not ever. That’s just not something that our relationship needs. We’re stronger than that, we only need each other. Don’t worry about us, though. You and Amy go right ahead and tie the knot and we’ll be around to say I told you so when you start treating her like crap just like you did to Peggy.”

Again, Dustin had no comment and the pair merely stared each other down in the middle of the golf course. It wasn’t until Pete interrupted them and not-so-respectfully asked them to put their shit aside, so they could finish the game and get through the rest of the day without it coming to fisticuffs, that they decided to get back to the real reason they were there - golfing.

The pent up hostility towards Dustin seemed to only make Nick’s game better and by the time they reached the final hole he had demolished his own personal record. By that point the entire group of guys were ready to call it a day and each were silently hoping that the women had fared a bit better.

Their female counterparts had already secured a table in the clubhouse for lunch and were sitting around chatting excitedly about particularly humorous moments they’d experienced on the course. As the men approached the table the girls, minus Peggy who was noticeably missing, didn’t even look up from their conversation. It wasn’t until Nick loudly cleared his throat that they even recognized the other presence in the room.

“Where’s my girlfriend?” he asked plainly, glancing between the three women at the table but sending a particularly nasty look as his eyes crossed past Amy. Becca raised her eyebrows at his blunt words and pointed him in the direction of the washrooms where Peggy had run off to moments before.

Without a word Nick turned and followed the signs to the ladies room, stationing himself just outside the door. A few women eyed him curiously as they walked out and he pulled his hat off his sweaty head, running his hand anxiously through his damp hair. He hadn’t yet decided if he was going to spill the beans entirely but he wasn’t sure if Peggy was aware that Dustin was even there since the girls had left before he arrived and ruined everyone’s day. Nick jumped every time the door to the restroom opened until finally he recognized Peggy’s familiar figure walking through.

She smiled as she spotted him leaning up against the wall casually, hands stuffed into the pockets of the well-fit khaki trousers he wore. Peggy couldn’t help but give him an appreciative once-over, feeling a swell of pride at the thought that the attractive man in front of her was all hers.

“Hi handsome,” she spoke softly, moving to join him. He pulled his hands from his pockets as hers snaked around his torso, his palms sliding across the flat of her back.

Wordlessly, Nick closed the small distance in height between them for a kiss, pulling her full bottom lip between his teeth briefly as they broke apart.

“What was that for?” she wondered curiously. “Not that I’m complaining.”

He shrugged, “I just wanted to kiss you.”

The answer satisfied her curiosity enough that she changed the subject, inquiring as to how his game had gone. Without a single mention of Dustin, he launched into the story of the best golf game of his life, describing different things about the greens and fairways that he found to be particularly challenging.

Peggy watched him speak excitedly about beating the guys on his team, still grinning. The urge to touch his skin as he spoke was overwhelming, despite the fact that she could still feel the fatigue throughout her body from their antics the night before. While he continued the story she slid one hand past his belt and into the back of his pants while the other pushed its way under the shirt hem that was keeping her away from his muscular back.

Nick stopped speaking mid-sentence and chuckled, “What do you think you’re doing? We’re in public.”

“We’re not in public,” Peggy argued, “we’re in a hallway by ourselves. I just wanted to touch you.”

“I always want to touch you,” he told her honestly, dropping a quick kiss on her nose, followed by her forehead, “but I don’t always get what I want.”

Peggy playfully rolled her eyes, squeezing the cheek that was beneath her hand, “Liar.”

“Fine,” he relented. “I get what I want most of the time. Seriously though I don’t want a picture of us to end up on the internet with your hand on my ass.”

The eyeroll that followed was less frisky than the last and she pouted as she removed her hands from his skin, returning them to their original position over the shirt on his back.

“You’re so terrible at looking mad,” Nick teased, pulling her into a tight hug before letting go entirely. “So how did your day go? How was Amy?”

“What do you mean how was Amy?” she wondered. “She was her usual nosy, obnoxious self but no different than normal. Who did she end up bringing to play with you guys?”

Nick let out a heavy breath, his eyebrows raising in concern as he realized that Peggy was about to be completely bushwhacked.

“Babe...” he brushed a stray piece of hair away from her eye and tucked it carefully behind her ear. “She brought Dustin.”

Peggy gasped, her hand flying to her chest as if she were trying to keep her heart from escaping due to the shock. Her green eyes, full of worry, scanned his face looking for some kind of indication that he was leading her astray but she couldn’t find it.

“Why would she bring him?” Peggy asked innocently. “She knows that I am trying to get him out of my life. Why would she bring him?”

Nick sighed heavily, wishing he had a good answer for her. In reality his first impulse was to tell her that it would have been a lot easier to remove Dustin from her life if she hadn’t decided that she would continue to live in the same neighbourhood as the person she supposedly despised while still visiting the same spots that the two of them frequented as a couple.

“I suppose she is really the only person that can truthfully answer that question,” he replied. “I just wanted to make sure you were prepared before you walked back to the table and saw him there.”

“He’s sitting right out there?” she asked, pointing back in the direction of the dining room. “As if nothing is wrong with that?”

“Peggy,” Nick said firmly. “I know you hate him but there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that. You’ve moved on, he has obviously moved on. Maybe it’s time to just put the past behind you and show this dude that you’re a much better person without him?”

She had never really considered that being upset about Dustin was really just another way for her to keep his unfortunate place in her life alive but Nick’s words made her realize that he was absolutely right - it was time to just let it all go. She had Nick and he was the most wonderful man in the world. Had she never gone through what she went through with Dustin she probably would have never left school and applied for the job with the airline and thus never met Nick. She would have to do her best to move on - not forgive, but forget.

“You’re right,” she agreed. “I’ll always hate him but I need to stop letting him get to me like this. This is just the way he wanted me to feel when we were together and I’m done with that.”

Nick smiled and nodded, dropping another kiss onto her forehead. “Let’s go eat,” he said but deep down he was wondering whether Peggy would be able to keep up that level of resolve once she found out that Dustin was about to be a much more permanent fixture in her life - he was about to be family.

Their return to the table didn’t go without a bit of teasing about how long the pair of them had been in the bathroom and Nick was thankful for the happy chatter that was going around the table. Much like it had on the golf course for both groups, the conversation ultimately turned to weddings. Nick remembered what it was like to be around the age of most of the people at the table when all of your friends suddenly start getting married.

It seemed at one point like he was getting an invitation to a wedding every other week and it got old quickly. Now, at his age, all of his friends were already married and had moved into the kids and pets stage of their relationships. He had never really felt that he fit into either category and opted not to contribute more than the random agreement or disagreement to the conversation, anxiously hoping that a waiter would suddenly appear to take their order and change the subject.

“Do you all know what you’re having?”

Nick let out a sigh of relief at the sound of the server’s voice, putting a quick end to the marriage talk before anyone could start asking him questions. Everyone went around the table calling out orders and he was left surprised when it was Peggy’s turn and she ordered for him.

She had already asked him what on the menu he was able to eat and he knew that she was ordering for him mostly because she was still trying to learn more about the way he ate but it was somewhat awkward to be sitting next to his girlfriend, fully capable of speaking and picking out his own food, having her rattle off his lunch order for him.

“Um,” Nick chuckled as the server walked away, his eyes fixed on his girlfriend. “Thanks... for that... that was nice of you.”

“No problem!” Peggy grinned, completely oblivious to his confusion. She turned to the rest of the group and explained, “Nick’s a vegetarian.”

While the others nodded politely and opted not to draw any more attention to the unusual situation it was not a surprise to Nick when he heard Dustin’s obnoxious laugh from across the table.

“You order for him because he doesn’t eat meat?” Dustin asked, ignoring Amy’s elbow ramming into his side trying to get him to stop. Looking directly at Nick, he shook his head. “Could you be a bigger pussy? It’s bad enough you’re in a boyband but you have to have your girlfriend order your food for you, too? I figured you would have at least tried to fill my shoes given that you obviously can’t fill my condoms.”

A hush fell over the table. The awkwardness seemed to stretch on forever but Nick knew it had only been a few seconds since he was publicly humiliated with who knows how many other people listening on at other tables.

He turned to Peggy, wide-eyed yet strangely calm, “What the hell? How does he know about that? It was last-fucking-night and he already knows about that.”

Peggy’s mouth was agape and she looked back and forth across the table between her ex and current boyfriend before glaring angrily at her cousin. “I didn’t tell him,” she defended. “I...I told Amy about last night. I’m sorry. I didn’t think she would tell anyone else.”

“You just go around telling all your friends about what happens in our bedroom?”

Dustin looked smug at his seat across the table, “Like you don’t? I seem to remember you telling all of us earlier that Peggy begs you for anal.”

Nick knew that proclamation would end up coming back to bite him in the ass, especially considering that he had largely made it up. He only wished his arms were long enough to reach out and knock the look off Dustin’s face. “That’s not how it happened and you know it.”

“You told him that?” Peggy asked, blinking back tears of embarrassment as everyone’s stare suddenly focused on her. “That’s not even true! Of all the people in the world to say something like that to, you told HIM that?”

“What about what you said to Amy?”

“She’s my cousin! You hate him!”

“Well, they’re kind of a package deal now, aren’t they?”

Peggy froze, her eyes locked with Nick’s. She heard Tommy nervously clearing his throat from across the table and her eyes cut around to her other friends. “What exactly does that mean?”

“It means they’ve been sneaking around behind your back,” Nick informed her. “They’re getting hitched and needed to tell you before the big day so things wouldn’t get awkward. Well...any more awkward than they already are.”