I rang the doorbell and scratched behind Frankie’s ear soothingly, in that it soothed me. My pug was completely comfortable with this pet-sitting arrangement. Nonetheless, I continued to reassure him —and myself— that my sister knew what she was doing.

Frankie was more concerned by his daughter’s precarious position sitting upon on my shoulder. As soon as the kitten became too big for my pocket, I got a jeweled harness and leash for her to wear so she could walk outside with us during Frankie’s eliminatory constitutionals. She preferred to ride on Frankie’s back, so I quilted a harness so she could hold on without digging her claws into Frankie’s fur. Then Tommy set a terrible precedent by putting her on his shoulder so Frankie could do his business more easily. Ever since, especially if Frankie rode in his ‘doggie bjorn,’ she insisted on perching up there like a parrot or one half of an angel-devil duo. Her balance was still questionable but I had created a thick shoulder pad for traction and, when that failed, she learned to topple forward onto Frankie. Thus far, she hadn’t attempted to ride on my head, but it was only a matter of time.

“Who is it?” a young voice sang from behind the door.

“It’s your Uncle Trip!” I called back to my nephew. I needed to break him of his habit of calling me Uncle John.

“Whooo?”

Frankie barked and the kitten mewed, so I translated, “Frankie and his kitten are here with their roommate.”

Sammy opened the door giggling and stretched his arms high in the air. When my sister (or her husband or Tommy) was playing the role of Responsible Adult, my nephew and I got along fairly well, but he rarely demanded a hug upon saying hello. Perhaps babysitting had brought us closer. I got down on one knee and gave him a one-armed hug, only to have the boy wriggle out of my grasp.

“No, Uncle John. I want the kitty. Can I hold her?” he asked.

Frankie hummed his consent, so I detached her from my shoulder and warned, “You have to be gentle.”

“I know that! I hold ferrets and hamsters all the time. And my sister. I won’t hurt her,” Sammy said holding his hands out semi-patiently.

“You should probably pet her first,” I suggested. We needed to take this slowly; little kittens had little claws, which were level with my nephew’s little face. She looked him squarely in the eye as he pet her.

“Do you ‘member me?” he asked her. “I met you when you were a tiny baby but you weren’t feeling good and you met a lot of new people that day.” She purred quietly and I handed her over. She was still so small that she fit easily in his little arms. The kitten nuzzled his cheek and rested her head in the curve of his neck. His eyes wide with awe, he whispered, “She ‘members me!”

“Of course she remembers you. You helped Frankie save her and bring her home!” I told him, and Frankie hmmphed his agreement. I wrestled Frankie out of the doggie bjorn, set him on the ground, and handed him the kitten’s leash. My nephew was entranced by the little furball but not so much that he didn’t give my pug a proper hello. Sammy walked away with the kitten and Frankie, who listened attentively as he related stories about every cat and dog and ferret and frog he’d ever met. From experience, I knew that each story ended with an explanation of why Frankie was ‘so much awesomer’ than that animal. Chance’s dog, Luna, had a habit of talking like that, or so I imagined – after all, I wasn’t crazy, just eccentric.

“Come here, little brother!” demanded my three minutes older, eight inches shorter twin sister, who’d been hiding behind her toddler. I stood and administered one proper bear hug until she started laughing. She took the overnight bag from me and asked, “Are you staying here too?”

“Ha ha. No, there’s a tiny litter box and a baggie of litter and food and formula in case she’s a princess and…” I rattled off the contents of the bag and when they’d be needed. Tonight was Chance and Logan’s wedding and pets were not a part of this ceremony. Julian and Xander were taking care of the Moore pets and teens for the weekend but I didn’t want the kitten left alone throughout the many hours of wedding festivities, so my sister was taking on responsibility for Frankie and his tiny tornado.

“John, stop it! Don’t be such a helicopter parent!” she chided, lightly smacking my arm. “You sent me the information packet and I passed that silly online quiz you created. I know what I’m doing.”

But she only scored 98%.

“I apologize ahead of time for everything she breaks. She hasn’t gotten the hang of gravity yet, but she’s working on it diligently,” I told her. Frankly, that little monster tried to jump and climb onto everything she saw, knocking things down and shredding fabric without a backward glance… except to enjoy the sight of something plummeting to the ground. Tommy claimed it was innate feline behavior, but Frankie and I blamed her new gang of friends. Those Siamese cats were definitely teaching inappropriate behaviors during their feline deportment and personal grooming lessons.

“Is your poor little girl still nameless?” Joy asked with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Sammy isn’t–” I broke off and sighed because there was no use arguing. That kitten would have a name by morning. If we named her something else, Joy and her family would continue to call her by their name. Just as they all called me John. “Just try to steer him toward the name of a great scientist or other stately figure, because she has a big purr-sonality. Oh, and make sure Frankie approves. He’s very picky.”

“So… what are your plans?” she asked me as she dragged me into the living room to grill me properly.

“I plan to go keep Chance from freaking out and then dress up in the elegant three-piece suit you helped me select, and then officiate a wedding.” As always, I played dumb because I didn’t want to answer her real question. Instead, I focused on the fact that, although Chance’s brothers and his best friend Dani Moore would be his attendants, Xander and I were arriving early to keep him from freaking out.

“What are your plans for Tommy? Tonight’s the night!” Joy’s grin was so wide her narrow face could barely contain it, so I reached forward and adjusted it for her. After a few seconds of allowing me to mould her face as though it was made of clay, she pulled away. “I’m serious. You’ll be dressed all handsome, there’ll be dancing, you’ll watch your friends celebrate their love and commitment… And then there’s Logan’s request.”

I groaned. “Tommy wanted to plan something out, but I told him it would be more dramatic if it was more organic. So we just agreed on a general outline to follow.”

“In other words, you’re going to start another jealousy-inspired argument?” she asked, one eyebrow raised much as the kitten’s had while Tommy and I discussed our plan. Unfortunately, my sister and the kitten were right — that was likely what would wind up happening. After all, Tommy had a real date with a guy that he might actually start a relationship with. Specter was brilliant with technology and a trained Navy SEAL. Julian said he was terrible with people, but considering my own people-skills or lack thereof, that didn’t exactly balance the scales. Besides, Tommy could charm any conversation into a pleasant one without even trying.

“Maybe. If I don’t, he’ll start something dramatic on his own,” I said, as though Tommy’s drama would be wildly inappropriate compared to any outburst of mine.

“I think —and I’m just brainstorming here— in the middle of the argument, you could throw him over your shoulder, smack him on the ass, and carry him out of there like a caveman. Then you should take him up to your hotel room and ravish him until he agrees to marry you and have your babies,” Joy brainstormed like a romance novelist.

“Tommy would be the best mommy ever!” Little Sammy shouted from the next room.

“I thought I’m the best mommy ever!” Joy shouted back.

“You are! Until Tommy’s a mommy!” the twerp shouted back. “Then you have to give him your tiara!”

“He can get his own tiara! I earned mine fair and square!”

“No shouting! If you want to talk to me, you have to come in here!” he countered, effectively ending their argument.

“Hoisted by my own petard,” my sister muttered. Sammy was such a handful, but hopefully my nephew would mellow as he got older. Xander and Chance both had teenagers now, and they were pretty low-key. “Aaaaas we were saying, dear brother…”

“You said your piece, but nothing’s changed. I–”

“You have a second chance. Wait.” Joy began counting on her fingers, mumbling, “Greg & Dani’s wedding, Xander & Julian’s wedding, that kiss, the thing that happened that you refused to tell me…”

“I get it. I had a lot of chances. But–”

“No ‘buts.’ Well, actually there may be butts involved in the end.” She nudged me in the side and I rolled my eyes, but smiled. I knew she’d start pinching me if I didn’t acknowledge her pathetic attempt at humor. “Don’t screw it up. You love each other. He’s been forewarned and he’s still interested. Just get down on your knees and do some serious groveling.”

I opened my mouth to ask whether getting down on my knees had something to do with the ‘but’s ‘in the end,’ and to argue that groveling wouldn’t be enough, but she started crying.

“Oh no, are you pregnant again?” I asked, because ‘Don’t cry, I’ll fix this’ was only the third thing I thought to say.

“No, I’m not pregnant again!” she said, punching me in the arm. She’d been doing that since we were in the womb; it was too late to ask her to stop now. “You were so happy when you were with Tommy. Why can’t you let yourself just be happy? Forget about ten years in the future. Think about now. What if Tommy gets into a car accident next month? What if you die next year? You have to cherish every minute you have together!”

“Joy–” I groaned. Then she began to sob. I felt like a complete and total ass, and I had less than sixty seconds to fix this, or else I’d have a toddler, a pug, and a kitten demanding to know what I’d done to my sister. I wrapped an arm around her. “Shhh. It’s okay.”

My sister rested her head against my chest and mumbled, “Sammy’s thirty-nine months old. The same age we were when Dad died.”

Knowing Joy, she’d calculated that age to the day and now spent every minute afraid that she or her husband would die, too. A few months ago, she and I officially became older than Dad was when he passed, and we both had a hard time coping with that as well. We felt our own mortality so deeply that month. She and her husband had sat me down with her husband’s parents this Easter and we had had a long discussion about support and guardianship and wills. I hadn’t realized this milestone was eating away at her too, but I should have guessed. So I held her and rubbed her back until the torrent of tears receded.

I handed her a tissue from the side table and, once she’d wiped her face, she took my face into her hands and her brandy-colored eyes latched onto mine. “I know you’re scared. Life is scary. But everything’s easier when you have someone fighting by your side. Just… promise me you’ll think about that, okay?”

“I promise,” I said, as her words sparked a fire in my heart.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful, not least of all because I presided upon it. They even let me wear a robe and perform a formal Jedi Knight ceremony. Let me tell you, it was perfect; I sewed the robe myself, which meant it was long enough even for my tall frame. The theme fit the two men; more than once over the past year, I’d overheard Logan say Chance was Han Solo to his Leia. I suspected that, even if I hadn’t been ordained by the Jedi Knight Church, Logan would have requested that I work on earning that ordination. Although Jedi Knights were not allowed to get married, Han and Leia were non-knights who believed in The Force. I sprinkled in a few quotes (“Do or do not. There is no try.”) and mentioned fighting the Dark Side and embracing the Light Side as one being.

The men wrote their own vows and even I teared up when Logan refused to use index cards, claiming he’d memorized this heartfelt speech far more thoroughly than previous ones; his ‘best woman’ Amelia still whispered a one-word reminder when he found himself on an inescapable tangent. Their brothers filled the roles of groomsmen, and Xander livestreamed the ceremony for Chance’s sister (her grandparents were not aware she was still in touch with her three disowned brothers, and the homophobic bastards did not even deign to respond to their invitation).

All through the ceremony, I tried to ignore the fact that Tommy sat between Julian Moore’s huge, gorgeous coworker and Julian’s far-too-handsome geeky best friend, each of whom took his hand in theirs at some point. I had no reason to be jealous. After all, Tommy only called the men his friends and didn’t evince any sexual interest in them. Of course, he also called me his ‘friend’ regardless of our past relationship or the feelings that loafed between us like a clumsy elephant in the middle of the room.

Our feelings for each other didn’t matter, at any rate. I broke up with Tommy in a way designed to encourage him to look for a man who could give him the happy future I couldn’t. I should be happy about his budding romance.

But today was about Chester Horatio Blevins and Logan Connery Moore who, despite their bumbling and neurotic behavior over the past six years, finally realized what everyone else knew. Each man loved the other with every bone in his body and that would never change, no matter what life threw at them: attacks by stalkers, the sudden appearance of two young teens in their home, a house bursting at the seams with pets, or the kitchen fires and broken appliances that were the results of Chance’s pathetic attempts to cook. The ceremony closed with the joining of lightsaber beams and, of course, a respectful but thorough kiss that had the guests cheering and crying.

As I did at Xander’s wedding and my sister’s, I chose to be the last to leave, staying at the altar to watch everyone smile and chat and hug and otherwise bask in the palpable glow surrounding the couple’s love. A woman I presumed to be Tommy’s mother crossed the room to her son. I was surprised to see her talk so comfortably with his date, without any sort of introduction. I, personally, had never met Tommy’s parents. Did Tommy and this Specter guy have a closer relationship than I’d been told?

Lost in my absurd, jealous thoughts, I didn’t even notice the man by me until he set his hand on my shoulder. I turned to see eyes that twinkled with mischief and Tommy’s dimpled smile.

“You must be Doctor John Watson, the kitten’s other daddy!”

“Yes, I am. And you must be Appa Powers.” I couldn’t help but smile in return and offered my hand, with which he pulled me into a bro hug. All that morbid talk with my sister earlier must have put me in an odd frame of mind, because my only thought at that moment was that it had been a very, very long time since I got hugged by a father. When I was in public, I tended to retreat behind a façade of detached amusement and even Mr. Moore respected my need for space, but it was lost to me at the moment. Instead, I just waited for the inevitable Sherlock joke that always followed the use of my full name… but it never came.

“You know Korean?” Tommy’s father asked, surprised.

“Not really, but I’ve picked up a few words here and there,” I said, suddenly shy. I may not know all my friends’ names, but I retained most of what I’d learned during a few online lessons. Appa meant dad. I’d never heard the formal term, which would have been more appropriate in this context, but he didn’t seem to mind.

He followed my gaze toward Tommy and said, “I know how it is. I was in your shoes once. Spent a year in Korea, but it wasn’t until I met Tommy’s mother that I was inspired to learn the language. Can I give you a word of advice?”

“Yes. Of course,” I told him, bracing myself for a warning to stay away from his son. He waited until I lifted my eyes to meet his, and he looked deep into me, as though he could see everything that was going on in my head.

“It’s all or nothing with you two. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s making your decision harder. You need to realize that your time is running out. Your baby girl’s almost grown and soon you’ll run out of excuses. As you can see, he won’t wait around forever.” It was not advice so much as it was an order. Last autumn, Tommy had said something similar but more colorful about our friends Julian and Xander: ‘shit or get off the pot.’

I pulled in a shaky breath in an effort to say something. Anything. But words stuck in my throat. ‘Appa’ Powers, however, must have seen the understanding in my eyes, because he nodded and clapped me on the shoulder.

“I’ll have to get back to my lovely wife. But since the kitty is still running around without a name, I want to put in my vote for Princess Buttercup,” he said with a grin and walked away before I could tell him that our pug was not a fan of that particular character.

‘Our’ pug.

As soon as I thought it, I could not find it in me to alter the sentiment. The four of us had become a family. I wasn’t sure what I’d do when Tommy finally understood what it would be like to live with someone with my… prognosis, I supposed, or handicap-to-be. But my sister was right; we needed to enjoy the time we did have together and not worry about the future. If Tommy became overwhelmed and left, I would deal with it, just as I would deal with everything else. Was it possible that Tommy would stay out of something other than a sense of duty, that we could be happy? Could we, one day, have our own interestingly-themed ceremony? Could I really be that lucky?

Yes, our friends and my sister had been saying this sort of thing for months, but they all had hearts in their eyes and wanted me to take part in their lovefest. However, Tommy’s father only had one motive; he wanted his son to be happy and, despite all my weird behavior, he actually thought I could step up and be the one to make that happen.

Could I?

The only thing that was certain, was that I had my moment. Tonight was the third and final Moore wedding, and it might be the one with the most dramatic ‘Trip and Tommy’ display of all.

While I came to that earth-shattering conclusion, the wedding party and their family had gone off to take pictures and the rest of the guests were probably feasting on hors d’oeuvres. Only I remained, still standing at the altar. Or so I thought, until I heard a girl behind me giggling. I turned to see Xander on videochat with a girl that looked eerily like a more feminine Chance in a dress.

“Finally!” Xander said. “We were wondering how long it would take you to come back to the real world. Say hi to Gigi!”

“Hi Gigi!” I said. “So, do you know the ways of The Force?”

She laugh-snorted, which had me laughing along with her. We briefly threw around some Star Wars jokes until her grandmother knocked on her door, putting an abrupt end to our conversation.

“So, what did Tommy’s dad have to say?” Xander asked.

“Princess Buttercup,” I told him. “But Tommy tried that one already. Frankie refused.”

“I don’t understand how anyone can hate that movie.” Xander shook his head mournfully. “So what do you and Tommy have planned? Julian won’t tell me.”

“How does Specter know Tommy’s parents?” I asked. I wasn’t changing the subject so much as I was plotting my scene.

“They took some prom pictures of the guys at their house,” Xander explained. I waited him out, trading my Jedi robe for a suit jacket. After countless staring contests with Frankie, nobody human had a hope of losing this game with me. “That’s their thing tonight. A bunch of them are pretending they’re going to the prom. Complete with stretch limos and matching accessories and maybe some hotel rooms,” my friend finally explained. “The Powerses were the overexcited ‘go pose over there’ parents.”

I nodded, as though that made me feel better. It didn’t. We walked silently to the room that housed cocktail hour. Xander was one of those few people that could be a friend in silence; just being there, together, sometimes meant more than words. Both of my math-letic friends had suddenly gotten entire families for Christmas and I’d never seen them more content. I was so happy for them, but I missed the time I once spent with Xander and Chance.

I looked around the room and concluded that we had three options. We could stand together in silence, we could troduce ourselves to people I had probably met at the other Moore weddings, or we could–

“Come on. Let’s go over there,” Xander said, angling his head in the direction of the one group I’d been working hard to avoid staring at. “Have you ever met Julian’s friend Quinn?”

I grabbed Xander’s arm before he could peer-pressure me into joining Tommy’s little group, with its three menacing-looking super soldiers. I wracked my brain for a semi-acceptable excuse.

“I don’t know if the Lucky Tommy-Trip Drama counts unless we’re at the reception and all the Moore brothers are there to witness it.”

Xander smirked and nodded, so we stood off to one side and watched everyone instead. Well, Xander may have watched everyone. I was focused on Tommy’s group. The three security guys dwarfed the rest of the group and each took up at least as much space as all of their dates put together. One of them kept running off to fetch drinks and trays of canapes in an attempt to impress someone, although I wasn’t sure whom. A giant had his arm around Julian’s computer-geek friend, who was probably named Quinn. From the way the giant undressed the geek with his eyes, and his meaty roaming hand, it was pretty clear that the guy expected to get laid. Tommy chatted with a trio of people that I believed to be Moore cousins and a slick lawyer type who was probably a date. Meanwhile the third guard dog had been watching me with slanted, judging eyes ever since I entered the room, his hand resting possessively on the back of Tommy’s neck.

“There’s something seriously wrong with that SEAL,” I muttered to Xander, careful to hold my glass in front of my mouth, in case he could read lips.

“Who, Specter?”

“No, Wolfgang the seal from Sesame Street,” I snarked, forgetting for a moment that he was not on the show during our toddlerhood. If he questioned me on it, I absolutely would not admit that he was featured in Muppet Sherlock Holmes, which I’d repeatedly read to my nephew. “Yes, Specter the Navy SEAL.”

“If there’s something wrong with him, I’m not seeing it. He’s hot, he graduated top of his class at MIT, he eats bad guys for breakfast, he makes boatloads of money with his patents…” Xander did not need to list them for me; I was well aware of the man’s accomplishments. When Julian started working with him, he was more than a little cowed and needed someone to talk to who wasn’t his boyfriend or his brothers. But I let my friend continue until I couldn’t take it anymore.

“He’s not smiling. How can someone be around Tommy for that long and not smile?” I asked, glass still held in front of my face in what no longer passed for a casual gesture, so I took a sip. This blue ‘Light Side’ cocktail was the grooms’ only other nod to the Star Wars franchise; the rest of the wedding was disappointingly wedding-themed. Despite its appearance, my drink didn’t taste like windshield-wiper fluid, so I took a second sip as I did some mental calculations. I was roughly three inches taller, but the man had at least one hundred twenty extra pounds of muscle.

“Specter was smiling earlier,” my supposed friend said.

“He didn’t smile at all during the ceremony, and he hasn’t smiled once the entire time we’ve been standing here.”

“That’s probably because he’s spent all that time glaring at you.”

“Oh, come on. The guy’s gifted on sea, air, and land, but you’re saying he can’t multi-task?” I asked. Xander tried to hide his smile by taking a sip of his red ‘Dark Side’ drink and gagged; Logan had insisted that the Dark Side taste like cough syrup to punish all who chose it. I continued with my thought despite the fact that my friend might barf on me. “You know, glare at me, laugh at a joke, glare some more, smile at his date, glare some more… Or does it take too much time to chisel different expressions on that granite face?”

“I don’t know, Trip. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Maybe I will,” I said, but didn’t move. That guy could kick my ass without breaking a sweat and probably in ways that wouldn’t leave blood stains on his immaculate tux. Xander snickered. “Oh, shut up. I’ll say something eventually. Maybe during our little performance later.”

“I know you’ve decided to improvise, but do you have any sort of game plan?” he asked.

“Not really. I want to do something original. So I can’t just start an argument and storm off, or kiss him passionately and storm off, or really anything that involves attacking him in the middle of the dance floor and storming off,” I told him. “Been there, done that. Do you have any ideas?”

“Well, you can’t copy me and Julian either,” he said, and I nodded sagely. I wasn’t actually sure what they’d done that had left them rumpled but getting along again —physical fight, verbal fight, or a more pleasurable sort of wrestling match— but I wasn’t going to admit that to Xander. “And Logan’s the one who does passionate, loving speeches that contain unintentional insults.”

“So… what I hear you saying is that… I’ll have to include intentional insults,” I said deadpan. I was only being semi-sarcastic, because I wasn’t sure what else I could do. If I got dramatic and tried to flip a table, those three giants would take me down before a place setting crashed to the floor. I suspected starting a food fight would have similar results.

The four Moore teenagers spilled into the room and announced that it was time for everyone to make their way into the ballroom. Julian and my date, Logan’s best friend Amelia, appeared at our sides and we followed the masses inside, if forty-two guests could accurately be described as ‘masses.’

The reception hall was beautiful, but simply decorated. For most decisions, they’d gone with whatever Chance’s brothers and Logan’s soon-to-be-adoptive-sons selected, although Xander handpicked the photographer (and still took pictures himself) and Logan chose a caterer from C.I.A., the culinary school not the government agency. Touches of blue were here and there, the flower of the hour was white roses, and they had a D.J. who inevitably played the chicken dance.

While I would never admit it to Xander and Julian, their exquisite, lavish wedding with details the two groomzillas had argued over at length was not significantly more spectacular than Chance and Logan’s wedding. Or any wedding, really. If it were up to me, I’d have a tiny ceremony and a backyard barbeque, but I didn’t know if that would fly with my groom.

I found my eyes drifting over to Tommy’s table every now and then. He was radiant as he gestured wildly telling a story or as he laughed at someone else’s. Every single time I glanced their way, the grim man next to him zeroed in on me and placed his hand possessively on the nape of Tommy’s neck. Halfway through the dancing, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Showtime,” I said to nobody in particular, but my friends all grinned at me as one, including Tommy’s best friend.

“Don’t break a leg,” Greg Moore told me. “I’m off the clock.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t be acting.” I strode over to Tommy’s table, trying and failing to gather my wits along the way. “Tommy, can I talk to you?”

“You are talking to him,” his date said.

“Away from your guard dog?” I clarified.

“Is this about Izzy? Because I really like that name,” Tommy said, completely throwing me off my game.

“Izzy?”

“Didn’t you get the text from Joy?” he asked. After the first few pep-talk texts from her, I’d stopped looking at my phone. “Your sister said Sammy named her Dizzy Izzy, because of her uncertain relationship with gravity. Once she pointed out that it can be short for Sir Isaac Newton, or Dame in her case, Frankie gave it the okay. You have to admit that pairs rather well with Sir Francis Bacon.”

“That’s true,” I said. It really was a great name. “Technically, if it’s short for Isaac, we should pronounce it eye-zee not ih-zee. But I like it, either way. However, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” the jerk holding him by the nape of the neck said.

“Shhh. I want to hear this too,” Julian’s geeky friend added, and the table chorused with people seconding the motion.

Tommy stood, so others could enjoy the show and his guard dog stood along with him, keeping a firm hand on his neck. Nonetheless, Tommy said, “You don’t have to do this here.”

I glanced briefly around us and realized that the music had stopped and every single person in the room was watching us. Well, if I had to go down in flames, at least nobody would be asking me for details later, which was a good thing because the rest of this moment became a little fuzzy as my body and heart took things into their own hands, no longer willing to be a slave to my over-analytical brain.

I took Tommy’s hands in mine and got down on my knees.