It's a beautiful night,
We're looking for something dumb to do.
Hey baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

“Emergency group meeting!” Jack announced happily, barely giving our friends a chance to blink before nudging them out of the party and into the cool evening air. I was right behind, with a very frown-y looking Jo trailing back a step or two, silent and brooding.

“What’s going on, dude?” Rian asked his friend, his curiosity over why we decided to abruptly interrupted their night evident. His pearly whites were peaking underneath his inquisitive smirk, while Cass stared at Jack and I with eager eyes, both begging us to explain ourselves.

Jack didn’t respond right away. His mesmerizingly dark eyes shot over to me, and that grin he’d been sporting ever since I’d said yes to this crazy plan of his only grew wider. I smiled back, taking a few steps away from Jo so I could slip my hand into his, giving it a light encouraging squeeze before turning back around to face our friends. “We have an announcement to make...” he began.

Immediately Cass’ hazel eyes drooped down slightly to my torso. “Oh my God, you’re pregnant again, aren’t you?”

I frowned, pressing a hand to my currently flat stomach as waves of self-conscience thoughts ran through me. “What? No--why? Do I look pregnant?”

Jack shook his head, answering bravely before Cass could utter another word. “No, babe--you look amazing.” He leaned towards me as he winked. “Sexy as ever.”

“...so...what is it, then?” Jo sighed, rubbing her bare arm as a cold breeze rushed by.

I took a breath, glancing at Jack one last time before beginning carefully, “Well, first of all, I should preface this by saying how crazy it sounds, but we both decided--”

“WE’RE GOING TO VEGAS TO GET MARRIED!” Jack cut me off, whisper-screaming in pure excitement, just short of alarming the wedding party inside.

“You’re what?” Cass’ asked, her already high voice shooting up into a cartoonish pitch as she stared at us with a mixture of surprise and doubt.

“No way!” Rian added, shaking his head in disbelief. “I mean, don’t get me wrong: I can’t wait to see you two tie the knot, but what about Alex and Lisa? Hell, what about the rest of your family--”

“We’re still having the big wedding next year as planned.” I quickly assured the drummer, adding as I shrugged, resting my weight tiredly against Jack, “...we just...we were hoping to make this official, without any of that stupid wedding drama that’s sure to come.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah, especially if our families have any say.”

I nodded in agreement. “My mother has already made me go to ten different bakeries in the San Diego since we told her of the engagement. Ten. Now she’s on me to book the venue, and when I say that I really mean she’s heavily implying I need to book the same chapel she and my dad got married in because it’s good luck or whatever. Meanwhile, Jack’s mom wants us to get married in Baltimore because ‘it’s so beautiful in the summertime and it just wouldn’t be right anywhere else,’ so I really don’t know where we’re going to actually book the wedding without offending half of the family--”

Jack, upon seeing Rian, Cass and Jo’s silent expressions, gave a nervous laugh before explaining softly, “She’s been dealing with a lot of wedding stress lately.”

“No shit.” Jo huffed.

“I just...” I sighed heavily, running my hang through my lightly curled hair. “I think we need to do this. Like I said, it’s crazy, but sometimes crazy is a good thing.” I paused. “Now. Jack and I are going to Vegas, now, to get married. And we’d really love if you guys went with us.”

“What about Alex? Or Zack?” Rian asked. “Don’t you think they should be there when two of their best friends tie the knot?”

“Zack’s in Hawaii. There’s no way he’d make it in time.” Cass reminded us.

Jo narrowed her eyes, and for a moment I was sure she’d say how stupid this whole idea was. Yet, what came out of her almost made my jaw drop. “Maybe not in person, but there’s this thing called technology, Pope. We can just text Zack and tell him to get his ass on Skype or something when the time comes.”

Rian stared at the black-haired beauty for a second, taking in her suggestion. “...okay. That’s one down. But what about Alex?”

“I’m already on it.” Jack pulled out his phone, opening his contacts and pressing Alex’s name. Putting it on speakerphone, the call rang three times before his best friend responded.

“Dude, what the fuck? Do you realize what fucking time it is?” Alex’s tired voice mumbled, only half-heartedly scolding Jack.

He winced, momentarily forgetting the different time zones thanks to all the excitement. “Sorry, but we really need you and Lis’ to get your butts over here ASAP.”

This woke him right up. “What? Why?” He asked, his voice full of sudden concern. “It’s not Chris, is it?”

I cut in to quickly dissipate his worry. “I’m fine, Alex. And we’re really sorry about waking you up, but we’ve got something important--”

“Sally and I are getting married in Vegas!”

A beat of silence passed, nothing coming from the other side of the call but the static sound emitting from the speaker phone setting. Then, as if he had to do a double take, Alex slowly asked, “You and Chris are...what?”

This time, I chose to share the news. “We’re getting married in Vegas.” I told him, substantially more calmly than Jack, though still equally as ecstatic. I even added an extra “Yay,” for effect.

“I know it’s beyond last minute, but if you guys could make it, it’s really mean a lot to us.” Jack told him. “Hell, we’ll even pay for the tickets if that makes it easier--”

“Dude, are you kidding? Of course we’ll be there.” Alex responded, his voice substantially more awake then it had sounded a minute before. And, from the rustling sounds in the background, it seemed like he was already up and moving, getting ready for this spur of the moment trip we’d surprised him with. “I’ll call you guys when we get in, alright?”

“Sounds good.” Jack smiled, silently giving a sigh of relief that Alex was up to doing this for us. After all, getting up in the middle of the night and jumping on a three hour flight to Vegas was a bit of a tall order.

“Oh, and don’t have the bachelor party without me, okay? We’ve gotta celebrate your last hours of freedom properly, after all.” Alex ordered with a laugh.

I raised a knowing brow, glancing up at Jack and declaring bluntly, “If you get a stripper, I’ll get a stripper.” Jack’s jaw dropped as his cheeks turned a burnt red. I innocently shrugged, “What? It’s only fair.”

“Who said anything about a stripper?” Jack nervously muttered. “I don’t want a stripper. Uh-uh, no way.”

I rolled my eyes. “Babe, it’s okay. You can have a stripper as part of your ‘last hours of freedom’ as Alex so eloquently put it. Just no touching.” I wagged my pointer finger in front of him in firm warning despite having full faith in him.

He gulped. “Got it.”

“...uh, awesome.” Alex cleared his throat awkwardly, probably thankful I didn’t bite his head off for even suggesting the idea of a stripper, however vague it might’ve been. But really, it wasn’t that much of a stretch, given that strippers and bachelor parties pretty much go hand in hand, especially in Vegas. “So I better start packing if I wanna make it to this thing. I’ll see you guys soon. Oh--and congrats!”

We hung up with Alex after that, wasting no time to say our goodbyes to Darryl and Kendra before hopping in our cars to begin our four hour drive to Los Vegas. Now we did make a brief detour to San Diego to pick up Madison because I knew if I didn’t bring her she’d never forgive me. Hell, I don’t think I’d forgive me. Out of everyone in my family, she was hands down the one I was closest to, other than Anna, of course. I would’ve brought Anna too, but we all know how good she is at keeping secrets. There was no way in the world she’d be able to keep something as big as a secret wedding from the family, or for that matter, the fans online. All it took was one slip of the tongue from my dear cousin and it would pretty much be the end for Jack and I.

So just Madison it was.

She was on board, obviously, when we told her our plans. I barely had to say ‘We’re going to Vegas’ before she stopped me and told us she was in. Five minutes later, she was in the the car, a bag of essentials and an impromptu maid of honor dress in tow. “I had a feeling you guys wouldn’t be able to wait too much longer.” She commented knowingly as Jack pulled out of her driveway and onto the street. “Especially the way mom’s been going on and on about ‘helping’ you with the planning.”

I forced a laugh, rolling my eyes. “Yeah. She’s helping me, alright.”

“If she’s driving you crazy, I can only imagine what she’s going to do when I get engaged.”
I sighed, knowing that my sister and mom tended not to see eye to eye on good days. With my mother’s controlling nature, I could only imagine what it’d be like when it was time for Madison’s big day.

Let’s just say a shit storm would be putting it mildly.

“Well at least we don’t have to worry about that for a while...” I turned around from my spot in the passenger seat so I could eye her carefully. “...right?”

She pursed her lips, shrugging. “...I don’t know, maybe?” My jaw dropped while she continued, “I mean, since you got engaged, I’ve been thinking about my own relationship and how much I love that man...”

I stared at her, unamused as Jack wisely kept silent, instead focusing on getting us safely onto the freeway so we could head east towards our destination. “You mean the man I’ve never met?”

“We’re long distance, remember? I can’t control where he lives, Chris.”

“Why haven’t I met him?” I pressed on, curiosity getting the better of me.

“You really wanna meet him?”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course I do! This is my possible future brother-in-law! I mean, how would you have felt if I’d kept Jack from you as long as you have with Mr. Mystery Man?”

“Mr. Mystery Man?”

“You’ve never even told me his fucking name, Mad. I have to call him something...”

She stared at me for a second. “Fine. If it means that much to you, I’ll let you meet him.” She then took out her phone, typing out a short text. “Okay. Done. I invited him to the wedding.”

“You invit--come on, like he’d say yes to that. It’s the middle of the goddamn night and plus, you’d be the only person he knows that’s going--”

“He said he’s in.” She smirked, putting her phone down in victory. “Happy?”

“I feel like I should be but I’m mostly confused.” I replied honestly, trying to think of reasons why anyone would agree to such a spur of the moment, not to mention possibly expensive trip, to Vegas for a wedding of two people he’d never even met.

Madison just shrugged. “You’ll like him, don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s awesome.” Jack added his own two cents.

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s a great guy, sis.” I told her. “But are you sure he’s okay with going to this? I mean, I honestly expected to meet him at Christmas or something--”

“No, this’ll be fun.” Madison shook her head with an excited smile. “You’re right, it’s time you met him.”

I nodded, feeling even more bubbling nerves gather in the pit of my stomach. I was already nervous over the idea the fact that I was actually getting married. Now I had to open my big mouth and tease Madison over not meeting her secret boyfriend and because of that, she’d invited him to the biggest day of my life.

Nice one, Chris.

I bit my lip, trying to calm the growing butterflies to no avail, groaning silently as I realized we still had five hours to go until we’d be in Vegas, and who knew how long until Alex, Lisa and Mr. Mysterious got in town. “Can I at least see a picture?”

Madison laughed and shook her head once more. “Nope, sorry Chris. Not gonna happen.”

“Dammit.” I cursed, folding my arms as I turned back around in my seat in a pout.

Jack just chuckled, taking one hand off the steering wheel of the car to grab my left hand, letting his thumb graze the diamond on my ring finger. “Babe, you’ll meet him soon enough.”

“I just don’t understand why I can’t see a picture, that’s all.” I gave a teasing scowl towards my sister through the rearview mirror, while she just stuck out her tongue.

“Because I don’t want you to judge him like you always judge my boyfriends, alright?”

I swallowed, knowing full well I had a history of this. I couldn’t help it, though. I just wanted whoever ended up with my sister to be the most amazing guy possible.

Was that too much to ask?

Still, I tried to deny it. “I don’t judge them--”

“Seriously?” Madison raised her groomed brows. “You’re gonna act like you don’t?”

I let my shoulders fall. “...maybe I can be a little judgmental.”

She huffed a laugh.

“But come on, I just want you to be with the best person you can. You can’t tell me that that British guy--”

“Daniel.”

“Or that guy who wanted to be a street artist--”

“Keith.”

“Or that guy where every other word out of his mouth was a movie reference was right for you.”

“That was Justin, and you’re right; those guys weren’t right for me, but so what? I had fun, Chris. Now, you need to trust me when I say that this guy, this mystery man of mine, is great and you’re going to love him.”

I gave a reluctant sigh. “I...okay. I’ll keep an open mind.”

She just smiled. “That’s all I ask.”

The conversation moved on after that, filling in the spaces between the occasional sing along with whatever was playing on the radio to keep ourselves awake. After all, a five hour drive after a long day of wedding festivities was no easy task. Jack ended up making it about half way before we had to pull over and switch. I managed to make it another hour and a half before I had to pull over myself, where Madison stepped in and took over the final stretch of road to our destination.

We made it into Vegas just after three in the morning feeling absolutely exhausted. We met up with Rian, Cass and Jo who'd spent the last forty minutes waiting in a diner just off the strip while us slow pokes pulled into town. Once we were all regrouped, we checked into a hotel, too tired to do anything other than drag ourselves to our rooms and collapse on soft, welcoming beds.

Most of us, anyway.

"'ally?" Jack whispered to me, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife.

I groaned, opening my eyes just enough so I could see Jack's silhouette illuminated by the bright Vegas lights outside. "What, babe?" I whispered back, barely opening my mouth in a sleepy mumble.

"I really love you, you know that." He stated softly, his voice gravelly from all the yelling from excitement he'd done earlier in the day. "'So if you're having any second thoughts, we don't have to--"

I felt my eyes shoot open as my jaw loosely hung in shock. "I want to marry you, Jack. There's nothing I want more, alright?" I wiggled myself closer to his silent form, carefully reaching out to caress his cheek, stroking his jawline with light fingertips. "I love you, with all my heart."

"No second thoughts?" He asked, his dark eyes sparkling in the almost pitch black room.

I shook my head, never feeling more confident in my decision than I was right then. "Nope. I'm in this all the way, babe." I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his in a soft, delicate kiss. As I pulled back, I smirked, adding, "We're Jack and Sally, remember? We're simply meant to be."

“Right.” He muttered, eyes drooping as he smiled tiredly back, looking assured by my response. “Simply meant to be...”

Notes

Fillerish before the big moment. At least they're in Vegas. AND we finally get to meet Madison's boyfriend in the next chapter. So much planned, but so little time to write right now! I was hoping to get all of the Vegas story arc out, but this chapter as it is ended up way longer, so it's going to be split up into two parts, at least.

Anyway, opening lyrics are from "Marry You" by Bruno Mars. Enjoy and don't forget to review!