The Girl Who Read The Dating Manual

rule twenty: be silly in the name of love

Soundtrack:

Mercy by OneRepublic – when Will and Candi get home

I'll Be by Edwin McCain – the video

It took a whole week and a half for them to finally release Will. The rest of his stay at the hospital had been non-eventful, which I was more than thankful for. I spent most of my time with Genevieve and Lachlan, but William's father had remained absent for the most part.

I learned a lot about Genevieve over those days. She told me about how it was when she was younger, and how she'd felt when she first married her husband. I listened to it all attentively, and found that once the cold exterior dropped and Genevieve let her walls down, she was actually quite a nice woman. A little frosty and calculating at times, but now that she was supportive of my relationship with Will, it had been a lot easier to view her as a lovely person.

The day he was released, Ava, Jamie and Chance stayed at the apartment while I took him home in Will's car. His parents had a business meeting that Will had begged them not to postpone on his behalf, so I had volunteered my services as cab driver.

It was still weird driving on the other side of the road, like I was committing an offence, and though the steering wheels were on the other side, once you got used to the strange feeling it was actually kind of fun.

"I heard about Luke and Ava," Will commented as I steered around a bend. "What's going on?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. As you can imagine it's not the typically conventional relationship. I just think they're taking it slow and testing the waters."

"Good for them," Will replied, nodding heartily. "It's been a long time since I've seen Luke genuinely smile so much."

"It's nice," I replied. "They're both happy, which makes me happy."

I pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex and stared up at the sheer skyscraper. After the events at the club, the senior Winchesters had been quick to rescind our eviction notice, and thankfully Jamie had been lucky to pull out of the deal at the new apartment we'd gone for. Life had returned to normal.

Well, except for the fact our wedding was now in less than three weeks.

It was the final countdown, and Ava had kicked into more of a Bridezilla than I ever could. She demanded bargains, was constantly on the phone with the caterer, and, now that she was sure neither of her hospitalized friends were in any danger, she was gone at all hours of the day, checking on the dresses and planning our big day.

I was happy to let her do it. She ran all major decisions by me, consulted me on everything she did and kept me informed. I was happy not to go through the stresses of planning it, and only commented on something I was definite about; like the hair and makeup and cooking side of things.

Now that mostly everything for the actual wedding was planned, she had begun planning the rehearsal dinner, which was going to be held the night before in a nice little dining hall across town. Genevieve had even helped Ava to pitch in with the ideas and was going to take care of all the costs for the rehearsal dinner and most for the wedding (she had wanted to pay for it all, but I wouldn't let her). I would never wish for what happened to Will to ever happen, but I couldn't deny that in doing so it had definitely bonded the rift between all of us, and it was a huge weight off of my shoulders to have their approval to marry their son.