1983

Roy's first response to hearing the telephone ringing is to pull his pillow over his head and wait for it to stop. It doesn't.

He flails an arm blindly toward the nightstand until he feels what he hopes is the phone and drags it over to him, mumbling a half-intelligible "H'lo?" into it before he realizes that the phone is still ringing and he's talking to the alarm clock. He groans, squinting at the numbers-Roy'spretty sure that's either an 8 or a 9, but without his glasses and with his eyes still partially glued shut with sleep it's hard to tell. Who the hell is calling me at 8 or 9 am on a Saturday, and where can I hire a hit man?

Finally, Roy manages to grab the phone and pick it up before the answering machine clicks on. His greeting this time is considerably grouchier. "Whaddaya want…?"

"I knew you'd forget to set your alarm," Alan's voice answers from the other end of the line, sounding both mildly exasperated and entirely too chipper for this Godless hour.

Roy feels the corner of his left eye twitching as he sits up, rubbing blearily at his face with his free hand. "Alan. It is a Saturday. Why the blessed, gracious hell would I set my alarm on a Saturday. Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Yep. It is 9:08 a.m., and more to the point it is Saturday, April 6th, meaning you're meeting Lora in exactly one hour and seven minutes."

"…wait, I am?" Roy runs a hand through his hair and reaches for his glasses, trying to remember when they'd set that up, and what the heck he's supposed to be meeting her for. When he does, the urge to bury himself underneath the pillow returns with a vengeance. "Oh God."

"One hour and three minutes now, and at least 20 of that's going to be getting from your place out to Wilshire, provided the traffic gods love you. I'd get moving, if I were you."

"Can't you tell her I'm sick?" Roy pleads.

"Not a chance." Alan retorts. "You are my best man and you are not weaseling out of this. If I had to get fitted for a tux, so do you. You're lucky it's Lora who's taking you; I had to deal with Flynn. Who, I might add, has promised that he will see you put in one of the bridesmaid's dresses if you refuse to wear a tux, and you know how completely hopeless I am at stopping him. So man up and get out of bed, Roy, you're down to an hour."

"For Pete's sake, Roy, will you stop fidgeting?" Lora chides, doing her best to give him what she hopes is a stern expression, though it's hard to stop herself from giggling. "What are you, twelve?"

Roy answers with such a forlorn, woebegotten look that Lora actually does giggle. She can't help it. He just looks too cute, standing on the platform in his half-fitted tuxedo with the sleeves completely covering his hands and that crazy mop of curly blonde hair. He really does look like a kid who's been shanghai'd into playing dress-up by an older sister, and before she can stop herself she's reaching up to straighten his lapels.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Roy mutters.

"Oh, stop. You can so, you know perfectly well how much this means to Alan. And the sooner you knock it off with the fidgeting, the sooner we can get out of here and go grab a French dip at Phillipe's." She pats his shoulder and smiles, resisting the ever-present urge to ruffle his hair.

Roy looks down, fidgeting with the cuffs of his jacket again despite Lora's admonitions. "I still don't get why he asked me to be his best man and not Flynn."

Lora sighs, shaking her head, though she's still smiling. "Because Kevin asked Alan to be his best man. And because you're his best friend, Roy, and have been for longer than he's even really known Kevin. So knock that off, too, willya?" She smacks him playfully on the shoulder for emphasis.

"Yes, ma'am," Roy replies, finally smiling now himself…and oh God, is he blushing?

By the time they're done with this appointment, Lora thinks, she's going to have to make one with the dentist. For cavities.