I am alive! I'm extremely sorry for dropping off the face of the planet for the past four months, but long story short, I broke my leg very badly and have been lacking the motivation to write. Everything I drafted for this chapter wasn't good enough for me and I didn't want to publish something that I didn't feel good about, so I apologize! This chapter doesn't really have any parts of the movie in it and everything that takes place is curtesy of my brain.

Please enjoy!

Things got surprisingly better as the tour progressed. Our bout of bad luck seemed to dissipate the farther we traveled, and in all honesty, the troops seemed to favor the Bellas more than any other group.

DJ Khaled was no exception.

Evermoist were the most disgruntled about the change in hierarchy. The band was constantly waiting around corners to harass the famous man, but he just wasn't interested.

We even got to wear these super cool camo print costumes that Lilly made in some basement, somewhere, which didn't surprise me because the woman has a laundry list of hidden talents. The outfits were super sexy, but I'll have to admit I loved seeing Emily's on the floor more than I did on her person.

Currently, the tour was stopped in Italy, where we had an extra day to explore the country and get a quick break before things picked back up again. Most of the girls immediately scattered to do 'tourist' things, while Emily and I decided to just see where the day took us.

First, we spent some time schooling the members of Saddle Up in a pick up game of pool at a tavern around the corner, hustling the plaid right off them.

"Fifty bucks that we smoke you," I wager to Bobby, the fiddle player, before shooting a very meaningful glance to an excited Emily, who immediately tones it down a notch.

"You're on, girly. Let me show you how a man plays pool," he pulls a stick off of the wall and tosses another to one of the other guys. "Joe will be my partner."

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I pick up the other two sticks and the rack. "Emily, do you want to do the thing with the triangle thingy?" I ask, causing our opponents to snicker at my, 'lack of knowledge.'

"Okie dokie!" Em grabs the rack and makes a show of clumsily trying to fit all fifteen balls within the wooden triangle.

"You want stripes or solids?" Joe questions, pointing to the two different types like we're a bunch of idiots.

"Stripes!" Emily giggles, "They're prettier."

"Let's do this," cracking his knuckles in an extremely over dramatic manner, Bobby then gestures to the two of us. "Ladies first,"

After exchanging another look with Emily, I step forward with the raised pool stick and eye the table before lining up a shot. The white cue ball collides with a colored one and sends it rolling slower than a turtle into a corner pocket. My girlfriend and I let out excited screams as we jump around.

"Yayyyyyyyy!"

Saddle Up has a hard time containing their laughter and it barely passes as a group coughing fit.

"Um," Joe says awkwardly, "you guys are supposed to be stripes."

"Oh shit, you're right. My bad," with a dramatic slap to the head, I seal the deal that we're a pair of inexperienced pool newbies.

The game continues until the guys crush us by a mile—or they think they do, at least—and celebrate their victory with a very masculine chest bump. The other two members of the country group high five them and turn to face us with matching smirks.

I pull out a fifty from my wallet, holding it delicately out in front of me, only pulling it back when Bobby reaches out for it, his fingers snagging dead air.

"How about we make this a little more interesting?" eyeing the way that both men swap dumbfounded glances, my naive smile widens, "Double or nothing?"

Their cockiness is so strong, I can practically taste it.

Hook, line and sinker.

"Joe, rack em' up." Bobby directs his partner, his pool stick hanging loosely in his hands.

Balls all in place, I wave Emily ahead and lean against one of the support beams as the real show begins. The taller brunette crouches in one of the corners, lining up her shot with expert precision before hitting the white ball and watching as one of the striped balls falls right into a middle pocket.

"Nice, Em," I comment, while she does an excited jump.

Turning my head to the left, my grin turns into a smirk as our opponents suddenly look a little unsure.

Stepping up to take the next shot, I sink another ball into a corner and shrug, "would you look at that."

"Bro," I can just make out Joe's whisper, "I think we just got hustled."

Our turn never really ends. Emily and I both keep switching off, sinking shot after shot, until all the striped balls are gone and all that remains are the solids and one ball with an eight on it. Emily finishes it with a calculated shot and a bow, wrapping her arms around me like she had no idea that we were gonna crush it.

"Time to pay up boys," my open hand waits patiently, while the two men dejectedly each pull a fifty out of their pockets, letting go after a couple of seconds of struggle.

"You guys totally cheated," Bobby glares, missing the amused looks his buddies wear behind him. "I demand a rematch!"

"What? Us? Cheat?" I gasp, covering my mouth and turning to Emily. "We would never do that, right Em?"

Emily nods with a wide-eyed look, "Of course not, we're ladies," she uses their own words against them, which doesn't really fit the elated grin spread out across her face.

"Whatever," Bobby sighs, turning to his bandmates and gesturing to the bar. "Let's get some drinks, guys."

"I guess we'll see you boys later, because I've got to take my woman out to lunch with our winnings," extending an elbow to Emily, I wave the other arm towards the door. "M'lady?"

Weaving her arm through mine, my eager partner pulls me towards the door, talking a mile a minute about how badass we just were and how she really wants to order spaghetti because we're in Italy and, "It's my favorite part in Lady and the Tramp!"

We find a cute little bistro and share an order of spaghetti—of course—before window shopping along the side streets and trying gelato from a corner store right next to the hotel that the bands are staying in.

Arriving back at the hotel, we're bombarded by the Bellas, who are all chattering over one another about going out to a karaoke bar that's having a drink special tonight. Trying to get out of a night of drunken singing with the girls is like attempting to get a child to love cauliflower.

Basically impossible.

Everyone was dressed in similar attire to our unmentionable rendezvous in Spain several nights before, with a much better outcome in mind opposed to nearly burning down the building.

The girls were chatting excitedly about song choices, which ranged anywhere from Beyonce—CR—to Beethoven's 5th Symphony—Amy.

"This one goes out to all those boys that chased me back in college…especially Bumper, who chased me all the way to NYC and had to be forcefully removed from one of my shows by security, A.K.A me," Amy mumbles the second part of her statement into the microphone, before signaling the DJ to play her song.

It's a cringe worthy moment, and one that causes most of the group to sink lower into their seats in order to hide themselves from embarrassment.

"I will not sing the Troy and Gabriella duet with you again, Em," the puppy-dog eyes the older girl gives me is in no way persuasive enough to change my mind. "Please, pick something other than High School Musical."

"But we always sing that one!"

Giving her my best unimpressed look, "Which is exactly why you need to choose literally anything else, I'm begging you," I clasp my hands together and dramatically shake them in front of me.

"Fine," Emily sighs, deflating for a brief moment before perking right back up, "I know the perfect one!"

As she struts off towards the DJ table, I down the last of the long island iced tea that's almost completely empty at this point, before sliding out of my chair and following after her, halfheartedly ignoring the pats on my ass from the girls as I pass them.

Standing up on stage next to Emily with a microphone in hand, it really shouldn't come to much of a surprise when the first few measures of Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes' hit song from the movie Dirty Dancing 'The Time of My Life' sprinkles through the speakers.

"Out of the plethora of stereotypical duet songs you probably had to choose from, you had to pick this one?"

Emily pulls another one of her classic doe-eyed faces, "It's a classic! Plus, it's also one of my all-time favorite movies!"

"Fine," it's near impossible to deny the girl anything, least of all a simple song choice, "but I'm not doing that lift with you since I'm obviously taking Patrick Swayze's part. You're a giraffe and will most likely break several of my body part and yours, too."

"There's only one body part that I need to work," she raises her eyebrows, suggestively.

"Ew, gross."

It goes just as well as you could imagine, mostly because of the amount of times that we've watched the movie together. We know enough about it that we could probably teach a college class on it.

Once the obligatory duet is done, I get to sit back and drink for the rest of the night, while the girls continue to hog the stage, switching up their partners or just swaying to the music in a drunken stupor. It's probably not the best idea before our show tomorrow night, but we're on such a high from the past couple of days that we can't be bothered.

"Hey, Aubrey, are you alright?"

My question isn't unfounded.

The blonde has been mindlessly swirling the straw in her rum and coke for the past twenty minutes, only having gone up to sing some 70s pop song that I've never heard before. Her chin rests on her hand as she stares at the dark liquid in her cup so intensely that it's a wonder the glass doesn't shatter.

Thankfully, the rest of the group is either up on stage or immersed in a game of quarters several tables away.

"I'm fine," Aubrey's smile is so forced it looks like it hurts. "Why wouldn't I be fine?"

"Because, when I asked you started clutching the end of the table so hard that I'm shocked you didn't rip it off," nodding towards her white-knuckled grip with a raised eyebrow.

Quickly, she lets go of the table in favor of wringing her hands together. "I'm the best I've ever been. I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Really?" I inquire, leaning back in my seat and leveling her with a knowing look, "You've been acting weird since Stacie called back when we were in Spain."

"Stacie? What would she have to do with anything?" Aubrey lets out a tense laugh, as if I'm an idiot for even thinking that it had anything to do with the new mother.

"I don't know," lifting a finger to my rub my chin, voice brimming with sarcasm, "maybe it has something to do with the fact that no one knows why you broke up and you're always staring at her with a kicked puppy face when she isn't looking."

For a moment, Aubrey stutters while trying to come up with an answer suitable to my blunt accusation, her mouth opening and closing several times before she lets out something mixed between a groan and a whine.

Her fist slams on the table, "Stacie and I had different plans, and that's all I'm gonna say about it," she says firmly, not giving me time to reply before she abruptly pushes her chair back and marches towards the bar, presumably to order another drink that she's gonna waste.

I sit alone for a moment, trying to decide my next course of action, because if Bella's share anything, it's our inability to let things go and I am not an exception. Pulling out my phone and finding a quieter part of the bar, I select a contact and wait for the other person to pick up.

Once the video call is connected, the first thing I see is Stacie sitting in a chair in front of a pink wall with butterflies covering it. It must be baby Bella's nursery, which means that the woman was home from the hospital already.

"Hey, Gracie!" her greeting comes out in a hushed whisper, "I just put Bella down, so I have to be quiet. What's up, girl?"

"Look, I'm gonna be honest with you, Stace, I'm very buzzed and not in the mood to beat around the bush," I admit with a shrug.

"Go on,"

"What the hell happened between you and Aubrey?"

Stacie chokes a little in surprise, then composes herself, "Nothing happened. We just grew apart."

"If you grew so far apart, then how come Aubrey's been more of a stick in the mud than usual?" soldiering on, I add, "It got worse after you told everyone you were pregnant and peaked when you FaceTime. I will fly home just to get answers if necessary."

With a sigh, Stacie runs her hand over her face and slouches a bit in her chair. "We weren't on the same page. Aubrey wanted to settle down and I wasn't ready."

"No offense," I pause, "but you did the definition of 'settle down' by getting pregnant and having a kid."

"I know, I know," she agrees, pressing the back of her arm to her forehead. "I'm an idiot."

"Exactly, so what are you two idiots going to do about it?"

Leaning back in the rocking chair, she grimaces, "I have no idea," the rest of her statement is cut off by a loud cry, signaling that Bella is awake. "I'm sorry Grace, but I have to go! We'll talk later!"

The call ends before I can say anything else, leaving me with no choice but to do what I was born to do.

Cracking my knuckles with a sly smile, "Let the meddling begin."