CHAPTER ONE
the best day of doug's life

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"HI, IT'S CHLOE, I'm obviously not available right now, so take the fucking hint and leave me a message at the beep."

Chloe slapped her phone infuriatingly as she furrowed her eyebrows and held it up to the sky, hoping the reception would spontaneously improve.

Blowing out an exasperated breath, the woman just hopelessly threw her hands to her sides and trudged over towards Phil. "Phil, you got any signal yet?!"

Phil slightly turned his head and watched her approach him as he nodded, holding up his phone as he did so. "It's ringing- Tracy, it's Phil."

Chloe's eyes lit up at the words, and she broke into a light jog as she soon arrived at his side. Gesturing to the phone, Chloe raised her eyebrows and mouthed, "speaker, put her on speaker."

Phil pressed the speaker button on the phone at the words, and Tracy's deathly serious voice snapped from the other end as soon as he did so. "Phil, where the hell are you guys? I'm freaking out."

"Yeah, listen. Uh..." Phil sniffed, his following words incredibly hesitant as he blew out a breath and quickly darted his tongue out to wet his lips. "We fucked up."

"What are you talking about?!" Tracy's, now furious, voice lowered an octave, and Chloe slightly cringed as she could picture her close friend hurriedly pacing the room in bewilderment.

"The bachelor party, the whole night. It..." Phil sighed, trying to find the right words. "Things got out of control, and, uh...we lost Doug..."

A brief, deafening pause fell between them.

"What?"

"We can't find Doug." Phil reluctantly and apologetically rephrased. The man then gestured for Chloe to take the phone, as she would have a much more sympathetic approach, though the woman just widened her eyes, shook her head, and backed up a bit, to which Phil just shot her an exasperated look.

"What are you saying, Phil? We're getting married in five hours!"

Phil winced. "Yeah...that's not gonna happen."

•

"Yes, Rachel, I'll be in Vegas just for Doug's bachelor party." Chloe raised her eyebrows as she hurried around her living room, moving her phone to rest against her shoulder, and consequently, pressing the phone to her ear as she raised her shoulder to secure the device mid-movement. "Just a night."

As Chloe threw her final items in her bag, the woman just finishing her packing for the trip and tightly zipping up her suitcase, she lightly bit her lip in concentration, simultaneously furrowing her eyebrows at her sister's words over the phone. "What do you mean, 'what should I tell Paul?', tell Paul to invite one of his boring colleagues to take my place for dinner. I don't know, he's your husband."

Frown deepening as she straightened up and lowered her head from her shoulder to grab the phone again, her other hand resting on her suitcase, Chloe scoffed in disbelief. "I can't just cancel on Doug and the guys, Rach, I promised them I'd go. It's Doug's bachelor party, the man's getting hitched. It was always on my calendar, you just clearly haven't paid attention. No, Tracy actually encouraged it, despite my many protests. She said I'd, quote, 'keep them in line', but she should know by now that I have no influence, whatsoever, on them."

As if on cue, the deafeningly thundering sound of a car's stereo booming outside of Chloe's house caught her attention, and as the driver beeped the horn in several quick successions, the woman immediately knew who was waiting for her.

The enthusiastic shouts of familiar voices made Chloe grin, and she moved to the window, draping the blinds aside and having her assumption confirmed instantly as she observed the boys' smiling faces.

Grabbing her suitcase, Chloe said goodbye to her sister and hung up the phone, then securely locking her house and quickly making her way to the unfamiliar vintage car that Doug was driving.

Impressed smirk appearing on her face as she surveyed the car before returning her gaze to the faces of her beaming friends, as well as Alan—who Chloe had only met a handful of times before—, Chloe made her way to the trunk, placing her suitcase between the others' and eliciting enthusiastic cheers from the boys as she then approached the driver's side.

"Hey, dickheads." Chloe chuckled as she fist-bumped Doug's outstretched fist, the man grinning as she continued.

"Nice car, Dougie." Chloe affirmed with raised eyebrows as she grabbed the side of the car and pulled herself up, beginning to climb into it. "Who'd you kill for it?"

Doug just huffed out a chuckle as he shook his head at the playful words. "Sid willingly gave it to me."

At Chloe's actions, Stu stood up from his position in the middle back seat, holding his hand out so the difficulty of her efforts would be alleviated. Chloe sent him an appreciative nod and a smile as she took his hand, tightly gripping onto it and using him to pull herself up and into the car.

Since the roof was already lowered, Chloe leaned her lower back against the head of her seat, comfortably resting her hands on the sides of it. Finally, she tilted her head to observe Phil, and, briefly raising one of her hands, she waved her fingers teasingly. "Hey, gorgeous."

Phil, who was wearing tinted sunglasses, just slightly shook his head, a small smirk overtaking his features as he returned the same energy, meeting the playfully flirty look with one of his own. "Hi, baby."

Chloe cringed at the pet name, the woman scoffing as she steadfastly broke the flirty tension between them and looked away. "That might be worse than 'pumpkin'."

"Yeah, but that was just to make you mad." Phil's smirk grew, keeping his eyes on her to observe her reaction. "It clearly worked."

"Cool, medal or trophy?" Chloe's eyebrows quirked upwards at him.

"What are you doing?" Stu furrowed his eyebrows as he sat back down and glanced up at her in question in order to interrupt their pointless debate, causing the woman's eyes to flicker towards him. "Sit down properly, that's not safe."

"I'm just getting comfortable, Stu." Chloe honestly answered with a shrug. "Saves me doing it when we get on the freeway."

As Doug started the car, beginning to drive off, he chimed in. "We're not on the freeway yet, Chl-"

"Hello, Chloe." Another voice, which belonged to the only person in the car that Chloe hadn't conversed with that day yet, suddenly cut off his to-be brother-in-law.

Doug furrowed his eyebrows as his gaze shifted between the road and the man. "Alan, I was talking."

"Hi, Alan." Chloe shifted her eyes down to Alan, who turned around and held his hand out for her to shake. "How are you?"

Ignoring the words as he still kept his hand outstretched, despite Chloe clearly having no desire to touch him, Alan raised his eyebrows impressively. "Wow. You're hotter in person."

Chloe blinked. "We've met several times in person before."

"I know, but I have one photo of you, me, Doug and Phil from last time, and every time I start to miss your face, I look at it and it makes me feel better." A sweet, innocent smile appeared on Alan's face as he kept his hand outstretched.

Chloe slightly widened her eyes in minor discomfort, and as she glanced away, Stu cleared his throat. "That's not normal..."

Alan just kept holding his hand out, not getting what the issue was, before Doug just blew out a breath and pushed Alan's hand down with one hand as he continued to drive. "Just- no, man."

•

As Doug sped up on the freeway, Chloe raised her hands up, stretching slightly, tilting her head back, and tightly squeezing her eyes shut as she felt the wind soothingly blow her hair back.

As the bottom of Chloe's top lifted at the action, consequently revealing the bottom of her stomach and outline of her hip bones, Phil snuck a few looks, internally thanking whatever gods made her decide to wear a tight top and low-rise shorts.

Stu noticed, and he shot his friend a frown, mouthing "pervert" in order to fully convey his disapproval of Phil's actions.

Phil just rolled his eyes at the look, and as Chloe sat down, the woman running her hand through her hair in order to try and fix it the best she could, he just looked away.

"Whoo! Road trip!" Alan shouted excitedly, slapping his car door as he watched the reactions of every single person in the cars that passed theirs. "Vegas! Vegas, baby! Vegas! You're nuts!"

Phil, Stu, Doug and Chloe just smiled in entertainment at Alan's enthusiasm, and as a little girl gave him the middle finger from the car passing them, Chloe reached across Stu and Phil to grab one of the bottles of beer in the side pocket beside Phil.

"Come on, just till Barstow." Phil called over the blaring music, complaining about the speed that Doug was going. "Everybody's passing us."

"Absolutely not. I promised Sid I would be the only one driving this car." Doug shook his head in refusal. "Besides, you're drinking. The only person that I'd trust to drink and drive is Chloe. And that's still a stretch."

Chloe nonchalantly shrugged as she twisted open the bottle cap and took a sip of the beer. "I'll take it."

"Oh, what are you, a cop now?" Phil scoffed, steering the conversation back to its origins. "Come on, you know I drive great when I'm drunk."

"It's true, don't forget, Phil was always our designated drunk driver." Stu confirmed as himself and Phil took sips of their beers.

"Yeah, you wanna explain it to them, Alan?" Doug huffed a chuckle at his friends' immaturity.

"Guys, my dad loves this car more than he loves me, so, yeah." Alan turned his head to momentarily glance between the trio at the back.

"Whatever, look, I left my kid with my ex wife so I could go with you guys to Vegas." Phil dismissively threw his hand up in exasperation. "Do you know how difficult that was?"

"Yeah, I'm sure leaving Stephanie was super difficult." Chloe indistinctly murmured into her bottle as she took another sip and looked out to watch the surroundings.

"That was really sweet, Phil." Alan proudly nodded at Phil, none of the group hearing what Chloe said.

"Dude, I was being sarcastic." Phil frowned at the man briefly before redirecting his eyes to flicker between the other three. "I fucking hate my life. I may never go back, I might just stay in Vegas."

Chloe raised her eyebrows as she nodded in agreement. "Yeah, me too. I'd rather start a whole new life in Vegas than deal with Rachel and Paul pestering me to 'find a husband' and 'settle down'."

"Here we go." Doug exasperatedly blew out a breath, already expecting the responses.

"You know what, Doug, you should enjoy yourself, because come Sunday, you're gonna start dying just a little bit every day." Phil defended himself, making the smaller motion with his fingers as he spoke. "I'm fucking relieved Stephanie and I got a divorce before she could drive me completely insane."

"Yeah." Alan chortled. "That's why I've managed to stay single this whole time, you know?"

"Oh, really? That's why you're single?" Stu quipped, unconvinced.

"Yeah." Alan affirmed.

"Cool. Good to know." Stu mused, slowly nodding and looking away.

"How's your boyfriend, Chloe?" Doug chimed in after a moment, momentarily shifting his eyes to the rear view mirror to look at Chloe.

"We're 'off' right now." Chloe informed, meeting his brief gaze as he watched the road again.

Phil just huffed a laugh. "I still can't believe you're dating a guy named Lyle."

Chloe frowned at the man in offence as she corrected him. "He's hot, and we're not dating anymore, asshole. And you can't talk, your name is Philip."

"Yeah, and you still fucked me." Phil raised his eyebrows challengingly.

"Call it desperation." Chloe rolled her eyes and looked away once more.

A brief silence followed the words before Chloe snickered an amused laugh and glanced down at the bottle in her hand.

The sudden sound caught the group's attention, and Stu's perplexed voice questioned, "What's funny?"

Chloe shrugged, a taunting smirk on her face as she answered, following her statement with a swig of her beer. "I still can't get over how stupid all of your names are, you practically slid out of the womb ready for retirement."

"What?" A slightly offended frown creased Phil's eyebrows inwards.

"I mean..." Chloe laughed again between words as she took another sip of beer. "What kind of names are Philip, Stuart, Alan and Doug? I'm sure they're all fun to moan in bed."

"Hey." Stu frowned at her. "It's bad enough that you say I'm not a doctor, you don't have to insult my name too."

"You've already moaned one of them several times in college, smartass." Phil shot her a look, though the teasing expression in his eyes was concealed by his tinted sunglasses.

Chloe slightly leaned forward in her seat in order to meet Phil's gaze, the girl's eyebrows quirking upwards as she fired back a sardonic reply. "Yeah, and from the other side of the door, it probably sounded like an old guy was going down on me."

Phil let out a scoff, the corners of his lips tugging upwards as he immediately thought of a comeback. "You know I don't fuck like one, Chlo."

Doug made eye contact with Stu from the rear view mirror, and his voice was incredibly deadpanned as he seriously stated. "We shouldn't have asked them to come."

"Hey! That first part was mean, Chloe." Alan frowned at her as he spoke, though as he continued his statement, his expression faded and his tone softened. "The part about how much fun moaning my name in bed would be was nice, though, thank you for saying that. You always know how to boost my confidence."

The group's attention shifted to a,
now smiling, Alan, who was happily surveying the rest of the cars on the road, all of them refusing to believe that Alan was that blissfully unaware, that he somehow missed Chloe's clear sarcasm.

Chloe shifted her eyes between the boys. "Is this guy serious?"

"Alan." Phil furrowed his eyebrows at the man, who very quickly whipped his head around to face him.

"Yes, Phil?" Alan immediately replied—too quickly for Phil's liking.

"That was an insult." Phil stated firmly, trying to assist Alan in deducing the tone in Chloe's words.

"What was?" Alan cluelessly inquired.

"Fucking never mind." Phil blew out an exasperated breath as he shook his head and looked away.

"Am I alright over there, Alan?" Doug interrupted the conversation as he referred to the lane beside him.

"Yeah, you're good." Alan simply answered without looking.

As Doug began to drive towards the other lane, a massive truck honked loudly, causing Doug to swerve the car back and the trio in the back to shout and grab onto the car seats in front of them to prevent them from further swaying violently.

"Oh, my god!" Stu yelled in unbridled fear.

"What the fuck?!" Chloe allowed herself to catch her breath as she held a hand to her rapidly beating heart, Phil laughing in humour.

"That was awesome!" Alan spoke between loud chortles.

"That was not awesome, what is wrong with you?!" Doug shouted furiously at Alan.

"That was insane, we almost just died!" Stu called, Chloe wordlessly nodding quickly in agreement, while Phil and Alan continued to find the situation utterly hilarious.

"You should have seen your face!" Alan goofily yelled at Doug. "Ha! Classic!"

Phil defended Alan's words with a laugh of his own. "That's funny."

"It's not funny." Doug firmly disagreed as he kept driving.

•

AUTHOR'S NOTE
i'm so excited to start this, you have no idea!

© voidvaleska