Anger

“I don’t know what the hell they are doing over there, but they seem to have way too much fun!” Tammy huffed as she was scrolling through her phone.
“You know how they get when they are in Europe. Don’t worry.” Mia comforted her friend.
“I’m not. I just pissed he is having so much fun without me. I could use a few drunk nights too”

Mia chuckled, shaking her head at the logics of her friend “We can go out this weekend”.
“It’s not the same, things are different when you are in another country, another continent even. And that’s just not the point” Tammy wasn’t giving in and Mia knew exactly what was bothering her.
“I miss them too”

Tammy opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by the blasting of Mia’s cellphone. She was surprised when Mia took the phone, looked at who it was and threw it on the coffetable, without answering.
“Who?” She asked, but Mia wasn’t making any sign to answer, so Tammy took a peek at the caller ID.

“Why are you ignoring Izzie’s call?” Tammy looked at the other woman with raised brows. The girls were close, all 4 of them, but Mia and Izzie had been closer than any of the others. They talked to each other every day, they were even completing each other’s sentences sometimes. The men had let go of trying to understand the bond between the women, it was what it was. There was no breaking them up.
“Mia? Why are you not picking up that call?”

A deep blush pulled over Mia’s cheeks when she shrugged.
“Mia…” The tone of Tammy turned a little more threatening, telling her friend not to fuck around and just answer the question.

“I just can’t okay!” Mia let out agitated. She got up from the couch and started walking around the room. Tammy looked at her with interest. This was new.

Come to think of it….
No, it wasn’t….

Tammy could slap herself against the head of how stupid she had been. The four women hadn’t been together ever since Izzie had told them her big news. There was always someone missing. And now she realized it had been Mia. They had met in different combinations, but Mia was never one of them. It didn’t come to her sooner, because she had seen Mia in the meantime. Always with the two of them though, always one on one.

“When did you talk to Izzie last?” Tammy asked, but the answer was creeping up on her already. Before Mia even answered she had known already, and she also knew that this was bad. Mia looked at her. Tammy could tell by the look in her eyes that she was trying to figure out if she would be able to get out of answering. Tammy sighed, she never learned, did she? “Mia, answer me!”

The woman opposite of her flinched at her direct order. She seemed to get a little smaller when she sat down on the couch again, looking down at her hands “I saw her last during the lunch.”
“But how?” It was the only thing that kept going through Tammy’s head. How had she been able to avoid Izzie for that long? It had been two weeks already.

“I just send small texts. Telling her I was busy, telling her I was over at my parents, no time to talk. She might even think my dad fell ill and I have to take care of him” the blush was a deep red now as Mia looked at her hands in embarrassment.
“MIA! How could you?!”

“I just can’t deal with her right now, alright?! I don’t need to hear her being happy. I don’t want to know about her morning sickness, or how she is gaining weight. And I definitely don’t want to see it. Rubbing it in my face!!! I don’t want to shop for nursery furniture, for maternity clothes or for cute onesies. I fucking can’t Tammy!!!”

Tammy was staring at her, short for words for once. That had rarely happened before, but now she just didn’t know what to say. She wanted to be mad at Mia for handling this whole situation poorly, but the thing was, she kinda understood. She had been there for the meltdown after the lunch, the long sobbing in which Mia had told her about her medical condition and her inability to have kids.

It was weird to Tammy that Mia made her promise not to tell anyone, thinking Mia could use all the friend she got to help her through these hard times. But Tammy could never phantom that Mia wouldn’t tell Izzie.

“Shit Mia, I don’t even know how to respond to this. It’s crappy that you are making Izzie believe your dad is ill. You know we all love the man. But seriously. How long do you think you can keep this up? She will be at your house sooner or later, or call your parents. You can’t keep avoiding her for 7 more months.”

“I know. Maybe I should just pack my bags and see Zack.” She looked defeated as she bit her nails
“I will get to that idea in a minute, but what is he saying about all this?”

Mia seemed to get her second wind and stood up. Heavily gesticulating she began her second rant “Oh Zack! Zack is oh so happy for them. Zack is completely on board in supporting our friends. Thinking it is a good thing that they got pregnant first. Zack is full on in caring mode now. Telling me to take care of Izzie, telling me he will look after Matt. Oh and you know what the smasher is? He told me he was working on a VU clothing line. He wanted to do it for our kids, but stopped designing when we got the news. And now? He has sketchbooks full of designs.” She looked angry and took on Zack’s deeper voice “That kid will look so cool”. Mia paced up and down. “It’s almost as if he is the one that conceived that baby. It’s fucking ridiculous!”

The reply that was on it’s way out of Tammy’s mouth came to a halt when Mia continued. “No. I can’t visit Zack either. Everyone is fucking on the Matt and Izzie bandwagon and I JUST CAN’T FUCKING TAKE IT! I WON’T SURVIVE 7 MORE MONTHS OF THIS!”

“Whoa, calm down. Mia, calm down” Tammy got up and stopped Mia from walking around, slamming her arms around her, pulling her to her. “Shhhh, take a deep breath.” Tammy felt her shoulder getting wet, and then the body she was holding in her arms shocking from the sobbing. She didn’t know how to fix this broken woman, at least not immediately. So she did what she did second best.

In her head Tammy tried to figure out a timeline, a storyline for the main characters. With her friends being the main characters, she tried to figure out how to get to a happy end as quickly as possible. Mia needed to get to Zack, everything would be better if they were together. It had always been, so it had to work now too. Mia and Zack were the great love story in their group. Their love should be able to fix everything.

Coming to that conclusion, Tammy did what she did best. Tough love.

She pushed Mia a little away and looked at her sternly. “Where is your carry-on luggage?” Mia looked at her confused. “Where. Are. Your. Suitcases?” Tammy repeated emphasizing every word.
“In my closet, why?”
“Because you are going to visit Zack. You need him. You will feel better if you go and visit him. Alone. Just be with the two of you for a bit.”
“I just said I-“
“I know what you just said, but I’m chosing to ignore it. You need your husband.”

Mia opened her mouth to protest, but Tammy held up her hand.
“No. I don’t want to hear it. I might have been stupid about the Izzie thing, but I know you haven’t been talking to Zack either and that has to change. So you are flying to Europe. You just have to pack some cute outfits, let me take care of the rest. Agreed?”

A small smile came through on Mia’s tear stricken face “Do I have a choice?”
“You finally get it… Took you long enough” Tammy winked before she turned Mia towards the stairs, smacking her ass “Go on. Pack. I’ll let you know how late I’m coming to pick you up to bring you to the airport.”

Tammy watched her friend disappear upstairs and then made her way out to her car, grabbing her phone in the meantime. She plugged it in the car kit and hit her speed dial. Her absolute number 1.

“Hello?” Brian let out groggily, why he tried to lift his head from his pillow. He knew it was his wife by the ringtone, woman by Wolfmother, but that didn’t mean he liked her getting him out of his well deserved sleep. The show tonight had been amazing, but so had the afterparty. They were still partying after the shows, but now it was mostly the crew. Didn’t make it any less fun and sure didn’t make them drink any less.

A look at the alarmclock next to the bed told him it was 4am. He quickly tried to calculate the time difference, but that was too far out of his brain’s abilities right now. He knew that Tammy always did though. Calculate. Before she called him.

“Baby? What’s wrong?” he finally got out, trying to sit up a little more.
“Hey, I’m sorry to wake you”
“It’s okay. It’s always nice to hear your voice” He smiled, knowing she would hear it “What’s going on?”
“I’m sending Mia over. I will arrange a flight for her after I finish my call with you. She needs to be with Zack”

Brian rubbed his eyes, wondering if he missed a piece of the conversation, because none of this was making any sense to him.
“Are you coming too?”
“No. Only Mia”
“But why- I don’t understand babe, you need to give me a little more”

He could hear his wife think at the other end of the line.
“Sorry. I should have started with the beginning”

When Tammy started talking, Brian could only listen with open mouth. He was confused and he was blaming himself for paying this little attention to his friend. Him and Zack had always been so well atuned, how could he have missed this?

Poor Zack. Poor Mia.

Once again he was happy his wife was so observative. He sure was not as clueless about a lot of things as he had been before he met her.
“What can we do?” He asked when Tammy was finished.

“I don’t know exactly. I hope that the Zack and Mia love will once again solve all of this miraculously like it has with everything. But I don’t know what to do if it doesn’t, Brian. This is big. It’s life changing and not in the good way”

Brian could hear the worry in her voice, and he could only agree. If she didn’t know how to fix this, how would he?

“Okay. I will talk to Zack in the morning, he needs to know he isn’t alone. They not only need each other, they need their friends too”
“Great observation sweetie, but that is step 2” He enjoyed the way he could hear the smile in her voice.

“I’m gonna let you go. Get some more sleep for as long as the night will take. Call me after you spoke to Zack?”
“Sure will. I love you”
“Love you too… Dream of me”

With that Brian ended the call and laid back into the fluffy bed. He was pretty sure he would be fucked on the sleeping. There was no way he would be able to sleep again. Somehow he fell asleep anyway.

He woke up by a growling stomach and thanked God and their assistants for the breakfast that was already delivered into his room. He quickly stuffed his stomach with some eggs, bacon and juice before grabbing a quick shower, slipping into his sweatpants after. His hands through his hair modelled his hair enough for now and Brian made his way over to the room next to his.

The knock on the door was answered by a freshly showered and dressed Zack.
“Well, look at you, completely ready”
“I already took a run while you assholes were still sleeping” Zack replied with a smile as he stepped aside to let Brian in.

“With Big T this time?” Brian smirked, receiving a foul look by his friend. The story of Zack sneaking out of the hotel had made it all through the band. Big T used it to scare the others too. Didn’t stop Zack from still sneaking out though. When he managed to get out he would tease Big T about it all day, just to annoy him. Big T however always found a way to get back at Zack, still holding him telling Mia over his head. Guess he would get the chance sooner than later.

“You want coffee?” Zack held up the pot to Brian who nodded. That was the one thing he didn’t have yet this morning… coffee. Brian sat down on one of the chairs and looked at Zack.
“How are you man?”
“Fine. Why?” Zack looked at him weird, wondering why Brian would ask such a question.
“I think you aren’t” For a moment the two men stared at each other, measuring the other up, trying to see what they could and could not say. Zack finally decided that Brian knew more and that there was no way in denying.

“If you fucking know I’m not, why are you fucking asking?”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, language Zack” the leadguitarist couldn’t help but tease Zack a little, but the daggers that Zack were shooting were only missing him in a hair’s breath. Better watch it.

“I noticed something being off with you, but somehow I couldn’t put my finger on it. That was until I got a little help from my wife. And a phone call she made at 4 am.”

Zack looked at Brian, knowing that there was no getting away now.

Brian knew.

Notes

Hello sweethearts!

Seeing I'm not able to write the last chapter for Groundhog day at the moment, and this is the only chapter I could salvage after I lost my story... I thought I update this one....

Hope you guys like it! :)