Do you ever do something, and know immediately that it is almost certainly a terrible idea? Me too! Welcome to my latest work in progress.

I swore I wouldn't post anymore WIPs, since my track record is, shall we say, less than perfect when it comes to completing them. I also have far too many in various states of completion littering my hard drive. It's a problem. However, impatience, boredom, the hpe that actually posting one will get me to focus, and desire for external validation are a deadly mix, so here we are. While I DO have an outline and a pretty good idea where this train(wreck) is going, the devil is always in the details, so I won't even hazard a guess as to what a posting and update schedule may look like.

I'm flying without a beta/editor on this one, so I apologize in advance for the likely grammatical and typographical errors. This is my first foray into the PP fandom, so I would love to hear feedback; good, bad, or you should really just pack it in and go back to napping and playing video games (I'm a little partial to that last one).

Chapter 1

"I'm not going," Aubrey declared, throwing the open invitation onto the kitchen island with a dramatic flourish.

Chloe gave her a chiding look and set her coffee cup down to grab the offending piece of paper. "You can't skip your own sister's wedding."

"Why not?" Aubrey complained. She refused to call it a pout; those were Chloe's domain. "She hates me anyway." Aubrey pulled out one of the bar stools and flopped down with a sigh.

"Aubrey, your sister does not hate you." Aubrey looked at her doubtfully; Chloe barely even knew her sister. "She doesn't!"

Aubrey crossed her arms over her chest. "If she doesn't hate me, then why didn't she ask me to plan her wedding. Or even be in her wedding." Aubrey made the point with a smug smile. Being right only slightly reducing the sting of the knowledge that her younger sister apparently wanted nothing to do with her.

"I'm sure she had her reasons," Chloe offered.

"I'm a professional wedding planner!" Aubrey exclaimed, throwing her arms wide. "Does she have any idea how insulting it is not to even be asked?"

Chloe tipped her head to the side. "Would you have done it?" Chloe knew that Aubrey had a someone what complicated relationship with her family.

"That's not the point," Aubrey protested. "She didn't even ask."

After college, Aubrey had been at loose ends, not sure what she wanted for her future. College was done, but for the first time in as long as she could remember, she had no plan. Aubrey always had a plan. She had spent a year working as a retreat coordinator at her family's lodge in Georgia. It wasn't what she had envisioned for herself, but she was good at it.

Aubrey had settled into a comfortable routine when Chloe had visited one weekend, and thrown her life into chaos. Chloe had seen through Aubrey's facade of happiness in a matter of hours, and had insisted that if she wasn't happy she should leave, and find something that she was truly passionate about. By the end of the month, Aubrey had packed her bags and was crashing with Chloe in Los Angeles.

She promised that it would only be for a little while; just until she could figure out what came next. The days turned into weeks, which turned into months, and one night, tipsy from too much wine, Chloe had declared they should go into business together. Chloe was working for an event planner, and while she liked the work, she hated her boss.

Even the amount of wine swimming in her system couldn't keep Aubrey from worrying that this would be a terrible idea. Their friendship had almost fractured their senior year in college when the two couldn't agree how to best lead their collegiate a cappella group. How on earth could it survive working together?

In typical Chloe fashion, she had waved off Aubrey's concerns, insisting that they had worked through it, and now they knew they had to listen to each other, and compromise. With Aubrey's obsessive attention to detail, and Chloe's ability to charm everyone, they were destined for success.

Aubrey hadn't been convinced, so she held out.

For an entire two weeks. Eventually, Chloe had worn her down, and Aubrey found herself agreeing to what she was sure would be the end of their friendship. Only it wasn't. Annoyingly, Chloe had been right, and they had built up a fairly solid reputation for themselves.

"I'm sure it wasn't personal," Chloe said, patting Aubrey's arm consolingly. "She is all the way on the east coast, and we have been positively slammed. She probably didn't want to stress you out."

Aubrey huffed, shaking her head. Normally she enjoyed Chloe's unflagging optimism; needed it to stay sane on some days. Sometimes, however, she just wanted to wallow and have someone agree with her that everyone and everything was awful.

Where was Beca when you needed her?

Aubrey shook her head. She wasn't that desperate. It wasn't that she hated Chloe's girlfriend. It was just generally better if the two didn't spend a lot of time together. Beca was laid back, and sarcastic, and everything that Aubrey wasn't. Sometimes she wondered how Chloe could consider two such very different people such close friends.

Well, obviously Beca had the whole sex thing going for her. A line she was very happy she and Chloe had never crossed. Not that her friend wasn't attractive, but Aubrey suspected they would be a disaster in a relationship. A belief that she felt had been proven correct when Chloe met Beca and declared her the love of her life within days.

Aubrey had dismissed the claim at the time; Chloe was naturally friendly and open and was constantly getting crushes on people. However, after three years, and no signs of cracks, Aubrey was willing to admit that maybe she had been wrong. Maybe.

About them lasting. Not about the fact that they never would have worked as more than friends. If someone like Beca was the love of Chloe's life, no way would she have been happy with someone like Aubrey.

"Who are you going to take?" Chloe asked, tapping the invitation with a fingertip.

"What?" Aubrey asked, looking at Chloe in confusion.

"There's a plus one."

"What!?" Aubrey yelped, snatching the invite out of Chloe's hands. She started down at the seemingly innocuous line of text with a scowl."Proof!" Aubrey cried, holding the invite aloft. "She totally hates me. She knows I'm not seeing anyone."

"I'm sure she just wanted to give you the option of a date."

Aubrey glared at Chloe. "She also knows that I don't have time to date."

"No, you don't make the time to date," Chloe muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Aubrey asked sharply, even though she had heard exactly what Chloe had said.

"You've shut yourself off," Chloe said. "You need to make an effort to get out there and meet someone. Be open to love."

Aubrey rolled her eyes. This was well tread territory between the two of them. Every since Chloe had found her "soulmate" she had been determined that Aubrey experience that type of happiness for herself. It wasn't that Aubrey wanted to be alone, but she didn't have Chloe's natural charm, and her dates didn't tend to call looking for a second.

The few that made it past the initial phase, and became what one would almost call a relationship, usually fizzled when they realized just how intense and demanding Aubrey could be. She didn't want to die alone, but she had come to recognize that she may just be a bit too much for most people. She had made her peace with it.

Aubrey looked down at the invite once again with an accusing glare. She just wished her family would do the same. Much like Chloe, her mother and sister couldn't seem to resist asking if she had "met someone yet" every time they talked.

"Well, this just seals it," Aubrey decided with finality. "Now there is definitely no way I'm going. I refuse to spend a whole weekend being the subject of endless questions, and pitying looks about why I'm still single, and can't even manage to find a date."

"You can't skip your sister's wedding. You're mother would kill you, and you know it." Chloe had a point. Aubrey's father may by the General, but her mother was the truly scary half of their partnership. "We'll get you a date," Chloe declared eagerly. A little too eagerly in Aubrey's opinion.

"I know I haven't had the best of luck lately." Or really, ever, but who was keeping track? "But I refuse to pay for a date."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "I'm not talking about hiring you an escort." Chloe looked at her speculatively. "Although, it may be better to-"

"Absolutely not."

"Fine. No escorts," Chloe promised. "But that wasn't what I was talking about anyway. Beca has this friend-"

"I've changed my mind. I'd rather take my chances with an escort."

"-that I've been wanting to set you up for a while," Chloe continued, ignoring Aubrey's interruption with an ease born of long practice. "I think you two would really hit it off. But every time I bring it up you say-"

"No."

"-that," Chloe said, pointing to Aubrey with an accusing finger.

Aubrey shook her head. "I'm serious, Chloe. No setups." Chloe looked at her pleadingly, but Aubrey remained firm. She wasn't Beca. She was immune to Chloe's sad puppy look. Mostly.

"At least meet her," Chloe implored.

"I'm not that desperate." Okay, maybe she was that desperate, but she was hardly going to admit it. She had been the subject of her family's well meaning, if annoying and misplaced, concern for years. Surely she could manage to suffer through one more family interrogation session. "What would I, and a friend of Beca's," she injected every ounce of scorn she could muster into the name," even have in common anyway? The two of us have nothing in common."

"You guys have me in common," Chloe pointed out brightly.

"A fact that will never ceases to baffle me," Aubrey replied. "No. I would rather go alone than have to explain how I ended up with a grumpy, sarcastic, tattooed, flannel clad girlfriend."

Chloe frowned. "Not that there is nothing wrong with any of those things," Chloe insisted, compelled to defend her girlfriend, "but Stacie isn't anything like that."

"I don't care if Stacie is a supermodel sex goddess," Aubrey replied. She shook her head again, resolute. "There is no way I'm letting you set me up with a date for my sister's wedding."

When the silence of her office was broken by the sound of her desk phone ringing, Aubrey reached for the handset blindly. Her attention was on the fine details of the Morrison-Stillwell contract. Her salad, barely eaten and already forgotten, shoved to the far corner of her desk.

Aubrey had seen too many weddings fall apart in the eleventh hour, and while that was sad, she refused to be punished for it. If she, Chloe, and their team, put in the work, Aubrey expected the contract to be honored. Wedding or no wedding. Managing the details of the ceremony on the day of was, in some ways, the least of what they had to do. If they put in the work, they were damn well getting paid.

"Aubrey Posen." Her greeting was short and to the point. There was no need to waste time on pointless, empty pleasantries. Chloe did all the face to face work with clients. Anyone calling her office line was either a vendor, or one of her employees. Neither of which warranted more than a matter of fact greeting. Aubrey could still put on the face of a smiling southern belle, but she preferred to avoid the artifice, unless she absolutely must.

"Why haven't you sent in your RSVP yet? What's going on?" The caller didn't identify herself, but then, she didn't have to. Aubrey would recognize her sister's voice anywhere. Aubrey cursed silently to herself, and dropped her pen, the contract that had so absorbed her just moments before already forgotten.

"Nothing is going on," Aubrey dismissed with a laugh. She hoped it didn't sound as forced to her sister's ears as it did to her own. "Work's just been crazy, and I haven't had a chance to drop it in the mail."

"It's not like you to take so long to respond," her sister insisted suspiciously.

"Monty, it's only been a week!"

"My point exactly! I should have had it days ago. Unless something is going on."

"Nothing is going on," Aubrey repeated.

"Look, if this is about the plus-one, mom insisted. I knew it was a bad idea, but you know how she can get when she has her mind made up." Indeed, Aubrey did. Even General Posen knew that retreat was often the only option when his wife, Vivian, had set herself upon a course of action.

"It's not about the plus one," Aubrey lied.

"I told her that a weekend wedding is not the type of thing you can just bring a casual date to," Monty continued on, as though she hadn't heard Aubrey. It was quite possible she hadn't. Vivan Posen wasn't the only one that could get tunnel vision. "And that since you obviously weren't seeing anyone, it just didn't make sense to include a plus one."

Something about the certainty in her sister's tone rankled. Aubrey had heard it before of course; one of her family's favorite pastimes was lamenting Aubrey's seemingly permanent singlehood. It wasn't even that her sister was wrong. She wasn't seeing anyone; hadn't even been on a date in ages. But her sister didn't have to sound so...so sure about it. As if the very idea was absurd.

Something inside her snapped when she heard the utter conviction in her Monty's voice. Fortunately, she had outgrown her rather unfortunate childhood habit of projectile vomiting when put under immense stress. Unfortunately, she still opened her mouth and made an absolute mess of things.

"Actually, I am seeing someone." Aubrey barely refrained from clapping her hand over her mouth, or looking around to see who had said that, because surely it hadn't been her. Chloe was the one prone to spontaneous outbursts, not Aubrey.

"Oh my god! Really?! Why didn't you say anything?"

Aubrey jerked the phone away from her ear, waiting for her sister's excited squealing to die down before bringing it back. "That. That right there is why."

"How long have you been dating? Is it serious? How did you meet? Is she pretty? What does she do for a living? Is she going to be able to make it to the wedding? Tell her I'll never forgive her if she misses it."

Aubrey rubbed her forehead, feeling the beginnings of a tension headache forming. This was all Chloe's fault. If she hadn't put the ridiculous idea of finding Aubrey an imaginary girlfriend for the wedding, she never would have said something this stupid.

"I don't know yet," Aubrey said, trying to buy time for her brain kick into gear and get her out of this mess. "That's um...that's actually why I haven't sent the invite yet. I wanted to wait until she could give me a definite answer."

"I knew there was a reason," Monty said accusingly. "Why haven't you said anything?"

"You really have to ask that?" Aubrey said incredulously.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Monty asked, sounding slightly wounded.

"Does the mini diatribe you went on like...oh...30 seconds ago ring any bells? I already have Chloe in my life. I can only deal with one desperately over eager, over excitable puppy in my life at a time."

"I'm just happy for you!" Monty insisted. "At least tell me her name. You owe me that much."

"Stacie, her name is Stacie," Aubrey said, grasping onto the name desperately. She may not have complete control over her mouth when emotionally stressed, but at least her memory was still as sharp as ever.

"Well, make sure you tell Stacie that I look forward to meeting her."

"I told you. I'm not even sure if she's going to be able to attend. Her work schedule is almost as hectic as mine, and she isn't sure she can clear her calendar." It may be a complete fabrication, but Aubrey figured it would sound believable. Anyone that Aubrey Posen dated would have to have their life together, and a dedication to their career would be a major component.

"Of course you managed to find another workaholic." Aubrey could almost see her sister roll her eyes over the phone line. "No excuses," Monty insisted. "I expect both you, and Stacie, not just at the wedding, but for the whole weekend." Aubrey heard silence, and then the rapid fire tapping of keys. "There, it's done."

"What's done?" Aubrey asked suspiciously.

"I've filled in the RSVP form for you and Stacie," Monty informed her gleefully.

Aubrey rubbed her eyes, which suddenly felt like they were throbbing. "Monty, I'll do my best, but I can't promise anything…"

"Well, I hope your best includes you showing up, because if not, you will have Mama to deal with."

"What are you talking about?" Aubrey asked, a sinking feeling of dread forming in the pit of her stomach. "Mama doesn't know anything about this, and you aren't going to tell her," Aubrey threatened.

"Too late," Monty said breezily. "I told you. I filled in the RSVP."

It took a moment for Aubrey's to connect the dots, but once she did, she vowed to kill her sister the next time she saw her. "And you have Mama set to get RSVP alerts."

It wasn't a question. There was no way Vivian Posen's baby girl was getting married without her having her finger on the pulse of the entire proceeding.

Monty laughed. "Yes. So, like I said...tell Stacie I can't wait to meet her. Love you!" The line went dead, and Aubrey replaced the handset absently back into the cradle.

She was so screwed.