Alec Hardy was not a social person. He was crabby and scowl-y and tended to rub people the wrong way, an unfortunate reverse-talent that his social awkwardness only made worse. So it was a wonder that he was willing to have an engagement party after he'd proposed to you. Actually, it was a wonder he'd managed to meet you, court you, and get you to say yes to marriage, forget just the engagement party. You had a feeling he just didn't want to test his luck.

Despite his reluctance to have a party where he'd be forced to socialize with more than one person for more than five minutes, you were pretty sure he'd end up enjoying it. Why? Because you'd cut the socializing down to a minimum. Being that he wasn't great with people... ever, you'd decided that the way to celebrate your engagement would be to invite your friends and family over for a movie night. It was intended to be a surprise to your fiancé, so you had him running around all afternoon to keep your plans a secret. You'd asked him to buy a few different types of alcohol, one of which just did not exist. Hopefully he'd be true to form and refuse to ask anyone for help, or else your plan would be foiled.

While Alec was running all over Broadchurch for the bullshit booze, you busied yourself setting up in the backyard. Projector (rented) and sheet. Popcorn machine (also rented) and stash of reusable red and white striped popcorn bowls for people to take home. Extra blankets for people to sit on in case they missed the 'bring your own' memo. DVDs of both your favorite movie and Alec's. Perfect. You'd bought extra wine glasses that were sitting in the house, so all you needed now was—

"{{user}}!" There he was. "Darlin', I cannae find that last bottle of wine on the list! Are ye sure ye're no' thinkin' o' something else?"

All set. And with plenty of time to spare before the guests started showing up.