5.

 

The light was so bright it made her head pound even harder as she tried to shield herself from it all. Her eyes were cracked open slightly, but her vision was blurred, and she felt full of pain, her whole body aching from the uncomfortable position she had been sleeping in.

She had a crick in her neck, and her mouth was so dry she could barely open it.

What the hell… she thought as she rubbed her eyes and tried to turn over.

But everything was so uncomfortable, and with each movement, she felt a new sharp pain in her side.

“Where am I?” she groaned as she rolled onto her back and kept her eyes clamped shut.

It felt as if she were lying on the floor, and the room was so bright she knew she couldn’t be in her bedroom at home. None of this made any sense.

She couldn’t remember anything.

Suddenly, the images from the previous day started to creep back.

She had left her home and traveled to Grey Mountain.

She must be in her hotel room.

She reached up and rubbed her eyes slowly, trying to prepare herself for the bright light that would attack her all over again once she had the nerve to open her eyes.

She had to be sleeping on the hardest mattress in history.

She was for sure going to be making a complaint.

She pushed herself up and wrapped her arms around her knees as she pulled them to her chest. She still couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes, and she felt as if she were wobbling on the spot. It was as if the ground beneath her was jelly and if she moved her head too quickly, she would lose her balance and find herself flat on her face.

Suddenly, next to her, she heard the groan of a man, and she opened her eyes wide in shock and felt her stomach flip.

She wasn’t in a hotel room at all.

She was on the dirty floor of a bar, huddled up next to some long benches, wearing the clothes she had gone out in and stinking of booze.

Her jaw sagged open.

What the hell was happening.

She looked down next to her, and around two feet away was the big brute of a mountain man.

What was his name again?

Emmett?

No, Evan!

Evan.

He was fast asleep and looked even bigger than he had done the previous evening.

She crunched up her face and shook her head. She had no clue what was happening, but she had obviously gotten so drunk she had passed out before she had the chance to get home.

Behind her, she heard a swing door open and close and she jumped quickly to her feet.

Evan barely stirred, but he turned onto his side and continued to breathe slowly and deeply. It was then that she noticed someone had made a bow tie and had fixed it to his neck.

She shook her head.

He looked so ridiculous.

Footsteps started coming closer and she spun around to see Jack walking toward her carrying a crate of empty glasses and a look of amusement etched on his face.

“Oh, there she is,” he laughed. “The bride lives!”

The sound of his voice sent a splintering pain right down the middle of her head and she had to reach up and cradle it in her hands. It was then she felt that something had been put in her hair and she pulled at it. It was long and floaty, and it had been pinned in place on the top of a headband.

“What the hell happened?” she croaked.

It was then that she pulled the thing on her head into her line of sight and she could see what it looked like… but it didn’t make much sense.

“A veil?” she croaked, with a look of confusion on her face.

Jack covered his mouth with his hands and threw his head back and laughed.

“Please tell me you remember what went down last night?” he asked her with wide eyes and an even wider grin.

“Not a thing,” she said, her voice felt like a million splinters in her throat.

“Oh Jesus,” Jack half laughed.

On the floor, Evan rolled onto his back again and slowly opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and red, and Monica could only assume that hers looked exactly the same.

He looked momentarily confused, but then he pushed himself up and looked around with bleary eyes and as much confusion as Monica had woken up with.

“What the fuck am I doing here?” he asked as he reached up and touched his own forehead.

She could only imagine he felt exactly the same as her.

“You two are completely insane,” Jack said as he laughed and shook his head. “Please tell me you both know what you did?”

Monica felt herself step away from them both a little and she wrapped her arms around herself.

“What the hell do you mean?” she said protectively.

She looked down at herself and made sure that each and every piece of clothing that she had been wearing was still intact.

It was.

And she certainly didn’t feel as if she had done anything physical with anyone…

But why was she waking up on the floor of a goddam bar in the middle of a mountain town she barely knew? With two guys she knew even less!?

“Oh man,” Jack said.

Evan reached up and pulled at the handmade bow tie around his neck, and as he looked at it, his eyes slowly grew wider, as if it was all coming back to him and he was piecing it all together.

“Oh God,” he said as he looked up at Jack in panic. “We didn’t, did we?”

Jack bit his bottom lip and smiled.

“You sure did,” he mused.

“We did what?” Monica asked furiously as she crossed her arms over her chest and threw the ratty piece of fabric she had pinned in her hair down onto the floor. “Would someone, anyone, like to fill me in!”

Evan looked at her and she looked at him.

The veil, the bowtie… the empty champagne and wine bottles that were scattered around the room.

It looked like the aftermath of, well, a wedding…

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “We didn’t…”

“I’m afraid you did,” Jack smiled, and then his face cracked widely, and he let out a roar of laughter.

Monica couldn’t get one thought together, and she sat down on the nearest chair and cradled her pounding head in her hands. She was probably still drunk, but everything hurt her all the same.

She had slept on the floor, with a big uncomfortable hairband in her hair, and she had clearly not been in the best position when it had come to being in a peaceful slumber. She massaged her neck and felt a wave of nausea rise up in her.

“It was a joke, though, right?” she managed to croak out.

She had no memory of this supposed wedding, but she was sure that even if they had play acted and done that, then it wouldn’t be real. How could it be? They were in a bar in the middle of nowhere? What priest would just so happen to be wandering around in that type of situation?

Jack looked sheepishly at the floor and scratched the back of his neck.

“Well no, not so much,” he said. “I mean, you really don’t remember?”

Monica wanted to try and force the memories to come back to her, but at the same time, she knew it was only going to cause her to feel worse. She already felt as if she could throw up, and now that she was having to talk to people and try to piece together what the hell was going on, she felt on the verge of death.

“He’s ordained,” Evan finally said in an incredibly deadpanned voice.

“What?” Monica asked as she looked over her shoulder at the mountain man.

Even hungover, he was handsome as hell, but this wasn’t exactly the time when she should be thinking about things like that.

“It’s true,” Jack said with a shrug. “You guys were so wasted, and then the other guys started getting involved, and the waitresses from over the road. We were all drinking and we shut up the bar and had a lock in. I think it was around three am… and we got on the topic of me being ordained and how I was going to conduct the ceremony at my brother’s wedding next Spring… and you guys offered to be the practice run.”

He looked incredibly embarrassed all of a sudden, as if he felt wholly responsible for what had happened.

“Oh God,” was all Monica could manage to say.

The details were flashing back to her, a sentence here, a sentence there… she remembered one of the waitress girls ripping up her scarf and pinning it to a hair band before she slid it onto Monica’s head.

“We all tried to stop you,” Jack shrugged. “But you both were so insistent.”

Evan was looking up at Monica and she didn’t dare return his gaze.

She had gone and married a complete fucking stranger in a drunken haze.

“Oh God…” was all she could say again.

“I mean, I’m sure we can get it annulled?” Jack began. “I’ll look into it… I mean, I’ll…”

“You didn’t have to actually do the ceremony!” Monica barked at him.

Jack held up his hands as if he was surrendering.

“It wasn’t my idea…” he said sternly. “And you guys were pretty insistent. You’d been kissing the faces off each other all night and then you were talking about how you wanted to marry each other. Me saying I was ordained just seemed to be the go ahead you needed to convince yourselves that it was definitely on….”

Evan let out a snort of laughter and ran a hand through his hair. He had remained remarkably silent throughout it all, as if he was still trying to get his head around the fact that somehow this had actually happened.

“I… I…” Monica stammered.

She looked around the room and saw her purse lying on top of the counter. She marched over to it and swept it up into her hands and then she headed toward the door.

“I need to go to bed,” she said sternly as she pushed open the main door of the bar and went to leave.

“Wait, Monica, wait!” Jack called after her.

But it was too late. There was no way she was hanging around there.

She had gotten so drunk and she had made a terrible mistake.

She had gone and married a man she had only just met, she had no recollection of it… and she was pretty sure she was still hammered.

She wandered down the street and made her way quickly back to her hotel. She needed to lock herself in her room, close all of the curtains, climb into bed and sleep this off.

Only then would she be able to process all of this information and make an informed decision on what the hell she could do to sort all of it out.

She honestly couldn’t believe it.

One day out of her hometown and she had gone and done something crazy like this.

Well, at least she wasn’t going to be stuck for anymore ideas… it looked as if she would finally have something to write about…