Chastity, 8:30 a.m.

The bride’s wildcat cousin from Baton Rouge was having a rough morning.

Chastity DuChamps opened one sleep-crusty eye. She shouldn’t have done that. The sunlight streaming through the blinds instantly seared right through her eyeballs and into the back of her skull.

Whenever she visited her cousin Rosemary in New Orleans and slept overnight in one of the many guest rooms overlooking the lake, she always woke with a slight bit of confusion over where she was, at first. But that feeling would dissipate in a few seconds as wakefulness took hold. There was always the lovely four-poster bed, and a huge window seat with lush pillows and blankets. She would often be awakened with the aroma of coffee and fresh beignets prepared by the cook and all-around wonder-woman Lety, who served guests as if they’d ordered room service.

This morning was not anything like that.

This little room was not becoming more familiar to her the more she woke up. She peeked around for clues. The only thing 100 percent certain was that she was definitely not in her uncle’s house on the lake. This room had a fucking popcorn ceiling, for starters. And these sheets were not Egyptian cotton.

How she got here was another mystery. The only clear memory was she had started the evening at Rosemary’s bachelorette party last night, which had begun with a five-course dinner, with lots of champagne, at the mansion. Everything after that was a blur. Judging from her current state, she’d say the party was a roaring success.

Chas gingerly rolled to one side, stood up and realized she had been asleep in her party dress. She had a pattern of its sequins embedded into the skin of her arms. Those arms were now searing with the pins-and-needles sensation of having been slept on for a very long time. Shaking them awake, she thanked god her legs were working, if a bit wobbly, because she had the urge to pee more than she had ever had in her life. She looked around. There was a door to a small room in the corner. That had better be the bathroom, she thought, because either way she was going to pee in it.

It was indeed a bathroom, and after she had relieved herself, she checked her reflection in the shabby little wall mirror.

This was the one day she was thankful for bad lighting. Never mind that she had obviously skipped her nightly makeup-removal-and-moisturizing routine, because the real story here was the giant love bite on her neck.

She watched her eyes grow huge and fearful in the mirror.

Had she been making out with a giant leech? Because that was the only level of suckage that might possibly have produced such a bruise. No way that was going away before the wedding in two days. Shit. Forget about her own mother killing her; that old lady would have to get in line behind the bride Rosemary and Aunt Betsy.

Focus, Chas. Focus. Where are you? And who were you kissing last night? Chas closed her eyes, and then she sniffed. A man’s scent. All over her. Like, really all over her.

She did not hate this scent, whoever it was. Too bad he wasn’t here so she could interrogate him about this giant hickey.

She stumbled back to the bed to look for her phone. Surely the GPS could tell her where she was and how to get back to the mansion. She could probably enlist some of the other bridesmaids to help her sort her evening out. She really didn’t want to bother Rosemary with any of this.

As she dug through the mess of sheets and blankets, Chas got her biggest clue about the night’s events. There, in the middle of the bed, was a small spot of blood. Her mind raced. Did that really happen? The ache between her legs and her sore thighs gave her the answer. Yes, some serious shit happened, and happened rather enthusiastically, she surmised.

Whoa.

So…not a virgin anymore. On the one hand, mission accomplished. On the other hand…dammit, I missed the whole thing.

Now she was desperate to find her partner in last night’s crimes. She looked around the room for clues, but all she found were her pashmina and her shoes. There was something else, too: a soreness on her butt.

What in the world?

She lifted up her dress and twisted her torso enough to see what it was. A bandage. She lifted the tape around the bandage to reveal a tattoo of a Valentine heart that looked like it had been clawed by a wild animal. On the heart was a letter “G” written in elaborate calligraphy.

G? Who the fuck is G?

She had to find her phone.

Oh man, she also needed water. And coffee. And a large JB Chicken crispy breakfast biscuit slathered in butter and ghost pepper jelly. And ibuprofen, stat. But first, her phone.

Ignoring the little blood stain on the bed that represented the end of her innocence, she kept rifling through the sheets, pillows and blankets. Finally, she found her clutch purse, under the bed.

She opened her clutch and breathed a sigh of relief as she plopped onto the floor. A few undamaged brain cells must have started working again, because she suddenly had the brilliant idea of looking at her photos. Yes! Of course! Surely there would be photo evidence of what happened last night.

She ignored the little red dot that indicated she had several unopened text messages and tapped the photo icon on her phone screen. Up popped an album marked “G.”

Because, of course. Drunk Chas had gone to the trouble of creating a whole separate photo album. But Drunk Chas could not be bothered to do any favors for future Sober Chas by fully naming the dude who presumably had “taken her flower.” That would be her mother’s phrase for it.

She held her breath and clicked on the album marked “G.”

What opened before her was a series of images that would make any brothel madam blush. Good lord! Who was this acrobatic and… whoa! Tanned, muscular specimen with a six-pack that you could bounce a quarter off of? She swiped through and felt the heat rising her to face. She got a glimpse of long, wavy brown hair. Nice. A shoulder with a Jolly Roger tattoo.

Really, dude?

There was a hip tattoo that matched hers, only with the letter “C.” “Oh god,” she groaned. What tattoo artist in his or her right mind would allow this to be done on a pair of drunks?

She saw in the thumbnails there was a face. Her heart skipped a beat and she was about to click it when another one distracted her. A pretty shocking one.

Oh my. Was that his…it was. Oh god. Yeah, she clicked. Who could resist?

Wow.

Well.

She checked herself. Was she actually grinning at a dick pic right now? This was a first.

That explains why she was finding it hard to walk this morning. And why she had somehow agreed to matching tattoos, because damn. That member in that photo could probably convince just about anyone, man or woman, to sell both kidneys in exchange for a thorough night of hot sex.

Enough, Chas. Get to the face. We need to identify this bad boy.

She clicked on the thumbnail of his face. It wasn’t a full face. Most of the screen was taken up by her own smiling, drunk-ass face, with the presumed G’s face taking up about one eighth of the screen at the top right-hand side. She saw a brown eye, sun-kissed skin, long, wavy hair. Did he have a beard? She could not tell. She kind of hoped so. He was most definitely a hot piece of ass, beard or no beard.

Nothing to indicate a name, though.

Crap.

And who was she, exactly? Five years ago, at the age of 17, she was Miss Junior Baton Rouge 2012, cutting the ribbon on the new YMCA splash park, smiling wide for the newspaper photographer. Now she was on the floor of a weird apartment, in the dress she’d worn the night before, desperately searching for clues about the man who took her virginity.

She pressed the “home” button to go back to her text messages for more clues. But as soon as she did that, everything went black.

Wait, what?

Yep. Her phone was dead.

And she was pretty sure she did not have a phone charger. Sure, hell-bent on losing her virginity last night, she’d remembered to tuck a condom, a passport (she didn’t drive, so no license) and her daddy’s platinum card into her clutch. But a firewire? Why on earth would that be necessary?

There was also a bigger problem here. Not only did she not know who G was, not know where she was, and not know where her fellow bridesmaids might be, she also did not know if she’d messed up the whole encounter by shifting into a wildcat last night.

That last detail was pretty important, too, because it could have meant the difference between her supposed partner being alive and walking around with the glow of a freshly laid man, or being in hiding and scared to death.

Or worse—actually, very literally dead.