Falling Down(154)

"Wha?" he murmurs, his eyes closed as he lifts his head off the pillow.
"Wake up! You… Me… We… Oh my God!" I screech and my head pounds. Fuck.
"Stop screaming, Luce. What's going on?" he asks, so calmly, as he scratches his chest and opens his eyes. I look over at his hand, the one he's using to scratch his chest and gasp.
"What is it?"
"Unh," is all I can manage.
"Luce, why are you 'unh'ing?"
"Married," I whisper.
"What?" he asks, his eyes open now, very wide I might add.
"Left hand. Ring. Married," I whisper.
He looks at his left hand and goes completely still. He bolts upright and reaches for my left hand with his.
"How did you get that? That was in my…" he breaks off like he just remembered something, something vital that he's not sharing with me.
"Tell me. What…"
"Unh," he says and I start to panic.
"That about sums it up. Do you remember what happened?" I ask taking a deep calming breath.
"Parts of it. It's coming to me slowly. How much do you remember?"
"Nothing after chasing fat Elvis through Caesar's Palace."
He chuckles. "That was f*cking awesome."
I shrug. "I only wanted to search him for drugs. It's not a good way to die, overdosing on the toilet for the world to make fun of."
Jesse snorts then moans. "God, I think we drank bottle upon bottle of liquor last night."
"Tell me about it. Why are we wearing wedding rings, Jesse?" And why, all of a sudden, am I not panicking about this? A sense of calm has come over me. Weird. I'm sure the panic will come back later, once I get my hangover under control and it sinks in--and I think about telling my mother. Shit.
"Uh," he says rubbing the back of his neck. That's never good. "We hit a couple more hotels and casinos looking for your Elvis and then we found a skinny Elvis. You insisted on telling him all about his fate. We headed to breakfast at Denny's."
"All of us, or just me and you?"
"All of us. When we got there you were so serious telling Elvis his fate. He was so grateful he asked if he could officiate our wedding."
I groan. "I don't remember any of this."
"Anyway, Elvis got permission from someone at Denny's to officiate our ceremony there. Apparently Denny's in Las Vegas also has a 24 hour wedding chapel."
"Huh. I guess that's convenient. Drunk people going for breakfast to sober up but don't quite get there before they decide to get married," I laugh. I can't help it. It's so hilarious.
Jesse laughs with me. "God, Lucy. I thought for sure you were going to be pissed off."
"I'm not pissed. Shocked, stunned, freaking out a little bit, but not pissed."
"Yeah. I was so f*cked up I'm surprised I remember any of it. We laughed through the whole thing. You licked skinny Elvis's cheek."
"What the hell?"
He shrugs. "Who knows. We were hammered."
"Hammered doesn't begin to describe it."
"Fucking skinny Elvis was a riot."
"Where did you get this gorgeous ring?"
"Ah, that ring I've had for a while now."
"What?" I whisper. Is he serious? He's been wanting to marry me?
"Yeah, I got the ring because I knew I wanted to ask you to marry me--eventually--and if I had the ring handy and inspiration struck, well, I could ask you."
"Why didn't you ask me?"
"Would you have said yes?"
I hesitate. How can I not? That's a major life decision. Would I have said yes?
"I think I would have. We'd have had to talk about a lot of things and I think I'd have wanted to have a little longer of an engagement, at least through the tour." I groan again. "Oh God. The tour. The media. Shit. Cage."