Shine Not Burn(80)

I swallowed with difficulty. “You did? You actually asked me?”

“Yeah. Got on bended knee with a flower that some guy sold me and everything.”

“Oh, God, I wish I could remember that part.” I felt like crying.

“Yeah, it was pretty bad. But I somehow managed to convince you it was a great plan, and off we went to the chapel. We had to wait in line for a while. I had to keep reminding you we weren’t in a hotel room anymore.”

I dropped my head into my hands. “I’m not sure I want to hear this part.”

“Why not? It’s the best part.” He was grinning again, I could tell by the tone of his voice, but I refused to look at him.

“What did I do?”

“You couldn’t keep your hands off me. I had to take your hands out of my pants about ten times.”

“Oh, Jesus … no wonder you wanted to marry me!” I tried to keep the images from entering my head, but it wasn’t working.

He reached over and pulled one of my hands away. “Come over here. You’re too far away.”

I yanked my hand back. “No. Stay away. I’m too embarrassed.”

He sat up and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me down with him until I was lying partly next to him and partly on top of him. I didn’t fight him at all, I just let myself be force-cuddled.

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about. It was the best night of my life and not just because you kept calling me King Dong.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Oh, how far I’ve fallen.”

“Shush, I still haven’t told you the whole story.”

“So tell it. And try to skip over the parts where I humiliate myself time and again.”

“I’ll try, but those were the fun parts. The other parts that came later are the sad part of the story.”

My heart clenched up in my chest. “Tell me.”

He remained silent for awhile, but I didn’t push him. I was busy enough with imagining our night together that I didn’t need him to continue right away.

“Where was I?” he finally said.

“We were in line at the chapel.”

“Yeah, okay. So we got to our turn and we didn’t have rings. They offered to sell us one, but you said you didn’t need one. We said the vows, which you made up, and then we signed the documents.”

“Do I want to know the vows?”

“They were very creative.”

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” I was trying to keep my humiliation from becoming complete.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Tell me the rest of the story.

“Alright, so after the deed was done, I finally took a look at my phone and saw about fifty texts from my brother and his friends. While we were waiting for them to come, we talked about what we were going to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“We talked about our future.”

“Oh.”

“You were going to go back to your room and stay with your friends and call me in the morning. You wanted to get pretty or something, you said. Letting your boobs breathe, I think was another concern. I was just going to hook back up with my brother for a few hours before we had to leave and then re-connect with you by phone first.”

“And then what? We were going to live apart as a married couple? This doesn’t sound like a very smart plan or anything I would have been a part of, even drunk out of my gourd.”

“Me neither. But at the time, it made perfect sense. We’d both been drinking, so even though I knew what I was doing, I might have suffered a little bit of fantasy-thinking at the time.”

“Fantasy-thinking. Hmmm.”

“Yeah. Anyway, we got to the hotel lobby and I left you at your room telling you to meet me downstairs later. When I went back down to the lobby, my brother was already there, fuming. He was pissed I’d missed the whole night with him and his buddies, and it didn’t help that he’d lost all his money gambling. We got our bags from the desk and he went to the airport, but I stayed there in the hotel, waiting for your call.”

I swallowed hard. “I didn’t call you.”

“No,” he said quietly. “You didn’t call me.” His arms went tighter around my body.

“How long did you wait?”

“Until lunchtime. Several hours. I called the number you gave me eventually, but it wasn’t your number.”

“What number was it?” I asked, confused.

“I have no idea. Some guy named Deacon kept answering.”

“Luke Deacon?” I asked in a small voice.

“Yeah. Something like that. Do you know him?”

“He was my ex.” I looked up at the sky, my face flaming red again. “Oh, man. I am such a loser. I gave you my ex’s phone number by mistake.”

“You sure it was a mistake?” he asked. He was looking at me again, his expression unreadable.

“Of course it was,” I said, not sure I believed myself. Maybe some part of me got married to him because of Luke’s recent and overly cold rejection. There was nothing more opposite to rejection than a marriage proposal, after all. Talk about a rebound.

“The last plane was leaving, so I had to go. I went up to your room to see what was going on, and the maid was there cleaning up. You’d already gone.”