Jock Royal

by Ney, Sara

  “What the bloody hell is that?”

  “What the bloody hell is what?”

  “That.”

  He points rudely, and I follow. On the fourth finger of my left hand sits a diamond ring so big my eyes actually bug out of my skull, and I imagine I look like a cartoon caricature from an old Warner Brothers movie gaping down at it.

  I thrust my hand in his direction. “Ashley, what is this?”

  Does it sound like I’m having a slight panic attack? Because I am. I shake my head, but the ring doesn’t budge.

  He’s wearing a ring and I’m wearing a ring.

  We’re in Las Vegas.

  “It looks like a bloody wedding band—engagement band—I don’t fucking know. Why are we both wearing rings?”

  He sounds far less horrified than I do, but then again, he’s probably still half out of it having just been woken out of a deep, hungover sleep.

  “Are we still drunk?” Ashley wonders out loud. “Is it still last night?”

  Last night.

  So many things happened last night.

  We began the day off at the pool as we’d planned—after a few rounds of morning sex—lounging around with poolside service and plenty of alcohol under the hot beating-down sun.

  Held hands as we lay napping. Kissing. More napping, more alcohol, more food.

  There were dinner plans in the mix somewhere—a quick meal at the hotel’s newest restaurant—then to the theater for their critically acclaimed aquatics show. We had priority seating, which came complete with a server and—free booze.

  I don’t recall having that much.

  Stumbling, laughing.

  Kissing in the lobby against a slot machine. Ashley stuck a quarter in but didn’t end up winning anything. Kissing at the casino bar where we promised ourselves one more drink only.

  One more and then we’d go back to the room and to bed.

  Well. Go back to the room and have sex.

  But then we passed the wedding chapel on the second level en route.

  Visions of that chapel flash in my mind: two French doors flanked by large floral arrangements. A side office with a young woman inside who greeted us when we stuck our heads in to ask questions.

  Beth.

  No, Gretchen.

  No, Meredith…

  Doesn’t matter. She was perky and upbeat and way too good at her job, and before we knew it, Ashley and I were caught up in the excitement, too.

  What two drunk young adults who just spent the day cuddling and kissing and drinking and being pampered wouldn’t be?

  I cover my mouth as realization sets in with a tiny gasp.

  “Oh my god, Ashley. We didn’t.”

  We can’t have.

  But the memories begin flooding me like a tidal wave of cliches, plowing me into the sand, and facts cannot be ignored.

  I take you, Ashley, to be my husband, yup I sure do…oh my gosh, isn’t he dreamy?

  Drinks at dinner, drinks with dessert. Drinks at the show, drinks at the casino. Drinks, drinks, drinks when I hardly ever drink at all.

  Never like this.

  “We’re not married,” he says firmly, shaking his head. “This can’t be legal. I’m not from America.”

  Ha! I don’t think that matters. They issued us a marriage license and took our information and…

  “Really? Not married? Then why are we wearing rings? Don’t you remember anything that happened?”

  Because I’m starting to.

  “I knew it was you the second I laid eyes on you, Georgia Parker.”

  “I think I love you, Ashley Dryden whatever all your names are, and I don’t think it’s because I’m drunk.” I looked over at Meredith. “I’m not that drunk.”

  “You’re pretty drunk,” she said ruefully.

  “I have two middle names too, you know,” Ashley told me, hand on the small of my back—it’s my new favorite place to be touched by him.

  “What are they? What are your names?”

  “Ashley Arthur Calum Dryden-Jones.”

  “That is so fucking sexy.” Hiccup. “I love you.”

  “You love me? I love you.”

  “You do?”

  We began kissing until someone cleared his throat—the clergyman at the front of the small chapel. “I don’t mean to break up the fun, but we do have a line of people waiting and a schedule to keep.”

  The rings came from the adjacent jewelry store that carried every kind of gem, stone, band, and color you can imagine. How convenient.

  The store wasn’t at all what I would have expected—nothing like the dinky wedding chapel jewelry stores you see on television where the only thing they have available for purchase amounts to a tin-foil wedding band.

  Nope.

  This was an actual jewelry store.

  “Pick anything you want, Lady Dryden-Jones,” Ashley told me with a flourish toward one of the cases.

  “Lady?” I giggled. “You sound so proper.”

  “I am proper—and I’ll have a title, and that makes you a lady.” He hiccupped. “Pick any ring you want.”

  Any ring? La-di-da, weren’t we fancy!

  I gazed into the glass. “Why don’t we play a game—you pick out my ring and I’ll pick out yours so it’s romantic.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You and your games.”

  It didn’t take me long to choose Ashley’s band; I went with a black titanium ring I didn’t know was titanium at the time. I was too drunk to care, and picking rings was fun! I only knew black suited him.

  “Do you take me to be your husband?” He walked over and slid a gold band on my finger, a pear-shaped diamond resting on top.

  “Ashley! This is huge!”

  “No wife of mine is going to wear just a plain band—those are for pussies.”

  Hiccup.

  “’Sides,” he slurred. “I can afford it.”

  He could afford it? He could afford a forty-thousand-dollar ring?

  I was too drunk to ask questions and giddy at the sight of a giant rock on my finger. I’d never worn jewelry and this seemed like an ostentatious way to start, but drunk people make horrible decisions when they don’t take anything seriously…

  “We can’t be married. Oh my god, we did not get married.”

  “I would normally agree with you, but…” He holds up his hand then reaches for my arm to hold up mine.

  “What do we do?”

  Ashley—my husband—tries to sit up in bed but gets dizzy and lies back down.

  “First thing we should do is sup. I need something to soak up this alcohol. Chocolate milk, maybe.” He groans. “Then…I don’t know, just don’t panic. It’s not a big deal.”

  Not a big deal. Not a big deal?!

  Is he insane?

  “Ashley, the cost of this ring alone could feed a third world country—or pay for four years of my college education. Or…or…I don’t know, but what’s it doing on my finger! Did we rob a bank? How can you say this is not a big deal?”

  He puts a hand over his forehead. “I just meant—we’ll figure it out. There’s a solution to everything. Let’s just…” His other hand makes a ‘Keep it down’ motion, and I take a slow, measured breath to calm myself—the way I do after a track meet when I need to lower my heart rate.

  Typically I walk around the track, but in this room, there’s nowhere to go.

  “The good news is, we did it together, so it’s not a fuckup you have to go at alone.”

  Why doesn’t he sound freaked out?

  It’s almost like…

  He isn’t upset.

  Does he not care?

  He’s married—to me.

  We’re twenty-two and we’re married and we’re in college, why isn’t he FREAKING OUT ABOUT IT.

  How is he so calm? Just lying there with an arm slung over his eyes to block out the sun streaming through the giant, panoramic windows.

  “Were you even that drunk last night?”

  I eye him accusingly, a
ll calm, cool, and collected on his side of the bed.

  He moves his arm to stare over at me. “There are a million ways to commit to you, Georgie. I think getting you pissed and married is a bit extreme, eh?”

  “Commit to me?”

  “Date you.” He covers his face and mumbles, “Whatever.”

  Suddenly, his phone begins buzzing on the nightstand, the vibration so intense the cell starts a merry hop across its surface.

  Ashley grapples for it. “Shite. It’s my dad. He almost never calls.” His finger hits the green button to accept it. “Hello, Dad.”

  The greeting is followed by a long silence.

  “Um. Yes, I’m in Las Vegas. Still working through the details of the transaction.” Pause. “I don’t know, my trust fund maybe? It’s mine to do with what I wish.” Pause. “Yes, Dad, I realize that. No, I’m not being purposefully obtuse.” More silence. “Why did you tell Mum about it before you talked to me? There’s no need for her to be hysterical.” Long pause. “No, I’m not being purposefully obstinate.”

  Ashley glances over at me.

  “I’ll sort it out and call you back.” Pause. “Yes, I promise, and no, I’ve not done anything illegal.” He rolls his eyes at that. “No, I am not being blackmailed.”

  He rolls his eyes at that, too.

  “Yes, Dad.” There’s another long stretch of silence. “I’ll try, maybe once this semester is over.” Pause. “Okay.” He nods. “Yes.” Another nod. “Give my love to Mum.”

  The call ends, and he sits on the bed next to me with the cell in his hand before tossing it on the bed covers and flopping back onto the mattress.

  “Well…my parents saw the bank notification for the rings. Not going to be able to hide it from them.”

  I bury my face in the pillows to wallow. “Oh my god. They are going to hate me!”

  “They’re not going to hate you. This isn’t your fault.”

  “I’m the American girl who married you and ruined your life!”

  Beside me, I hear his deep chuckle as his hand goes to my back. “First of all, you didn’t ruin anyone’s life—I was there too, remember.” He laughs again. “Actually, neither of us remember.”

  I peek at him. “What’s the second thing?”

  “We should order food. No good can come from discussing this if we’re hungover and hungry.” He reaches for the hotel phone, punching the room service button and waiting. “Hi, we’d like to order breakfast.” He nods at me, whispering, “Do you just want the same thing you had yesterday or were you craving something different…Mrs. Dryden-Jones.”

  “Oh my god, do not call me that.” My nervous laughter is loud. I’m surprised he has the energy to make jokes—at least my parents will never find out. They don’t have access to my piddly bank account, and if they did it wouldn’t matter because it’s practically empty. “Order me whatever you want.”

  I hide under the covers, embarrassed.

  “We can’t have sex without a condom—just because you’re Mr. Parker doesn’t mean I can’t get pregnant.”

  I hide deeper.

  “I’d be your Mr. Parker if you wanted me to.”

  “Really?”

  “No. Technically I don’t think I could. I’m the heir to a title…”

  Heir to a title, heir to a title…

  “Ashley?” I say his name the second he’s off the phone.

  “Hmm?”

  “What did you mean last night when you said you’re heir to a title?”

  He shifts on the bed, back resting against the headboard. Shrugs. “My father is a baron—it’s not as posh or grand as an earldom, but it’s a title I’ll inherit when he passes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It just means he’s a peer among the aristocracy and so will I be, and so will my wife.”

  Um. He needs to speak English. “Okay.” I’ll definitely be googling peer and aristocracy later when I’m alone. From the bathroom on my phone most likely, ha ha.

  Ashley sneaks a peek at me. “How would you feel about that?”

  How would I feel about that? He’s asking as if we’re going to stay married and will have a life together away from here.

  “There’s nothing to discuss. We can’t stay married.”

  My head is still reeling—from the alcohol and the wedding rings and the news that Ashley is some British nobleman’s son.

  “Why can’t we?”

  Is he insane? Seriously, has he gone and lost his mind overnight?

  I glare at him. “We are in our twenties. And we are not in—”

  In love.

  But we said it to one another over and over last night. Me to him and him to me.

  “I love you, Georgia.”

  “You love me? I love you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  Jesus, what a mess. What if I told him I love him and I don’t? I hadn’t considered it before—that I could fall in love with him—because we were only just roommates. There was nothing romantic about our situation.

  There was never a chance we were going to date or be in a relationship.

  And now we’re married?

  What weird, alternate universe are we living in where Ashley Jones, the future English Baron Von Waffle House Whatever wants to stay married to me? A simple girl from small town USA?

  He’s still drunk.

  “I love you.”

  “You love me? I love you.”

  People say a lot of things when they’re three sheets to the wind, and apparently last night, we said them all. Did it all. Drank until we walked ourselves into a walk-up wedding chapel, stood before the chaplain, and said a few vows I’m almost positive we wrote ourselves while we waited in the pews for our turn.

  “Georgia, stop thinking about it. We’ll figure it out.”

  Such a sweet boy.

  So handsome and good.

  It would be impossible not to fall in love with him.

  Maybe I am falling for him.

  Maybe I already have.

  I scoot toward him so I can rest my head in his lap; he begins stroking my hair with the hand bearing the ring. When I move my head so I can look up at him, he’s staring down at that hand. At the ring.

  At me.

  He lowers his head so he can kiss me; for two people who just caused a giant headache for themselves, we’re acting as if we haven’t a care in the world.

  We kiss until room service comes.

  Ashley kisses me again, feeding me fruit off the plate. Feeding me eggs from a fork. Buttering a warm croissant and breaking off small pieces before setting them on my tongue. Scooping a bit of whipped cream off the top of the pancakes then sucking it off of my tongue.

  We have sex sitting up, me on top, making out while I ride him. Staring into each other’s eyes, wedding bands still circling our fingers.

  I won’t deny that seeing them on our hands is somewhat…intoxicating.

  Sexy.

  We have to figure this mess out before I get entirely too used to it.

  Twenty-Three

  Ashley

  “Are you wearing a ring?”

  Conner O’Reilly is staring me down on the practice field, the rugby ball gripped between his giant, mammoth-like paws.

  One quick glance down at my hand reveals I forgot to take off my wedding band—Georgia would kill me if she found out, doubly so if she found out someone noticed.

  We agreed we weren’t going to wear them, at least not in public. Well, she decided we weren’t going to wear them anywhere at all, period. She’s still on the annulment kick whereas I want to take the time to think it through because there are consequences to the actions from our Las Vegas vacation turned drunk impromptu wedding.

  “So?”

  “Is that a wedding ring?” Conner wants to know, now jogging beside me as we run laps around the small field we use to run plays on.

  “No, dipshit, it’s a chastity ring.”

  He laughs as we�
��re joined by a few other teammates, who fall into line behind and around us for their warm-up run.

  “Why would you be wearing a chastity ring?” Stewart appears from the left, already huffing and puffing as if we’ve gone forty miles.

  He hasn’t even made one lap.

  “Did you mean purity ring?” someone else cuts in, also breathing a little too heavily for the short amount of running we’ve done.

  “Yes exactly,” I agree. “Big thing back home, everyone wears one.”

  “That’s cool,” Conner allows. “Maybe I should get one since I’m not boning anyone right now. It would probably be a babe magnet—everyone wants what they can’t have.”

  “No one wants you.”

  “That’s my point. They’ll sense my desperation.” He laughs. “Maybe if I made myself unavailable, the babes would be lining up at my door. Like reverse psychics.”

  “It’s reverse psychology, you moron.”

  We run on.

  “No amount of wearing a purity ring is going to make anyone come to your yard,” Andy says, coming up from the rear and passing us both to take the lead. He was a long-distance runner in high school and can out-stamina us all on the field.

  He passes by, leaving us to bicker.

  “So what does this purity ring entail? Where do I get one?”

  I shrug and jog. “Dunno, my mum sent it,” I lie, not feeling the least bit guilty.

  They would roast the shite out of me if I told the truth, told them the ring is in fact a wedding band, that I got hitched in Vegas—the vacation I hid from everyone so they wouldn’t show up and ruin my fun.

  In hindsight, if I hadn’t done that, I probably wouldn’t be married.

  Not a single one of these blokes would have allowed it, and I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  On the other hand, for some perverse reason, I’m not entirely keen to put an end to it, either—and there’s my rub. I’ve never even had a girlfriend before and now I have a wife and I want to keep her?

  That’s so fucked up beyond any measurable reasoning, and yet I can’t describe why I’m not ready to let go yet.

  It would be so simple to get the annulment and then court Georgia properly. Do it the way they do it in the States: take her to the movies, take her to a football game, take her to dinner. Buy her gifts on Valentine’s Day—shite like that.