On the nightstand next to my sister is a bottle of champagne with a warm third of the most likely flat liquid left. I grab it and take a swig, hoping to take the edge off the dull ache inmy forehead and I cringe against the sour taste. I never did like champagne much. Still, it might help so I lug it with me to the bathroom and turn on the shower.
The water is hot and comes down in bullets (thank God for high water pressure) and I close my eyes, letting the events of the last twenty-four hours wash from my skin.
The heels and the dress I would never choose for myself, obviously chosen for me by Kate.
The drinks we had before, during, and after each bachelorette party event.
The auction.
God.The auction.
Callum…
I do not fawn over men, other than maybe Hugh Jackman. It’s just not something characteristic of me. Character matters. Maturity matters.
But after seeing him up there, his stony jaw, his intense eyes, the silver glimmer in his temples from hair that’s seen things over the years, I found myself fawning. Staring. Bewitched, to be honest.
As he moved about the stage, clearly not there by his own wishes, looking like he felt the same as me about the whole charade, something in me connected with him.
Like two magnets that found each other from across the room.
Like we were hooked.
Like I knew, somehow, that I would end up meeting him.
I even wonder for a second, if subconsciously, just maybe, I raised my paddle on purpose.
I shake my head and wring out my hair.
No. It was fully an accident.
A very-characteristic-of-me oops that happened as I stumbled around trying not to make a scene while fully, publicly, making a very obvious, very expensive scene.
And then we went on a date, which, by the way, was also very fun.
And his jawline loosened a little and his eyes lightened from a dark almost gray to a steely blue and we talked. I smiled and laughed, and he allowed me a hint of a smirk here and there. If I had to guess, he doesn’t go around passing out smirks too often.
Then we drank Margaritas, and we walked, and we went to a gag-chapel–
Oh God.
The chapel.
My eyes pop open hard enough to briefly numb the headache and my cheeks flush as I remember prancing around the chapel, spouting off about how I didn’t want to get marriedbut if I didit would be someone like him.
Did we really act it out?
Me, a girl with no time or desire for marriage. And him, a no-nonsense businessman, pretended to get married at a makeshift church off the Vegas strip by a man who looked like Post Malone?
Sigh.
We did.
Who even am I?
But I think about that too. I am a hardworking, always responsible, woman who is type-A, but no one’s type and maybe, just maybe, I needed tolet looseas Kate puts it.
And with a little alcohol and enough prodding and a very stacked older gentleman making sex eyes at me from across the room, I engaged.
