So at least there’s that.
14
Considering the amount I had to drink last night, today’s hangover is milder than I expected it to be. It still sucks, don’t get me wrong, but after drinking countless cocktails, working our way through the room service desserts, and singing along to the songs inMoulin Rougewhile we watched it on the TV in our room, to be honest, I thought I’d have a stomach ache and a sore throat to go along with my headache. Just the headache feels like I got off lightly.
I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Watching movies with JJ, eating, slagging off love and then crying like babies at the end of the movie, perving over a younger Ewan McGregor, agreeing Nicole Kidman is our girl-crush, and eating at least four different desserts – exactly what I needed. It doesn’t solve my problems, sure, but it did give me a night where I could forget about them.
But now it’s morning.
It’s the feeling, like I’m on a boat, that makes me feel like I was counting my chickens when I said my stomach was fine, because boy do I feel sick all of a sudden. Then I realise I am moving. It’s JJ, she’s shaking me, trying to wake me up.
‘I’m awake, I’m awake,’ I insist. ‘My God, please, stop shaking me – unless you want to see that crème brûlée again.’
I open my eyes, grateful that the curtains are still closed so there’s no harsh sunlight to make me hiss, but then JJ holds her phone screen up in front of my face – brightness on full – to show me something. It instantly renders me temporarily sightless.
‘What? What is it?’ I ask.
‘You have to see this,’ she replies.
‘Then turn your brightness down,’ I reply, rubbing my eyes to try to get them to work. ‘What time is it?’
‘Time to explain to me why the entire internet thinks you’re engaged,’ she practically squeaks.
My eyes have no trouble snapping open now.
‘What?’ is all I can say – I think it does the job, though.
‘You’re engaged,’ she tells me.
‘I’d know if I were engaged,’ I reply. ‘To who?’
‘To the sexy cowboy you told me about last night,’ she replies.
‘Did I tell you I was engaged to him last night?’ I check, because I did have a lot to drink.
‘No, which is why I’m gagged to find out with the rest of the internet,’ she says.
I sit up straight – straighter than I’ve ever sat in my life, never mind in bed first thing in a morning.
She holds her phone up again, hitting play on a video, and the pieces start clicking into place.
At first it just looks like videos of the grounds here but then I see myself, soaking wet, the cowboy carrying me in his arms, getting down on one knee, seemingly putting a ring on my finger (although I know he was taking it off), me leaping into his arms (although I know that I fell) and then him taking me back to the hotel on his horse. It looks like the most romantic fucking proposal I’ve ever seen. Except that’s not what it was.
‘So, first of all, you said he was hot, but he’s so much hotter,’ JJ points out.
I smile, seeing him again. The cowboy hat, the plaid shirt, the broad shoulders. That ridiculously handsome face. With that epic jawline and dreamy accent, honestly, he’s like they guy they cast to play a cowboy in a porno, not a real one. Willy the Kid. Butch Ass-idy. Wang-o. (Best I can do on short notice, when I’ve got other things on my mind.)
There are cheers, applause, somebody yelling ‘SAY YES!’ – which I did not hear at the time, but I had a lot of fountain water in my ears. JJ whizzes it back again, pausing it on the money shot, the bit where he’s holding me in his arms. I’m gazing back at him like I fell in love right there and then. A near-death experience and a sexy cowboy will do that to a girl.
‘I—’ I stop myself. ‘That is not?—’
‘Obviously I can piece together what actually happened because you told me last night,’ JJ says. ‘But that’s not what everyone else thinks. And you’ve gone viral.’
I take the phone from her and look at the caption.
When you accidentally film a cowboy proposing to the one he loves #ProposalGoals #CowboyRomance #RosewoodLoveStory
And then I dare to look at the comments…
