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That simple move makes my stomach feel simultaneously empty and unsettled. Slowly, surely, I’m piecing together parts of yesterday. In one chapel, I was dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Lauren was Audrey Hepburn. Tray and Amelie used Elvis lyrics for vows and…
“Argh!” Elvis.
Jax Harris. Was I flirting with Jax dressed as Elvis Presley?
The shower is turned on in the en suite, behind the closed door, and I clamp my hands over my own mouth as a deep, gritty male voice starts to sing “Suspicious Minds”.
Two things happen in tandem: I realize that I am wearing the unmistakable jade green of the New York Dragons training T-shirt and I feel, then glare at, a jelly ring on the fourth finger of my left hand.
Holding my hand before my face and staring at it in disbelief, I sob, “No, no, no, no, no.”
Am I married? Have I slept with one of the Dragons? “What the fuck is happening?”
I toss back the covers and check my legs – I’m wearing panties, which doesn’t explain much but it’s something. There’s a lounge area and on top of the coffee table is a neat stack of my purse and the clothes and jewelry I was wearing yesterday, between the costumes we dressed up in for the ceremonies. Or the ones I remember, at least – Caribbean, Disney, 1950s stars, minion? Was I dressed as a minion at some point? My stiletto heels are set neatly as a pair on the rug and I’m struck by another memory of me taking them off and being piggybacked by a hockey player with deliciously broad shoulders and huge hands.
Jax.
Surely. To. God. I have not spent the night with one of hockey’s most notorious playboys.
I kick back my foot and see an angry blister on my heel. Okay, so a guy helped out a damsel in distress.
Correction: my client helped me out.
Did I? Oh God, I think I told him about Carl screwing the secretary. And my visa! Did I cryyyyyy?
I hear movement in the shower, like whoever is in there is washing as they sing. Grabbing my things, I take my room key from my purse and make a run of shame, casting one last glance around the suite for a sign of who I might have slept in the same bed as, screwed, or married last night, desperately searching – no, praying for evidence it wasn’t Jax.
What I do know is, the size and price of this suite and the Dragons shirt on my back means I probably banged a Dragon last night.
* * *
What I see in my vanity mirror before I head downstairs for breakfast is not pretty. Not all the peptides and shimmer in the world could disguise how hungover I look. But at least I’ve showered, and I’ve pulled my hair into such a tight scrape that I’ve given myself a free facelift. I say free but the price is in fact worsening my headache, for which I pop two Advil.
The dining room is noisy but nothing is going to stop me following the smell of fresh baked cinnamon rolls.
“Sienna, over here, babe.”
I don’t have to look hard to locate the source of those words. Lauren is the brightest of a very dull bunch of people who had an incredible day yesterday. Tray and Amelie are looking loved up, while at the same time as if they might vomit in each other’s breakfast. Mitch has his head down on the table between his hands. TJ and some of the other guys have a grey pallor but they’re working down stacks of pancakes with bacon and syrup that are bigger than Mount Charlotte.
Lauren, though, honestly looks reasonable as she beckons me over.
And it hits me… They probably all know whatever it was that I got up to last night.
I give her the universal gesture for coffee and point to the buffet cart. I need to buy myself some detective time.
As I plate up three cinnamon rolls, I scour the table, mentally checking off each person I went out with yesterday and piecing together who is missing.
I’m increasingly nervous as I narrow it down to three people, all Dragons players. So nervous I go to bite the jelly ring off my wedding finger that I have drunkenly left on until now.
“Hold up, wifey, don’t eat that until I’ve replaced it with a real one.”
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
Jaw slack, I turn to face… Jax. All three cinnamon rolls slide off my plate and hit the restaurant floor with a plop, plop, plop.
“Hey now, I might be rich but we don’t want to make a habit of wasting good food,” he tells me, taking my plate and tossing the rolls onto it. He comes to stand, where I am open-mouthed and still, like I’ve been cast in bronze. As he rises to full height, so close to me I am consumed by the same scent he wore yesterday and staring up to a masculine jaw, he says, “I want our kids to grow up understanding the value of freshly baked carbs.”
“Tell me you’re joking right now,” I manage, snatching my plate back from him.
