Chapter 4
four
CALLA
My first semi-conscious thought is that my head feels like a pinata, post-party. Shifting in place, I groan. I’m not in my warm, soft bed. I’m lying on something way too hard.
I am tempted to just roll over and try to go back to sleep. But something flashes brightly, very close to my face. Even though my eyes are clenched shut, the after effects of the flash mark an agonizingly bright square in the darkness.
I open my eyes a slit to try to understand what could be flashing.
Whatever it is, it needs to stop. Right. Now.
I’m halfway blinded by another flash. “Oh, I think she’s awake,” giggles a feminine voice.
My vision begins to clear enough for me to make out two figures a few feet away. There’s a white picket fence between us, which is pretty confusing. Did I fall asleep in a yard somehow? The taller of the two figures, this one vaguely male in shape, leans in for a better look.
“We’d better jet. She doesn’t look happy.”
As I push myself up, the two scuttle away. Only I’m too overwhelmed by nausea to notice. My head pounds. The taste in my mouth is distinctly fermented tequila, which makes me doubly nauseous.
Unpleasantly, I become aware of several very important facts all at once.
One, the place I’ve been napping? It’s the Greater town square gazebo.
Two, it’s freezing cold outside. I’m shivering and shaking, my teeth chattering.
Three, I’m very much not alone.
Jay lies next to me, his dark hair a disheveled mess, his chiseled features softened by sleep. We’re wrapped in a single blanket. A terrifying thought strikes me. I peek underneath the fabric, catching an eyeful of velvety skin, a dusting of body hair, and abs.
That’s when I make the final discovery.
Me and Jay?
We’re naked.
Together.
Oh.
My.
GOD.
My kneejerk reaction is to sit up straight and snatch the thick wool blanket to my chest. The entire world tilts. For a second, I’m lost.
But in the back of my mind, I’m already asking the pertinent questions. Like, how the hell did we get here? The last thing I remember is a round of tequila shots at Tin Shed Pub.
Or was it two rounds?
“Calla?” Jay’s voice is a gravelly whisper. He rubs his eyes and squints at me. “What the hell?”
“I have no idea.” My voice sounds squeaky with panic. I scan the square, taking in the historic brick buildings and the grassy area in the center. It’s eerily quiet for early on a Saturday morning. Too quiet.
A figure jogs toward us, and my heart stops. It’s a young woman holding a smartphone and grinning like an idiot.
“Congratulations!” she squeals. “Can I get a picture with the newlyweds?”
Jay and I exchange looks of pure confusion.
“Newlyweds?” I ask. My voice literally could not get any shriller. If I look anything like I sound, I’ve turned into an agitated squirrel, asking braindead questions.
“Uh, yeah .” The girl rolls her eyes. “You guys were so cute last night! I can’t believe you’re still in the square. True love, right?”
She shoves her phone in our faces. The screen shows a series of photos: me in a wedding dress made of toilet paper, Jay in his rumpled tuxedo. We appear to be dancing on top of the bar at Tin Shed Pub. Then Mr. Lim, the owner of our beloved local coffee shop, is holding a bible. The next photo shows us deeply, passionately kissing.
As in, it looks like we are trying to wrestle each other or possibly climb inside of each other’s clothes.
The blush that comes to my cheeks is bright maroon, I’m sure.
The video after that shows us singing karaoke, belting out Savage Garden’s “Truly Madly Deeply”. Actually, singing is the wrong word. We’re butchering the damn song. Jay’s doing a falsetto, his voice cracking every few seconds, and I can’t seem to hold my shit together for long enough to stop giggling.
While our onscreen selves continue scream-singing, I scrunch up my face. “Turn it off, please,” I ask nicely.
The fan turns her phone back to face her and grins at the screen. “Dunno why you sound so bummed out,” she says. “This is beyond .”
Shaking my head, I turn back to Jay. I’m freezing and ready to get my butt inside. Before I can say anything, he mutters something I almost don’t hear.
“We got married?” Jay says, more to himself than to anyone else. He looks at his hand, and my eyes follow. A simple gold band adorns his finger. He holds it up, inspecting it like it’s a foreign object. “Damn. These were supposed to belong to me and Blake.”
I look at my own left hand. I somehow hadn’t noticed the weight of it, but a diamond the size of a small planet glares back at me. “Oh, no. Jay, this is expensive. We have to?—"
“Relax,” he says, with an air of finality. He doesn’t look relaxed, though. “We’ll figure it out.”
I start to pull the ring off, but it’s stuck. Damn . Of course it’s stuck. Nothing about this makes any sense. Why would we get married?
“Remember now?” The girl is nearly bouncing. “You said you’d only do it if it didn’t cost anything. Azi did it for free. It was the cutest thing ever.”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. Not from the hangover. Okay, maybe from the hangover. Tequila is seriously nasty stuff. But it’s the sheer absurdity of the situation that gets me.
“We were joking,” I say, exasperated. As if that will somehow undo everything. “We didn’t mean it?—”
Jay cuts me off. “Can we see those pictures again?”
The girl shrugs and hands him her phone. He scrolls through the images. I peek over his shoulder, cringing at each new revelation. There’s a horrifyingly adorable quality to them, like something out of a rom-com montage. Except this is real life, and I’m living it.
Jay lets out a low whistle. “We look pretty happy for a joke.”
I want to die. “This is going to ruin me. Jay, my bakery cannot stand a public scandal.”
“We’ll get it annulled. Seriously. No one has to know.”
I snatch the phone from him and shove it back to the girl. “Delete those.”
She pouts. “But?—”
“Please,” I say, desperation seeping into my voice. “We’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“I got most of these from your Insta, Jay. Deleting them won’t do anything.”
She has certainly got us there. While I’m making the same face as a deer caught in headlights, she starts tapping her phone screen. “One more for memories!”
Before we can protest, she makes a peace sign and pokes out her tongue. She takes a quick photo with us in the background, then beams.
“C- ute ! Listen, I left a gym bag with clothes by the gazebo. Thought you might need it. Thanks for everything, Jay!”
Jay’s phone buzzes, and he fishes it out from underneath his body. “Thanks,” he says to the girl, but he’s already distracted by the caller ID. The girl waves and jogs off, leaving us in a stunned silence.
“Hello?” Jay says into the phone. He winces, holding it a bit away from his ear. “Yeah, Mike. No, everything’s fine.”
I can hear the angry squawk of the person on the other end, though I can’t make out the words. Jay’s expression shifts from concerned to something more resigned .
“We’ll talk about it later,” he says, cutting the guy off. “I’ve got a situation here. Yeah. Sure. Thanks.”
He hangs up and looks at me. “That was one of my sponsors. He called to be sure that the honeymoon package is still going to be used. I guess I called last night to leave him a voicemail about how love stinks.”
I want to scream. “How did we even— I mean— What?—?”
Try as I might, I can’t seem to formulate the right words to voice my frustrations. Jay rubs his hand against my upper arm, soothing me. It’s funny, because it sort of works.
“Freaking out isn’t going to help. Let’s just take a breath and figure this out logically.”
“We’re not Vulcans, Jay. We’re humans who make incredibly stupid decisions when drunk, apparently.”
He runs a hand through his hair. For a moment, I swear he looks as lost as I feel. It’s strange, because every second I have known Jay, he always seemed to have a good grasp of what is going on. Now that I’m seeing him adrift from reality, it looks odd.
“Let’s get dressed. We’ll think better with clothes on,” I say gently.
We try to stand up at the same time, both clutching the blanket. Jay notices me struggling, and with a shrug, he drops his corner. He’s seemingly unbothered by his nakedness, and looks like a Greek statue come to life. He pads over to the gym bag as I sneak a glance at his physique and immediately regret it. My cheeks burn hotter than the rising sun.
It may be freezing cold outside, but Jay’s erect cock juts proudly, swinging with every step he takes. It’s glorious, massively long and thick, giving a new meaning to morning glory . I have never been both so mortified and so unable to stop staring at anything in my whole damn life.
If Jay notices my struggle, he is kind enough not to say anything. He tosses me a set of clothes from the gym bag: a men’s XXL T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. I slip them on under the blanket, grateful for the absurdly large sizes. They make me feel like a child playing dress-up, which is oddly comforting given the current nightmare.
I wrap the blanket around myself. Even bundled in the clothes, it’s still below freezing in Georgia and I’m shivering so hard I can’t think properly. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the first early morning runner.
Yeah, it’s time to get the heck out of Dodge.
Jay pulls on bright pink basketball shorts and a tie-dyed hoodie. The hoodie looks comically small on him, making me snort. He looks intently at his wrist. He pulls the cloth away from his skin, working the hoodie’s sleeve up to his elbow.
“Whoa. Fresh ink,” he says. A small calla lily is tattooed on his forearm, covered by a sheer bandage.
Oh . I get a flashback to last night. I have a vague memory of getting something painful etched into my flesh.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. I check my own wrist and nearly scream.
A tiny jay bird is perched there. Its beak is open, as if singing.
“Added bonus,” he says, though there’s no real humor in his voice. “A bird and a flower. Huh.”
I close my eyes, shaking my head. “No. A Jay bird and a Calla lily. I remember laughing really hard about that.”
Jay whistles. “We were wasted. Well, at least they’re tasteful. ”
I’m beyond words. This isn’t just a bad dream; it’s a full-blown calamity. How could we have been so… so stupid?!
“Come on,” Jay says, motioning for me to follow. “Let’s go before more people show up.”
I hesitate. “Where?”
“My place. We need to lie low until we can sort this out.”
“I think I should just go home. I live above my shop.” I point to You Butter Believe It, way at the end of the town square. I’m thinking that if anyone else sees us together like this, the gossip will spread faster than a buttercream frosting on a too-warm cupcake.
“Calla. Let’s just go to my house. I promise we’ll fix this. But we need a plan. And clothes that weren’t scrounged out of a teenaged girl’s gym bag.”
A small crowd has started to gather at the edge of the square. I recognize a few faces: bakery customers, curious townies. Whispers ripple through them.
Personally? I feel the weight of a thousand judgmental eyes.
“Let’s go,” I whisper hoarsely, my heart sinking. “Quickly.”
We make our way down the steps of the gazebo. Jay puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You know,” he says. I brace for something awful. But he shocks me with, “We could just stay married. Save ourselves the shame of getting our quickie marriage annulled so soon.”
I stop in my tracks and stare at him, waiting for the punchline. He’s grinning, but there’s a tiredness in his eyes. He might be loopy.
“Are you insane?” I say. “Or did you hit your head while we were drunk? ”
“It’d be easier than dealing with the fallout.” He shrugs, raising both hands.
I want to slap him. I want to laugh. I want to cry. Instead, I just shake my head and start walking again.
“Come on,” I mutter. “We’ll go to your house.”
The crowd parts as we cross the square. I can almost hear the rumor mill grinding to life. My mind races with thoughts of damage control, of how to explain this to my family, to the town, to myself.
One thing is clear: this is far from over.