10. Dart Jover
Dart Jover
Josephine
Married. Some idiot claiming time travel.
Married.
“THE BALL!”
I nearly choke as the words come out of my mouth, and Blaze cocks his head. “Guess it’s my turn to ask if you’re alright?”
I force a stoic smile and push the armload of clothes into his big hands. “I am fine.”
I turn to leave, but Blaze tosses the clothes on the edge of the washbasin and grabs my arm, turning me to face him.
“Listen, I uh. This is just weird and I’m pretty sure I’m still in shock, but I want to thank you for what you’re doing for me.”
“Me?” If disbelief materialized into a rope, he could have strangled me with it. I sputter in a nervous laugh and try to bring my volume to some level of dignity and say, “I should be thanking you.”
I really should thank him. I pause, offer him a weak smile, and imagine this is all just a horrible dream.
“Thank you. Grandmother can be diabolical. I am certain this situation just satisfied so many of her dreams, which is as terrifying as it is infuriating. If this hadn’t ended in…
well, death or marriage, she would have ruined my reputation by her loose tongue alone.
” I wince at the thought that she still could.
At her ornery age, I am well aware of how she enjoys telling a good, impolite story once the port hits.
“Seems harsh.” Blaze scratches his copper head and shrugs.
“Anyway. No big deal. I should be thanking my lucky sock that I am not spending my first night in 18–well whatever year it is in that creepy park. This is…18 when?” He looks at me with wide eyes, and I realize he has no clue what year it even is.
He must’ve knocked his head pretty hard at some point today.
And I laugh.
He laughs.
We laugh together over the absolute absurdity.
“It is 1813.” I decide to fill him in after a moment, just in case he truly can’t remember the important details. “King George the Third sits on the throne, and nobody goes by the name Blaze. I question your mother’s mental state when she named you. It’s used to reference hell, you know.”
Blaze chuckles now, nodding fast. “She’s used to such scrutiny after the mushroom debacle of 1989.”
Mushrooms. Crabs. Johnson. He has the strangest way of changing topics mid-discussion.
At the very least, I absolutely believe that he is not from England.
Shaking my head, utterly confused by what mushrooms have to do with her mental state, let alone his atrocious name, I decide staying on track is best.
“In any case…” I avert my gaze, wondering how to tell him he needs to change his name without being completely rude.
“Your mother’s greatest debacle surely isn’t mushrooms—whatever that means.
It’s your name.” Better out with it. This is how I made a fool of myself as a debutante.
While the other young ladies conversed with some level of social grace, I panicked and said the first thing that came to mind.
At least this is better than the time I told Viscount Edwardson that his sparse beard reminded me of a combless rooster.
Blaze blinks slowly, lets out a controlled sigh, and then shrugs. “This coming from the woman who has a sister named after a state in a country you’re at war with…”
He has a point, but as excellent as he is at witty comebacks, I know if this man wants to survive long enough to travel back to whatever time he is from, he simply cannot do it as Blaze. “Who was your childhood hero?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Mom got really high once and illustrated this comic book about what would happen if Darth Vader and Joe Dirt conquered the world as gay lovers and had a baby.”
I imagine a woman resembling Blaze sitting at the highest mountaintop she can possibly find with an ink quill as he rattles on.
“She said their baby would be named Dart Jover.”
My concern for our ruse rapidly increases with his speed of speaking.
“Dart Jover would live off Twizzlers dipped in ranch dressing and would dissolve political tension across the world. She said he was like the messiah if nobody had to be sacrificed and the whole ‘lake of fire’ thing was eradicated. Dart Jover was my hero. Mostly ‘cause he didn’t have to go to school, which I would’ve loved for a lot of reasons, the first being to avoid the daily dumpster fire. ”
I have so many questions. Who are Darth Vader and Joe Dirt? I want to know what Twizzlers and ranch are. But all I can manage is: “Daily dumpster fire?”
Blaze chuckles. “Oh, yeah, ya know, Blaze tossed in a garbage can…” he trails off with that same massive cringe I’ve come to recognize as discomfort all over his face. “Right, right, way after your time. Anyway, my middle name is Lynyrd, if it helps any.”
“Yes,” I sigh. “Lenard is more palatable.” I feel itchy.
“No, no.” Blaze waves his hands in protest, clearly passionate about the topic.
“Lynyrd like the band.” He suddenly belts out a song about Alabama, and my entire body is tingling with the realization that our world appears to go to complete and utter shit.
He finishes, and before I leave, I look over my shoulder to where he’s awkwardly fidgeting with his change of clothes.
“We are in agreement, right?”
“‘Bout what?”
“Well, that this is a marriage on paper only. Eventually we will…” I consider suggesting a boat ticket, but decide it is better to play along with his delusion.
“Ahem, we will send you back to your time…and I will stay here and probably explain your disappearance with a tragic accident. I’ll no doubt enjoy spending my father’s money on a tremendously lovely funeral in your honor.
Oh, and whatever that atrocious, guttural sound you made while fighting my father?
You must promise to never do that again. ”
“Oh.” Blaze appears to perk up at my suggestion, laughing with an embarrassed cringe at the latter.
“Only if you promise an instrumental version of Never Gonna Give You Up will be played as they lower my coffin into the dirt. I can’t wait to visit my own grave when I get back—I wonder if it will still be there…
This whole situation feels like I’ve been Rickrolled.
” He glances at the door and calls out, “Ashton! You can come out now!”
Overwhelmed and confused by things I’ll likely never understand, I nod in agreement and leave the room, trying not to laugh as the usually deep voice belts into song, which through the closed door echoes at a surprisingly high octave a tune I have never heard before.
“Hmmm,” I whisper as I take the stairs two at a time. “It has a nice beat to it…”