Charlotte: &*$#%^

Charlotte: TELL ME YOU ARE KIDDING.

Charlotte: Tell me that’s one of your patented Natalie-is-pulling-my-leg-jokes???

Natalie: Don’t yell at me! It makes my head hurt!

Charlotte: I will damn well yell at you for something like this! And why didn’t you tell me sooner?

Natalie: I was trying to, but then we got to the sex questions. Anyway, relax. I panicked a little when I woke up, but after the caffeine and aspirin helped me recover some of my lost brain cells, I already have a plan to fix this.

Charlotte: I can’t believe you married him. I know you’re hot for him. But are you fucking insane????

Natalie: We were just really drunk.

Charlotte: Well, unmarry him. Like, now.

Natalie: I will. Obviously.

Charlotte: How did it happen?

Natalie: The officiant said “I now pronounce you hound dog and wife.” Or something like that.

Charlotte: Not the actual ceremony. I KNOW how vows go down. I meant EVERYTHING LEADING UP TO IT.

Natalie: We were on the gondola. Someone else proposed. We decided to do it, too. It seemed like a brilliant, fun, amazing idea at the time, like all ideas do when you’ve had a half-dozen drinks. So we got married. Then we had more sex. In the limo. Behind a slot machine. But before then it was on a pinball machine. And kinda on a rollercoaster, too.

Charlotte: Fine, you get a medal for Outstanding Achievement in Public Sex. And I get that it was the best sex of your life, but you can’t let it fry your brain, hon. I mean, date him maybe, Nat. But don’t marry him.

Natalie: Don’t worry. We won’t be married much longer. And we won’t be dating, either.

Charlotte: Why??? Forget everything I said above about it being a bad idea. You said he’s good to you. Why not date?

Natalie: Shoot. He’s waking up. I’ll tell you when I get back to New York.

Charlotte: Dying here waiting . . .

15

The big orb in the sky blares angrily through the window, shooting bright bolts of light that assault my eyes. I squeeze my lids, rubbing them, trying to will away the relentless sunshine attack.

But my head . . .

When did my head start doing an impression of a cannonball? Wait. No, it feels more like a construction zone, and an army of small angry men are jackhammering inside my skull. I groan and fling an arm over my eyes.

A small voice speaks softly. “Hey, time to get up.”

I wince, not from the voice, but from reality. Reality sucks. My mouth is sawdust. My veins slog with mud. My head weighs fifty tons.

Hangovers are fun, said no one ever.

“Sleeping beauty,” the voice whispers, accompanied by a gentle shake on my shoulder.

I scoot up in bed, drag a hand through my messy hair, then cover my mouth as I yawn and . . . What the fuck is this on my left hand???

I sit bolt upright, cannonball-brain be damned.

I lift my hand as if it’s been sewn on by extraterrestrials in my sleep. Because there’s a motherfucking gold band on my finger.

Yup. Aliens. UFOs. Martians. That’s the only reasonable explanation. Little green men visited me last night and shoved a wedding ring on my finger.

I turn my head slightly and see a blonde in my bed. She must be the owner of the soft voice. Or maybe she’s an angel. Looks like one. The sun shines brightly, and I squint, but I can see she’s smiling, a little wistfully. Damn, she’s pretty, and her eyes are the warmest shade of blue I’ve ever seen. I cover my mouth because my breath must be dumpster levels now, and infecting a lovely like her with morning mouth is a crime.

I blink.

Holy shit.

That’s my assistant in my bed, dressed in a gray tank top and jeans, with her wet hair twisted in a bun on top of her head.

And I’m dressed like I’m about to go skinny-dipping.

I scratch my head. Maybe I called her last night. Begged her to come rescue me from whatever shenanigans I’d gotten myself into with whoever is wearing the other half of this pair of rings. Man, I’ve no clue who I married last night, or when Natalie, ever efficient and super organized, arrived to save my ass. Maybe I’m still drunk.

Note to self: Exhibit a bit more decorum with employees in the future.

“Need to brush my teeth,” I say, and scramble out of bed.

Scramble may be an exaggeration. More like drag my sorry, hungover ass out of bed. Oh. Right. Naked ass, too. I really need to work on decorum, stat.

But nature calls. In the bathroom, I take an epic piss that lasts so long I might need to call Guinness and enter it in Longest Whizzes Ever. While I’m at it, I’d like to campaign to change the phrase take a piss to leave a piss because no one actually takes pee.

I flush, wash my hands, and brush the morning-after stink-breath from my mouth.

Better. I’m semi-human now.

Nah, that’s too generous. More like one-quarter human. I run the faucet, splash cold water on my face and into my eyes, and stare in the mirror. Then at my ring. Then back in the mirror.

“What the fuck did you do last night, Hammer?” I mutter.

Natalie’s eyes flash back at me in the reflection. I spin around and wince, groaning as the drilling in my head resumes.

She holds a cup of coffee in one hand and points to the marble counter with the other. “There’s aspirin. I set some out for you when I got up and had mine. Looks like you need it.”

I grab the two white pills, toss them on my tongue, and send them down the hatch, on a mercy mission to take away the pain. She thrusts the coffee at me. “Since you’re a coffee whore,” she says with a knowing little wink.