Gold Digger

Kristo

“I don’t remember anything about last night,” she sighed, flashing me a playful smile. Any other time, I might have taken that as an invitation to slide beneath the covers with her and see if we could spark any memories, but I didn’t have time for that. I lifted my hand in front of her, spreading my fingers, and showed her the ring.

“You know anything about this?” I asked, and her eyes widened.

“You didn’t tell me you were married,” she protested, and I reached down to pick up her hand and show her she had the exact same one on. Her face dropped.

“What the fuck?” she asked again, but this time there was a little more panic in her voice. That was more like it.

“You don’t remember anything?” I pressed her, and she shook her head once more.

“Just, like, fuzzy memories,” she frowned. “I remember leaving the party with you and that was it…”

She lay for a moment, looking like a movie star surrounded by the luxurious pillows and the comforter, as though she’d been dropped into a cloud. But the freaked-out look on her face was at odds with that.

“Wait a second.” She looked at my ring, then back at hers, and then back at my ring again, and it seemed to sink in. She gasped, clamped her hand over her mouth, and leaped out of bed.

“What the fuck?” She shrieked at the top of her lungs. I was sure the staff were going to come running to see what the hell was going on, but I was soon distracted by the sight of her body, naked and soft in the morning light. She looked down at herself and dove back beneath the covers, pulling them over herself and tucking them in as she glowered at me.

“Did we?” she demanded, as though this was somehow my fault.

“I don’t remember,” I admitted. I gestured to the bottles strewn around the room. “We had enough to drink, that’s for sure.”

“I would never do something like this.” She shook her head, confident for a woman with a wedding ring on her finger. “That’s crazy. I couldn’t—”

“If you’ve got a better explanation as to why both of us are wearing rings right now, hit me with it,” I urged her. I really, really hoped one of us was going to have a bolt from the blue where we realized we had gotten these as a gag the night before, but the way her eyes were searching mine, I could tell it wasn’t coming from her end.

“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” I growled, furious. This was a fucking nightmare. What the hell had I been thinking, picking up some chick at a party and then … and then …

“We’re married?” she murmured, mostly to herself, the words sounding small as they came out of her mouth. They hung in the air between us, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, as though that was what would make this real. Not the contract we’d very likely signed the night before to spend our lives together.

“You have to do something about this,” she demanded as she watched me pull on my underwear and start to try and trace our steps around the room for a clue on what the hell had led us to that decision. I lifted my head and looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“And how am I meant to do that?”

“You’ve got money. You could manage something.” She gestured around the room.

“Oh, so you remember that, then?” I remarked, shooting her a hard look. She rolled her eyes.

“No, I just assumed you must be well-off if you can afford a room like this one,” she pointed out. “I didn’t do any of this for money, you know.”

“Sure,” I muttered as I continued around the room.

“I didn’t,” she protested, crossing her arms across her chest and glaring at me. I could feel her eyes burning into the back of my head as I made my way around the room, but I didn’t have time to comfort her. Right now, I needed to find a way out of the mess I’d managed to back myself into, to make this right somehow. And as I looked down at the ring on my finger and then slowly up at the woman sitting there in bed with a look of pure panic written over her face, an idea began to dawn on me.

How long had my nonna been nagging at me to settle down? I swear she knew every single girl I hooked up with, and each and every one was a disappointment to her as it meant I was another step away from getting married.

Well, now here I was, in all likelihood, with a ready-made bride lying in my bed. I slowly stood up and turned to her, looking her up and down, taking her in. She was the kind of woman my nonna would have picked out for me herself if I ever gave her the chance, thick and curvy with strong features and a mane of long, dark hair. She scanned my face and screwed up her nose in confusion.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, as I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped my foot, lost in thought.

“Just making the best of this.” I offered her the sweetest smile I could muster and lay down on the bed next to my new bride. Maybe this wasn’t as big a disaster as I’d first imagined. Maybe it wasn’t a disaster at all.